Call for proposals 3 for HEI Initiative

The third Call for Proposals for the HEI Initiative (Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education) will remain open until 28 February.

This call aims to increase the innovation and entrepreneurial capacity in higher education by bringing together HEIs in innovation value chains and ecosystems across Europe.

The call will select up to 16 consortia, who will receive a maximum of EUR 750 000 with up to EUR 350 000 for Phase 1 (May−December 2023) and up to EUR 400 000 for Phase 2 (January−July 2024). This call for proposals is open to all types of stakeholders. For the first time, the call is open to both new organisations and existing partners from the Pilot Call and the second call for proposals.

The selected consortia should show how they will build innovation capacity through the integration of deep tech talent-fostering activities. They must also demonstrate how their applications align with the Deep Tech Talent Initiative and contribute to deep tech innovation.

The goal of the Deep Tech Talent Initiative is to develop and offer pan-European talent and skills development programmes to skill, re-skill and up-skill at least 1 million talents in the coming next three years (2023-2025). In this way, the Europe’s labour force is expected to be expanded in high growth companies working in deep tech fields, encompassing advanced materials and manufacturing, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, blockchain, robotics, aerospace, photonics, electronics, quantum computing, sustainable energy and cleantech. The Deep Tech Talent initiative is led by EIT under the new European Innovation Agenda adopted by the European Commission in 2022.

Consortia must submit their applications until 28 February 2023, by 17:00 CET. The selected projects will be announced in May 2023.

Networking and Matchmaking platform

For organisations that would like to apply to the initiative but are missing participants for creating a full cohort, the initiative has a Conversation Starter platform available exclusively for this Call 3. Register in the platform to meet and match with other organisations whose HEI proposal concepts are aligned.

 Registration link.

Further details and supporting documents

The HEI initiative is an activity part of the cross-KIC portfolio. The KICs participating in the HEI initiative are: EIT RawMaterials, EIT Health, EIT Urban Mobility, EIT Manufacturing, EIT Digital, EIT Food and EIT Climate-KIC.