The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) announced today its first three Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs). The launch of the KICs marks a crucial step in setting up the EIT, which is designed to become a role model for boosting innovation in Europe and thereby contributing to the goals of the future EU 2020 strategy.

 KICs are highly integrated partnerships, bringing together excellent higher education, research and business around the topics of climate change mitigation and adaptation (‘Climate-KIC’), sustainable energy (‘KIC InnoEnergy’) and the future information and communication society (‘EIT ICT Labs’) respectively.

The selected KICs have been chosen from among 20 proposals received in answer to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology's first call for KICs earlier this year. The call, which was open from 2 April to 27 August 2009, had been launched in three priority areas: sustainable energy, climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as future information and communication society.

It was up to the KIC proposers to define their area of activity within those fields. After evaluations by independent experts, the top two proposals from each priority were invited to hearings with the Governing Board today following which the final decision was taken. The selected projects are:

• Climate-KIC. Climate-KIC's mission is to accelerate and stimulate the innovation for this transformation and ensure benefits for Europe. London, Zürich, Berlin metropolitan area, Paris metropolitan area, Randstad metropolitan area
• KIC InnoEnergy. The partners have jointly developed a strategy to tackle the weaknesses of the European innovation landscape and aim to be the leading motor for innovation in the field of sustainable energy. CC Germany: Karlsruhe, CC Alps Valleys: Grenoble, CC Benelux: Eindhoven/Leuven, CC Iberia: Barcelona, CC PolandPlus: Krakow, CC Sweden: Stockholm
• EIT ICT Labs. Committed to an efficient open innovation model, EIT ICT Labs will generate faster transformation of ideas and ICT technologies into real products, services and business, boosting Europe’s future competitiveness in all sectors of society. Berlin, Eindhoven, Helsinki, Paris and Stockholm

The foremost task of the EIT is now to get the KICs energised by mid next year. In order to facilitate a rapid and smooth start, the EIT will immediately equip the KICs with a start-up grant of a total amount of 3 million Euro. The KICs are expected to become fully operational shortly after having signed a seven-year Framework Partnership Agreement with the EIT and after confirmation of the first annual grant agreements towards mid-2010.

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), established by EC Regulation 294/2008 on April 2008, is a major EU initiative which aims to foster excellence in European innovation and to provide new solutions for major challenges, such as climate change, renewable energies or the next generation of information and communication technologies. EIT headquarters are placed in Budapest (Hungary).