The European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) announced yesterday that the consortium InnoLife has won the 2014 EIT call for Health to form a Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) on healthy living and active aging. The Innolife consortium is led statewide by the University of Barcelona (UB) -through the HUBc, its campus of excellence in health-, and was coordinated by Biocat, an associate member that has been driving this candidacy since 2008. The consortium, in which the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) is also participating as principal partner, has had the support of the Generalitat through the Agency for the Management of the University and Research Grants (AGAUR) to encourage participation and leadership of organizations based in Catalonia and become a 'Colocation Center.' The headquarters of InnoLife will be located at the Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB).

InnoLife (@EIT Health) is a consortium with nodes in Barcelona, Paris (France), London (UK), Rotterdam (Benelux), Stockholm (Sweden / Denmark) and Heidelberg (Germany). It consists of over 50 major partners and 90 associated partners of leading companies in the field of life sciences, research centers and universities from 14 countries of the European Union, including ATOS (Spain), the French Institute Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and Imperial College (United Kingdom).

The consortium wants to achieve this by delivering products and services that will enhance quality of life and contribute to the sustainability of European health systems. “Our partners are highly recognized companies of excellence and our research activities will cover all of Europe. In 2018, our aim is to create, among others, 70 start-ups per year and have had the annual participation of a million students in our online training programs” says Redeker.

Different organizations and companies from the business field- ATOS, Ferrer Internacional and Abbott-, from the education field- the University of Barcelona, IESE and the Polytechnic University of Madrid, and from the field of research- the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia sector (IBEC) of the CERCA network and the Institute of Biomechanics of Valencia, are the main partners of the Spanish node, which will set up office in Barcelona.

Biocat is an organization associated to the InnoLife consortium, as are Telefónica, Linkcare, Leitat, Fundació “la Caixa”, the Parc Sanitari Sant Joan de Déu, the Catalan Agency for Health Quality and Assessment (AQuAS), the Superior Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), Biopolis, Pau Education, Gallina Blanca, the Madrid Hospital Consortium, GMV Global Internet Solutions, Inveniam Innovation, Other Side Mirror, Sedecal and PREMAP Safety and Health.

Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs)

The European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) is the first European initiative to integrate together the three sides of the triangle of knowledge -training, research and innovation- through knowledge and innovation communities, the so-called Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs). The objective of the EIT – created in 2008 as a replica of the Massachusetts Institute of Innovation (MIT) a world leader in innovation- is to increase European competitiveness in the United States and Asia through the integration of universities, research centers and businesses.

There are currently three active KICs: InnoEnergy  (dedicated to sustainable energy), Climate-KIC (dedicated to mitigation and adaptation to climate change) and ICT Labs (dedicated to the information and communication society). During 2014, EIT selected the InnoLife project as a KIC in the field of health and active aging as well as another project on raw materials that won the RawMatTERS project. Besides the three KICs promoted in 2010 and the two new consortia winners, other four calls are to be announced for 2016 and 2018 with two new KICs respectively each year.

The 2020 Horizon program, through which funding from the European Commission is granted to research and innovation has an overall budget of 2,700 million euros to be allocated to KICs.

Second KIC with a node in Barcelona

The  KIC in Health is the second knowledge and innovation community of the EIT that has a Spanish node based in Catalonia. In 2010, the InnoEnergy consortium, with a state node led by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and ESADE Business School, won a KIC in the field of sustainable energy. In addition, the EIT will open a call for proposals for a KIC in Food4future in 2016, a project in which Biocat will also be working on to foster the participation of Catalonia as part of one of the European consortiums  that will be submiting a candidacy.

In order to facilitate the rapid and continued growth of KIC, EIT provides each consortium with a grant of up to 4 million euros in the first year. Apart from this initial funding, it is estimated that the funding that EIT will allocate to the Innolife consortium over the next seven years will be 500 million euros. In total, the project has a total budget of 2,100 million euros, including private investment.

This KIC is expected to be operational shortly after having signed a Cooperation Framework Agreement (Framework Partnership Agreement) with EIT in 2015.