EIT RawMaterials: Leading Science Founder Urges Innovation Transformation at Universities in Fight Against Climate Change
14.9.2022 15:56:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
A leading innovator in science has urged European universities and higher education institutions to revolutionise their innovation activities to effectively tackle climate change. Dr. Riam Kanso, founder and CEO of Conception X, will be the keynote speaker at the INNOVEIT Stockholm: Innovation in Higher Education on 15 September. The event is coordinated and led by EIT RawMaterials, the world’s largest consortium on raw materials, funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.
The registration for in-person or virtual attendance at INNOVEIT Stockholm is now open.
Reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 means new innovations in technology and energy are urgently needed. These innovations will largely stem from universities and higher education institutions. The EIT Higher Education Institutions Initiative (EIT HEI) funds and supports higher education institutions in growing their research and development faculties and boosting entrepreneurship activities and synergies with industry players, many with the aim of accelerating deep tech and energy innovations coming to market (start-ups and spin-offs).
The EIT HEI Initiative is titled ‘Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education’ and is a unique model that brings together industry/businesses with researchers and higher education. The initiative is a key objective for the EIT as part of the EIT’s new seven-year strategy for 2021-2027. The programme supports higher education institutions with expertise and coaching, access to the EIT innovation ecosystem, and funding to boost the capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship activities at European higher education institutions.
Dr. Kanso: Urgent Progress Needed for Innovation in Higher Education
Dr. Kanso’s company, Conception X, has a complementary mission to the EIT HEI Initiative. Conception X is an independent, non-profit that works closely with more than 30 universities across the UK to discover and train aspiring PhD founders from leading research labs, helping them become eligible for innovation grants, awards, and venture capital funding. Through a nine-month deep-tech venture programme, PhD students explore ways to commercialise their research while still at university – much like the EIT-Labelled Masters and PhD programmes.
Dr. Kanso says new models like this are needed to unleash Europe’s potential as a hotspot for meaningful innovation, especially with the continent’s 2050 deadline to reach net-zero emissions fast approaching.
Dr. Kanso said: “Universities and higher education institutions are built to spread knowledge that improves the world. Yet, the current system of spreading this knowledge by publishing papers can sometimes hinder progress – by the time a paper is published, the research could be three years old. We need to create models where research and innovation come together to reinforce and advance each other.”
EIT RawMaterials CEO Bernd Schäfer stressed: “Europe is at an epochal turning point, where the ambitious goals of the European Green Deal are placing more extraordinary demands on higher education than ever before. Our EIT HEI Initiative was established for this reason, to empower higher education institutions to become engines of innovation and foster sustainable growth and jobs. The initiative brings Europe’s education, research, and industry leaders together to work on strengthened innovation in higher education with the aim of solving some of the world’s biggest problems - like climate change.”
Speaking about the EIT HEI Initiative, Dr. Kanso said: “We’re working to promote knowledge and innovation and help great people excel. The more allies we have and the more connected we are, the easier it will be to achieve that. Network initiatives like the EIT HEI are crucial.’’
INNOVEIT: Stockholm - Focus on Innovation in Higher Education
This hybrid event will highlight the ongoing work of the EIT’s HEI Initiative. Discussions will focus on how the EIT HEI Initiative will connect with deep tech innovations and talents and EIT-Labelled education programmes for enhanced innovation capacity building.
All active projects selected for both the EIT HEI’s Cohort 1 (launched in July 2021) and Cohort 2 (launched in July 2022) will be present at the event. There are 23 active Cohort 1 and 26 active Cohort 2 projects in the HEI Initiative network. Cohort 1 projects will share the good practices and methodologies they have learned so far for increasing innovation capacity in European higher education institutions.
Dr. Tamer Abu-Alam is the Project Coordinator of one of EIT HEI Initiative’s funded Cohort 1 projects, CloudEARTHi, and an academic at UiT, the Artic University of Norway.
Dr. Abu-Alam says initiatives like the EIT HEI Initiative, and this event, are crucial because Europe can only be decarbonised if industry, research, and higher education work closely together.
‘’Without this coming together of stakeholders we cannot achieve a solution to the climate crisis. We are all working on the same problem - but from different perspectives. This is why the EIT HEI and the Stockholm event are so important - because everyone is brought together, everyone presents their point of view, and based on this we can innovate and work together to address this challenge.”
The CloudEARTHi project guides students on how to develop their business plan in line with the European Green Deal, and how to use big data to address gaps in their business model. Within just two months, one student has already started his own business to recycle computer components – an activity that will help to provide the EU with specific raw materials necessary for the green transition.
Dr. Tamer Abu-Alam will also take part in the panel discussion ‘EIT HEI Initiative: Innovation capacity building good practices.’
The event is an integral part of the INNOVEIT WEEKS, a series of events showcasing how EIT, Europe’s largest innovation ecosystem, offers unique opportunities to innovators and entrepreneurs, powering solutions to global challenges.
The registration for in-person or virtual attendance at INNOVEIT Stockholm is now open.
ENDS
Notes for the Editor
European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)
The EIT is an EU body and an integral part of Horizon Europe, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. The Institute supports dynamic pan-European partnerships, EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities, among leading companies, research labs, and universities. The EIT is Europe’s largest innovation ecosystem bringing together close to 3 000 partners from top business, research and education organisations across Europe in 200+ hubs. More than 3 800 students have graduated from EIT labelled master and doctoral programmes and over 100 000 have participated in EIT Community entrepreneurial trainings.
EIT HEI Initiative: Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education
The EIT HEI Initiative: Innovation Capacity Building for Higher Education is a joint EIT Community programme led by EIT RawMaterials − one of the EIT’s Knowledge and Innovation Communities. The initiative aims to support higher education institutions with expertise and coaching, access to the EIT innovation ecosystem, and funding, enabling them to develop innovation action plans contextualised to the needs of individual higher education institutions. In July 2021, 23 projects started their activities after the EIT HEI Initiative Pilot Call. By 2027, the EIT HEI Initiative aims to support 550 higher education institutions boosting European innovation in higher education and driving the twin transition towards a more sustainable, digital and competitive Europe.
EIT RawMaterials
The objective of EIT RawMaterials is to secure a sustainable raw materials supply by driving innovation, education, and entrepreneurship across European industrial ecosystems. EIT RawMaterials provides a collaborative environment for disruptive and breakthrough innovations by connecting business with academia, research, and investment. It also invests in future generations of innovators for the raw materials sector, through initiatives ranging from the education of school students to higher qualifications for industry professionals.
The company is committed to supporting Europe’s transition towards a circular, green, and digital economy whilst strengthening its global competitiveness and securing employment. On this foundation, EIT RawMaterials has been mandated by the European Commission to lead and manage the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA).
EIT RawMaterials – developing raw materials into a major strength for Europe. Connecting Matters!
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220906005543/en/
Contact information
EIT RawMaterials
Vanessa Lorenz, Head of Communications
E: vanessa.lorenz@eitrawmaterials.eu
M: + 49 174 2714312
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Forrester’s 2027 Budget Planning Guides: After A Year Of Caution, Business And Tech Leaders Are Ready To Invest Again15.7.2026 12:00:00 EEST | Press release
According to Forrester’s (Nasdaq: FORR) 2027 Budget Planning Guides, business and technology leaders are approaching 2027 with renewed confidence as they increasingly accept volatility as a permanent feature of the business environment. After a year of more cautious spending, more than 80% of leaders expect their budgets to increase over the next 12 months, with as many as one-quarter anticipating growth of 10% or more. But planning in the age of AI demands more than bigger budgets: Increasing investment without modernizing operating models, strengthening data foundations, and improving AI readiness will only accelerate fragmented data, duplicated work, and technical debt. To realize AI’s full potential, leaders must rethink their strategies and prioritize investments in operational foundations, governance, and experimentation that drive tangible outcomes. This year, optimism is widespread across functions: 82% of technology decision-makers and 91% of marketers expect budget increases
Post-Quantum’s Algorithm - Classic McEliece - Achieves Global ISO Standardization to Protect the World From Quantum Cyber Attack15.7.2026 11:00:00 EEST | Press release
It’s proven that today’s encryption is vulnerable to attack by a sufficiently mature quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm - a catastrophic event commonly known as Q-Day. Even before such a cryptographically relevant quantum computer emerges it is known that adversaries are stealing encrypted data now, which can be decrypted later - also known as Harvest Now, Decrypt Later (HNDL). Google’s recent use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to optimise Shor’s algorithm reduces the number of physical qubits required to break today’s encryption, therefore shortening the timeline to Q-Day. This has led prominent experts to estimate today’s encryption may be broken as-soon-as the next three years. It’s against this backdrop that the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has included the Classic McEliece algorithm as part of its standard for Asymmetric Ciphers (ISO/IEC 18033-2). Organisations from ISO’s 177 member states can now upgrade to Classic McEliece using an international s
Thredd Joins The Visa Agentic Ready Programme, Bringing Agent Network Readiness To Issuers Across Europe, Starting With Zilch15.7.2026 10:00:00 EEST | Press release
Thredd, the AI-first issuer processing platform, today announced it has joined the Visa Agentic Ready programme, enabling issuers across Europe to participate in agent-initiated payments without rebuilding their payments infrastructure. Consumer payments platform Zilch will be among the first issuers on the platform to enable agent-initiated payments for its cardholders. As a processor and enabler, Thredd sits at the trust layer of the payments ecosystem. By joining the programme, Thredd is ready to support Visa and its clients as the market moves into agentic commerce. Agentic commerce introduces a new type of payment initiator: An AI agent acting on a cardholder's behalf. The core payments principles do not change. Cardholder permission, issuer approval, authentication and fraud monitoring all still apply. What changes is how trust is established and enforced at the point an agent transacts. Taking a Zilch customer as an example, a cardholder might ask an AI agent to find a product w
Surgerii Robotics Announces First European Installation of the SHURUI ® Single-Port Surgical System at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital15.7.2026 10:00:00 EEST | Press release
Surgerii Robotics today announced the first European installation of its SHURUI Single-Port (SP) Surgical System at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, one of Europe's leading academic medical centers. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260713209503/en/ The first pediatric procedure performed with the SHURUI SP system was a nephroureterectomy on a twelve-year-old boy whose kidney and ureter had become infected and non-functional due to multiple stones. The SHURUI SP system is CE-marked for adult and pediatric use, making it the only CE-marked single-port robotic surgical system currently indicated for pediatric procedures in Europe. The installation marks an important milestone in the international expansion of Surgerii Robotics and the introduction of the technology into a major European reference center. As part of this collaboration, Vall d'Hebron University Hospital has become the first hos
SES, Airbus and Dutch Municipality of Noordwijk to Build Satellite Optical Ground Station for EAGLE-115.7.2026 09:50:00 EEST | Press release
SES, a space solutions company, jointly with Airbus Netherlands B.V. signed a ground lease agreement with the Dutch municipality of Noordwijk for a plot at the NL Space Campus, next to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) technical center ESTeC. The facility will host a dedicated optical ground station (OGS) to communicate with the EAGLE-1 satellite and receive quantum safe keys via laser technology. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260714786947/en/ Breaking the ground of the EAGLE-1 Optical Ground Station, Municipality of Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Pictured left to right: Pim van Strien, Alderman for the Municipality of Noordwijk; Rob Postma, President and Managing Director, Airbus Netherlands; Alan Kuresevic, Managing Director, SES Techcom, SES. The station, to be built by Airbus for SES, will consist of a control room, alongside a dome housing an ultra-precise telescope to track satellites, required for the la
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom