Project description
Bridging the climate-competitiveness divide
Europe’s race to climate neutrality must not come at the cost of economic competitiveness. With this in mind, the EU-funded CKIC2025 project aims to mobilise systems innovation and entrepreneurship to drive climate action without leaving regions behind. Through targeted education, training and investment, the project supports industry, land users, SMEs and cities in building greener value chains and unlocking market potential. It also addresses Europe’s regional innovation divide by empowering low-capacity regions with cross-sectoral training and public-private collaboration. As regards inclusivity, CKIC2025 brings entrepreneurial tools to underrepresented regions and communities, helping them co-create viable, climate-positive futures that align with the EU’s bold environmental ambitions.
Objective
Striking a balance between bold action on climate and achieving economic competitiveness has long been one of the key political priorities of the European Union. Against this background, in 2025, with the financial support of EIT, Climate KIC will aim to foster sustainable economic growth and competitiveness whilst delivering on its Strategic Agenda climate ambitions. We will use two critical enablers of change:
1. Fostering and reinforcing the systems innovation and entrepreneurial capacity across the Union, through entrepreneurial education, training and coaching aligned with the EIT Label Framework. We focus our activities on industry, land users, SMEs, business alliances, innovation clusters, Entrepreneurship Support Organisations (ESOs), cities and regional institutions, policymakers, and other related organisations who can help drive positive systemic transformation in innovation ecosystems across Europe.
2. Leveraging pan-European investments in place-based and cross-sectoral innovation to tackle the regional innovation divide. Specifically, we will address cross-sectoral innovation challenges of EU significance to support European competitiveness, re-industrialisation, policy implementation, innovation valleys and transition of technology to its implementation on the market – through activating community connections (Climate KIC partners and innovation ecosystem stakeholders, EIT Community), education and training and actively building synergies between our pan-European (the EU Missions on Adaptation to Climate Change, on 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030, and on A Soil Deal for Europe) and place-based activities (Deep Demonstrations). To help tackle the regional innovation divide special focus is placed on EIT RIS countries and regions identified for enhanced levels of support, esp. countries and regions identified as having the lowest levels of innovation capacity within the European Innovation Scoreboard and / or the European Regional Innovation Scoreboard, as well as rural regions in all EIT RIS eligible countries.
The expected results of the 2025 activities are:
• Active engagement and uptake of the education and training activities by 50 business / industry enablers across Europe, such as European, national or regional trade associations, alliances, clusters, industrial or innovation partnerships, research centres, to enhance the climate-related components of their value chains and to capture the opportunities of emerging markets.
• At least 25 business and Institutional representatives from 3 (mainly eastern and southern) EU regions engaged on industry-Government dialogues for smoother implementation of legislation and learning to work together and systematically explore and generate new ideas on how to apply innovative public-private partnerships.
• At least 25 industry representatives (medium and high-level representatives from companies, Industry associations, Clusters, Regional Entrepreneurship and Innovation Agencies, together with research centres, hence contributing to Knowledge Triangle Integration) engaged in 3 regional training sessions (in RIS regions) on how to develop clean industry scenarios for cross-sector value chains, thinking beyond boundaries and imagining the transition to meet their competitiveness and climate ambitions, exploring possible scenarios of transformation pathways and sharing exemplary solutions.
• Active engagement and uptake of the education and training activities from 25-35 European communities – scalable in future – to ensure informed and capable actors have implementation strategies to overcome barriers to climate action, including scaling and replicating solutions, creating enabling regulatory frameworks, and financing solutions.
• Active engagement and uptake of entrepreneurial training and coaching activities from a diverse cohort of 10 to 15 European entrepreneurship support organisations (ESOs), at least 50% being women-led, to ensur
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.3.3 - The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-EIT-KIC - HORIZON EIT KIC Actions
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIT-2024-MOC-IBA
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1018 DC Amsterdam
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.