Partnering with EIT Climate-KIC on the New Accelerator: Call for Expressions of Interest

We are looking for new and existing EIT Climate-KIC partners to collaborate with us on the New Accelerator programme. The Expressions of Interest phase for potential partners is now open until 29 November 2020.

Over the last ten years, the EIT Climate-KIC Accelerator programme has supported over 2,000 start-ups in 32 locations across Europe with access to resources, tools, mentoring and networks. Along with 33 EIT Climate-KIC partners, we have helped many climate positive ventures mature into scalable businesses that have contributed to the fight against climate change and its impacts.

Over the last decade, however, the context has changed. The science shows that the climate emergency is even more urgent than we realised ten years ago, and the need for systemic change in tackling it is even more pressing. In response, the entrepreneurship support landscape in Europe has changed dramatically.

In order to adapt and meet this challenge head-on, the EIT Climate-KIC Accelerator Programme has been refocused and new elements have been introduced based on our strategy, Transformation, in Time.

To unlock a net-zero, resilient future, we need to catalyse rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented change through innovation. Individual or siloed single-point solutions are no longer enough, and instead single-point solutions should be embedded in systemic, demand-led interventions.

With that in mind, EIT Climate-KIC has chosen to shift from a supply-led to a demand-led model. We will operate as an innovation ecosystem connecting ‘demand’ with ‘supply’ to catalyse transformational systemic change. This requires us to bring different actors – cities, regions, countries, companies, start-ups or individuals – together to successfully tackle the complex challenges ahead of us.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Our goal is to enable partners to effectively run Accelerators. Together, we can work as a collective of actors that will build on the operating system and catalyse entrepreneurship to tackle climate change. We would love to work with new as well as existing partners to bring climate entrepreneurship to the necessary scale. If you have a particular interest in a topic, or experience in supporting climate entrepreneurs, please make sure to check the Expression of Interest guidelines.

The New Accelerator will have three pillars, running on the same watertight “operating system”, operated by EIT Climate-KIC.

Pillar #1: Themed AcceleratorWe are looking for partners (a consortia) to co-launch Our mission is to build the world’s most prominent accelerator(s) in these thematic areas.

Pillar #2: Place-based Accelerator in RIS CountriesWe are looking for partners (a consortia) to build and enhance climate start-up ecosystems in 14 RIS countries through an effective accelerator, and to source the start-ups with the highest climate impact potential. The EIT Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) is a dedicated programme to accelerate climate innovation across eastern and southern Europe. More information on RIS eligible countries is available here.

Pillar #3: Open Licence AcceleratorWe are sharing the assets created over the past ten years to build the largest global alliance of green accelerators by providing support and licences to green accelerators across the globe. More details about this pillar will be shared in due course.

NEXT STEPS

If you would like to collaborate with us on the New Accelerator, the Expressions of Interest phase is open, and we invite you to send us your proposal by 29 November 2020 at 23:59h CET.

We have one partner webinar on the Themed Accelerator coming up on 11.11, 16h CET (sign-up link HERE)

The application for Expressions of Interest can be found HERE. If you’d like more information, the detailed guidelines can be found HERE. The slides for a webinar we hosted for partners can be found HERE.

Questions? The FAQ will be continuously updated and can be found HERE, or please contact the team at new.accelerator@climate-kic.org. We are looking forward to receiving your questions, comments and proposals, and working together to foster Entrepreneurship and Acceleration for climate impact and systems transformation at scale.