29 September-4 October 2024
Connecting tech leaders from the EU innovation ecosystem to key stakeholders in the strategic UK ecosystem to build collaborations that will lead to impact, drive EU innovation and support startup growth.
A leading ecosystem building programme with a high calibre of participants and expert facilitators designed to boost your impact and deliver long-lasting collaboration.
Gain tools to become a leader in your field by learning best practices of ecosystem management, including community building, tech tools, network leveraging and more.
Experience the start-up journey in the UK, and learn effective tools to increase your impact in supporting it, including access to funding and access to markets, developed exclusively for the 2024 cohort.
Get immersed and build sustainable partnerships that will lead to concrete collaborations in one of the most dynamic start-up ecosystems in the world.
Become a part of an exclusive community network of strategic players in ecosystem building, get ongoing support, access to events and matchmaking from the EIT Hub UK.
For example: Heads of TTOs, accelerators, innovation agencies, labs, incubators or other business creation activities from academia, industry and public bodies
The programme is not suited for individual start-ups or consultants.
Each application will be reviewed and ranked by the following criteria:
The selection will be competitive and based upon excellence and the above-noted criteria. The final selection will be made by the EIT Hub UK Steering Committee (with members representing EIT Health, EIT Climate-KIC, EIT Manufacturing, and EIT Digital).
The full cost of the programme is 4.000 EUR, however EIT Hub UK can offer partial funding of the programmes and/or Travel & Accommodation reimbursement based on the following categories:
Participant Category | Eligible KICs | Eligibility for Programme Funding | Eligibility for Travel and Accommodation Reimbursement |
|---|---|---|---|
KIC Partners | 6 KICs: EIT Health, EIT Climate- KIC, EIT Manufacturing, EIT Food, EIT Culture and Creativity and EIT Digital | Fully funded | Reimbursement up to €1,500 per participant per module |
KIC Staff | 6 KICs: EIT Health, EIT Climate- KIC, EIT Manufacturing, EIT Food, EIT Culture and Creativity and EIT Digital | Fully funded | Financed by the KIC’s own resources |
Partner/Staff from other KICs
| EIT InnoEnergy, EIT Raw Materials and EIT Urban Mobility | 75% Funded; Price: €1.000 | Financed by participant’s own resources |
Ecosystem Manager (Non EIT) | Any individual professional can apply. | 50% Funded; Price: €2.000 | Financed by participant’s own resources |
*The below agenda is subject to change
Begin your journey with a welcome event and cultural immersion in London, the heart of the UK Ecosystem, seeing some landmark sights, meeting your fellow participants, and gaining an understanding of the foundation of this uniquely successful ecosystem.
The aim of the day is to expose the participants to the structures, key success factors and methods that have enabled the UK to become a hotbed of innovation. We will learn the deep connections and roots of the innovation landscape as well as emerging trends.
Presentations and intimate discussions by ecosystem key-players such as:
Funding Platforms – how the UK has been so successful in attracting international capital and attention.
The day will finish with a VIP cocktail event.
Day 2: Accelerator visit and Leading Innovation Ecosystems Workshop
We’ll spend the day in Shoreditch, arguably the heart of the London ecosystem, visiting a top accelerator and start-ups and learning first-hand what makes them successful.
During the afternoon, participate in the Leading Innovation Ecosystems Workshop. After being exposed to the UK ecosystem, it’s time to bring it home. During a tailored workshop, participants will present and discuss their own ecosystem challenges and initiatives.
The workshop will be facilitated by UK experts who will share their own challenges and present frameworks and best practices to boost start-up growth.
Activities include:
We’ll finish the day with a group meal in Dishoom, one of London’s legendary Indian restaurants.
Day 3 – Ecosystem Development Field Trip to Cambridge
Venture away from London to Cambridge, a city known as ‘Silicon Fen’ for its outstanding success in fostering a strong innovation system through its world-leading university and research institutions. As of 2023, Cambridge has seen the birth of 23 unicorns, is home to over 5,000 tech firms, and the University alone contributes four times as much to the UK economy as the Premier League.
Learn about:
Day 4 – Attend the Sifted Summit in London
We’ll spend a day participating in the Sifted Summit, which will showcase the revival of the European startup scene, allowing you to listen to, learn from, and network with 3000 startups, investors, ecosystem managers. There will be tracks on fintech, health tech, climate tech, deeptech and more.
We’ll round off the day at the conference after party to maximise the outstanding networking opportunities.
Day 5- Moving Forward
After you have been exposed to the UK Ecosystem, it’s time to reflect and think of what’s next.
We will also discuss how we can tailor the lessons and opportunities learned in the UK to your unique ecosystem’s characteristics. We will introduce the C&E community and share future plans and events.
Yes, participation physically in the UK is required, and it is the core Connect & Experience event that provides you with professional training, and builds the community. You will have the chance to explore London and Cambridge, meet UK peers and learn from one of the world’s leading innovation ecosystems.
The cohort will be comprised of ecosystem leaders from all over Europe that were carefully selected to join the programme. You will meet peers and ecosystem leaders from the UK, top speakers and lecturers on a number of different topics, executives from global companies active in the UK, and many more.
An ecosystem leader is an experienced senior professional, at management/decision-making level, in an organisation boosting European start-up growth, and significantly impacting the European ecosystem. They should deal with innovation or business creation in industry, academia, government (for example, VCs, TTOs, heads of accelerators, innovation agencies, labs, incubators, or other business creation activities from academia, industry and government).
The programme encompasses a wide variety of subjects, including an overview of the UK ecosystem and meetings with leading figures from the industry. You will have the chance to get your hands ‘dirty’ and delve into an ecosystem building workshop in Shoreditch, visit academic and industry hotspot Cambridge and top accelerators, meet with VCs and many others at the Sifted Summit, and be inspired by the cultural and innovation landscape of the UK.
This depends on a financial category that varies from participant to participant. Check out the finance section for more information.
The applicants will be ranked according to the criteria noted here and the final decision as to the participants will be made by the EIT Hub UK steering committee. Applicants will receive responses by 16 August 2024.
If you wish to query or appeal the outcome of your application, please email [email protected] by Friday 24 August 2024. Please explain your query or grounds for appeal as clearly as possible.
Past participants have increased the impact of their work with start-ups and established long-standing collaborations with both experts they met on the programme and members of the programme cohort. You can expect to be left with a change of mindset that will enable you to approach your day-to-day activities with a new found sense of purpose, as well as concrete collaboration opportunities; a tangible toolkit to establish the best practices you were exposed to; and up-to-date knowledge of the best ways to access the UK market and finance opportunities for your start-ups. The Connect & Experience community is extremely active with ventures taking place on a regular basis, so you can expect to expand your network and be part of a supportive and professional group of people.
London, and the UK more widely, is regularly ranked as the #2 start-up ecosystem in the world, with deep pockets of investment and talent in a large number of domains and regions. It outnumbers its counterparts in Europe in multiple measures, and has remained resilient over the past few years. London alone boasts a tech ecosystem valued at over $620 billion, and is home to over 100 unicorns. The UK boasts world-leading universities, including but not limited to Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London, with top talent and highly productive Tech Transfer Offices, and significant government support for innovation and collaboration. The UK has joined Horizon Europe as an Associated Country, meaning it can collaborate in projects and access funding. Historically, the UK has been one of the strongest participants in European innovation programmes. While the UK showcases diverse talent and opportunity, it is particularly renowned for its strength in clean tech, AI, and big data and analytics.
Do you have any questions? Get in touch with us at
[email protected]
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This full stack 5-day immersion into the UK ecosystem goes beyond the usual introductions, and drills down to the key drivers of ecosystem building, by introducing paricipants to the key factors that underpin the success of the UK ecosystem and set it apart from other leading ecosystems in Europe. Key drivers include government funding schemes, academia and startups, the role of accelerators, community builders, corporates and more. This deep dive is designed to provide a genuine insight into one of the most vibrant innovation ecosystems in the world, all while providing the highest practical value and impact for participants, allowing you to take back key learnings and support EU startups to succeed in the UK.
The programme is highlighted by key names within the UK ecosystem who will share their experience and describe their role in making the UK the innovation success it is today. The programme will leverage existing know-how and best practices, will provide a broad access to mentors, hands-on training and tools to commercialise ideas, research and IP to better support your start-ups. It will also focus on how to avoid common pitfalls of ecosystem building and how to build a sustainable system in the process.
The annual highlight of the C&E community network – the European Playground is a professional conference that offers practical tools and strategies to develop and manage innovation communities and start-up support systems, bringing together professionals from all Connect & Experience participants across Europe, Japan, Silicon Valley, Israel and the UK.
Members will be offered the opportunity to design and co-facilitate content and workshops with a peer who has experience in connecting the public and private sector, as well as start-ups and corporate players. As such, the playground can be used as a testbed for new ideas and initiatives, receiving real time feedback and potential collaborations from leading experts in the field.
C&E alumni of 2024 will be entitled to a complementary ticket to the Playground if they are eligible for reimbursement (ticket value €350).
Connect & Experience offers more than training. The C&E community network is an active online and offline community offering easy access to opportunities, curated content, matchmaking, soft landing services and support. The community offers a space for community builders from the UK and Europe to interact, share best practices and collaborate, with the common goal of enhancing your start-up community.
EIT KIC Partners and KIC cooperating entities under the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) from the 6 KICs involved in the Global Outreach: EIT Health, EIT Climate- KIC, EIT Digital, EIT Manufacturing, EIT Culture and Creativity, and EIT Food.
EIT KIC Staff and KIC cooperating entities under the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) from the 6 KICs involved in the Global Outreach: EIT Health, EIT Climate- KIC, EIT Digital, EIT Manufacturing, EIT Culture and Creativity, and EIT Food.
Partners of staff from other KICs not involved in EIT Global Outreach: EIT InnoEnergy, EIT Raw Materials and EIT Urban Mobility
Ecosystem Manager (Non-EIT KIC staff or partner)
Connect & Experience offers more than training. The C&E community network is an active EU online and offline community offering easy access to opportunities, curated content, matchmaking, soft landing services, and support. The community provides a space for community builders from Europe and Horizon Europe associated countries to interact, share best practices, and collaborate to enhance your startup community.
The Health not The Death is a fundamental human right. A healthy population is not to be seen as human and social capital, an input, or by-product, towards economic growth. Alongside a healthy and sustainable environment, a solidarity, a healthy population must be the ultimate goal especially nowadays in helping Ukrainian migrants with cancer and their families.
Solidarity in health is a cornerstone of EU health policy. There are wide disparities in many health outcomes across the region and those outcomes. The access rules dramatically affect healthcare systems which are at the forefront of the migrant way, the people who are searching for help and the way how we could enhance and support their healthier and wellbeing status.
In order to ensure their access to care and continued cure in need, the probability of receiving a timely diagnosis and of surviving differs greatly from country to country where they are now. There is lack of information, help and inequalities in access. People need help in navigating cancer knowledge, diagnostics, secondary monitoring and prevention, way of treatments, and care.
Shifting our mindset, supporting healthcare connectivity, removing inequalities overall across Europe is our mission and even more now in a time of crisis, helping the Ukrainian people dealing with cancer is a good place to begin this transformative revolution.
1) Whether we have a chance to foster more holistic and integrated approaches to receive information and care, by supporting coordination and maximising an enabling and health-enhancing effect of care across services from different countries?
2) Whether actions should address the social determinants of health, the countries where they are now, the health need which they have, the social and language barriers are the conditions which have to be taken into consideration in a coordinated manner?
How might we improve patients and /or people who seek healthcare support, access to healthcare services at an EU & the Member States Healthcare systems level? Especially in a time of crisis in Europe.
How might we support refugees fleeing from their countries by navigating them to medical centres to receive best available care?
Precision medicine aims to personalise care for every individual. Nongenomic and genomic determinants, combined with information from patient symptoms, clinical history, and lifestyle (nutrition, physical activity, stress etc.), can facilitate personalised diagnosis and prognostics. Yet this goal requires access to massive amounts of data which may come from different structured and unstructured sources; these can be our medical records, laboratory testing, a range of medical devices as well as from the patient himself. AI & ML can combine input from these multiple sources, analyse them and identify biomarkers that can support health professionals make more informed decisions. The convergence of precision medicine with the advanced AI capabilities will improve the ability to personalise care – improve diagnosis, risk prediction as well as therapy planning.
HCPs want to better predict treatment response, given uncertainty around which treatment to prescribe to which patient and when to prescribe. How do we risk assess the patients, match them with the right treatment (personalised). How can we transform the wealth of data and link it to the predictive nature of how the patient will respond?
Being diagnosed with cancer is overwhelming and comes as a blow. Patients may feel on a roller coaster of emotions—they are scared, lost & confused not knowing what to expect, who to refer to, what to do and how to tell their loved ones. They directly refer to “Dr. Google” to look for information about their disease, possible treatments, QoL strategies with the aim to have better understanding of their disease and learn how to better cope with their disease & treatment, yet information is not always valid, accessible, nor personalised or tailored to the patient’s status and needs therefore left with huge amounts of non-relevant information. Coming to the doctor, the physician’s time is limited and mostly focusing on the physical aspects of the disease & treatment, not leaving much time to ask questions nor discuss more holistic aspects of the disease such as emotional, psychological, social aspects. The patient (& caregiver in many cases) leaves the room with unanswered questions, doesn’t remember much of what has been said, and feels he is not heard, nor seen as a whole.
The need for navigating this journey along the emotional psychological stress is overwhelming & patients and their caregivers look for support (case manager/companion/partner) to help manage their disease holistically – starting from having clarity around their disease and treatment by having access to reliable and personalised information during their journey as well as having an integrated holistic care system , supporting them and their loved ones to navigate through the different aspects of their disease – medical, emotional, logistical, psychological, social, rights.
How can we support patients to navigate through the complexity of their disease and treatment ensuring they have validated holistic information about their disease journey & treatment and be empowered to effectively manage their care
As medical events pivoted from conference centres and meeting rooms to the virtual settings, learning opportunities continue. Lectures and presentations are translated to the new digital world, yet the ability to connect and network is relatively lost. Peer interaction is essential not only for information exchange but to share practical insights, allows consultation & in-person experience cross country and across borders leading to better disease management.
This peer-based learning/ consultation is highly valued amongst practising clinicians and was generally achieved when HCPs and KOLs met their peers in national & Intl conferences, group debates, advisory boards and even during quick corridor conversations. Attempting to replicate these in-person experiences into the digital space creates challenges and are not effective nor impactful as face-to-face engagements.
How might we improve HCP medical exchange enabling physicians to easily communicate, consult, exchange opinions leveraging individual experts & centres of excellence knowledge, experiences, and practices?
How can we leverage the technological expertise to allow HCPs to connect with leading experts across countries to get advice / counselling for their cases?
Application for 2022Calling2Scale is closed.
Interested in participating in the next cohort?
Email [email protected]
