The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) – through its Higher Education Initiative – has selected 35 projects to receive €70 million in funding to help higher education institutions (HEIs) across Europe turn research into real-world innovation, strengthen entrepreneurship education and deepen collaboration with businesses.

Awarded through the 2025 EIT Higher Education Initiative’s Call for Proposals, the funding will support 552 organisations from 49 countries, including universities, businesses, research centres and public authorities. Contributing to the EU’s Startup and Scaleup Strategy, the Union of Skills and its STEM Education Strategic Plan, the EIT has committed to training 200 000 science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students and staff in innovation, entrepreneurship and intellectual property management by 2028. For the first time, this call also strengthens cooperation between the EIT’s Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) and the European Universities alliances.

Record demand for the latest call

A record 138 consortia, representing 1 865 organisations, applied to the latest EIT Higher Education Initiative call, highlighting growing demand for innovation capacity building in higher education. Nearly half of all European Universities alliances submitted proposals, underlining their increasing focus on entrepreneurship and innovation. Since its start in 2021, the Initiative has funded and supported 622 HEIs, around 25% of Europe´s Higher Education Institutes.

Roxana Mînzatu, Executive Vice-President for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness, said: ‘Europe’s greatest innovation asset is its people. Every day, students, researchers, educators and entrepreneurs are developing ideas with the potential to create jobs, strengthen our competitiveness and improve lives in line with Europe’s political priorities. The EIT Higher Education Initiative helps turn that potential into impact by connecting talent with entrepreneurship, industry and investment. For the first time, this call also brings European Universities alliances into Europe’s largest innovation ecosystem.’

Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, added: ‘Europe’s universities generate world-class knowledge, but too many promising ideas never make it beyond the laboratory. By connecting students, researchers, entrepreneurs and businesses, we can help turn research into innovation and innovation into economic growth. Strengthening entrepreneurial skills and closer cooperation with industry will help create the next generation of European startups and scaleups.’

Selected projects

As one of the EIT KICs implementing the EIT Higher Education Initiative, EIT Urban Mobility will support 6 projects funded by the Initiative´s latest call:

• BOOST4STEM, coordinated by Rzeszów University of Technology (Poland); which will strengthen competitiveness, resilience and strategic autonomy by embedding entrepreneurship, innovation and IP management systematically within STEM HEIs.
• STEM2SCALE, coordinated by the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain), which will strengthen leadership and support structures that anchor STEM innovation in university strategies, design integrated learning journeys that blend STEM, entrepreneurship, IP literacy and design‑driven problem‑solving, and build a coherent pipeline that links students, researchers and ventures with regional partners and investors.
• S3FACTORY, coordinated by Fundacion ESADE (Spain), which will embed innovation, entrepreneurship and intellectual property management as core component of STEM education and research, transforming participating Higher Education Institutions, into engines of European competitiveness, resilience and strategic autonomy.
• SFF-DT, coordinated by the Athens University of Economics and Business (Greece), which will strengthen Europe’s STEM innovation capacity by embedding competence-based entrepreneurship, research valorisation, and venture support as lasting institutional capabilities across a cross-border consortium of HEIs and business partners.
• UNITE!CONNECT, coordinated by the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (Poland), which will transform participating universities into interconnected regional innovation hubs capable of generating, scaling and internationalising deep tech talent and ventures in domains aligned with European strategic priorities.
• C-VENTURE, coordinated by the University of Rome La Sapienza (Italy), which will act as a bridge between the CIVIS ecosystem and local actors, support Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) and reduce territorial disparities through innovation-led growth.

A full list of the selected projects, including participating organisations, countries, budgets, project summaries can be found here, while a map of the projects is available here. The new projects will start in September 2026 and run for two years with each receiving up to €2 million in funding.