[1] The EIT’s three “core pillars” of activities are: entrepreneurial education programmes and courses across Europe that transform students into entrepreneurs; business creation and acceleration services that scale ideas and budding businesses; and innovation-driven research projects that turn ideas into products by connecting partners, investors, and expertise.

These are: promoting an open strategic autonomy by leading the development of key digital, enabling and emerging technologies, sectors and value chains; restoring Europe’s ecosystems and biodiversity and managing sustainably natural resources; making Europe the first digitally-enabled circular, climate-neutral and sustainable economy; creating a more resilient, inclusive and democratic European society.

The EIT Governing Board has 15 members (experts in higher education, research, business, and innovation at the EU level) as well as one independent observer from the European Commission.

Representatives of the European Commission (from DG EAC), the EIT Governing Board, and the CEOs of the KICs may be invited to attend the meetings to align better the work carried out by the group.

The rationale behind the establishment of the EIT was the EU’s attempt to re-launch its Lisbon Strategy, signed in 2000, focusing on a ‘growth and job’ agenda.

[12] The EIT was, therefore, an attempt to redefine the European Commission mandates and governance of higher education institutions as part of a knowledge-based economy route to economic and social development.

Article 7 was open to some degree of interpretation and the Governing Board working group was essential in shaping a common understanding of each potential KIC.

Scaling up was done through the pilot implementation of EIT-labelled degrees with the goal of creating role models for the kind of education it wanted to promote.

[15] That meant hands-on entrepreneurial education that addressed topical issues such as the climate crisis, finding alternative power source solutions, and technological advances to improve people’s lives.

2021 also saw the launch of the HEI Initiative: Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education, addressing one of the key objectives of the EIT’s SIA 2021–2027.

The HEI Initiative helps coordinate cross-sectoral activities related to education and gives a wider circle of future entrepreneurs access to the EIT Community’s experience and knowledge.

[22] In light of a full-scale war against Ukraine started by Russia on February, 24, 2022, the EIT together with several KICs initiated activities to help Ukrainians.