AccelerateEEE brings together partners from three universities, University of Glasgow, Corvinus University Budapest and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and one leading IoT accelerator in Scotland, STAC.ac. The vision of Accelerate EEE is to build capacity at partner universities to catalyse the development of data-driven entrepreneurial firms in areas such as fintech, med-tech, AI and IoT. Working together, the partners leverage their respective ecosystems' distinctiveness and individual character to achieve synergies as part of an integrated, open, and collaborative network.
Accelerate EEE has four main goals. The first is to remove barriers to participation in entrepreneurship by building a high-quality online module for academic staff and students who want to explore building data-driven start-ups. Secondly, to create communities of practice across partner universities to achieve long-term impact. Third is to develop capacity by learning from industry by working closely with established business accelerator STAC.ac. Lastly to become essential entrepreneurship educators for partner universities.
Accelerate EEE is one of 26 winning consortia selected to take part in the EIT HEI Initiative. Nearly 300 higher education institutions and their partners from 38 countries will receive up to EUR 31.2 million in total to strengthen their innovation capacities.
Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth said: ‘Over the past year, the EIT HEI Initiative has built up great momentum to make higher education institutions more innovative and entrepreneurial by linking them with businesses and research centres. 294 additional organisations will benefit from expertise, coaching and knowledge exchange. This support will help them to build local innovation ecosystems and achieve real institutional change.’
ACCELERATE EEE will train nearly 600 students during the course of the project. A further 57 academics and 57 non-academic staff in support roles will be trained, with over 171 HEI stakeholders mentored through the international network.
For more information please visit: www.accelerateentrepreneurs.com.