Advantage West Midlands are currently working with a number of partners in the region and Europe to produce a bid aiming at winning the opportunity to have a new Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) for the European Istitute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) in the West Midlands.
The EIT (Opens in new window) will be a key driver of sustainable economic growth and competitiveness across Europe through the stimulation of world-leading innovation. To achieve this, KICs will be developed as the delivery mechanism. Acting as innovative webs of excellence integrating higher education, research institutes, companies and public authorities KICs will need to pool and integrate resources, partners, and disciplines.
The KICs will expand education, entrepreneurship and business activity and create new companies; develop a new group of specialists; and have a wider societal impact across Europe: the first KICs will be in the areas of future information technologies, sustainability and climate change.
With the West and East Midlands working together on one proposal, the aim through a new KIC is to be a demonstrator conurbation in the change to a low emissions economy. The Midlands KIC will focus in two particular areas - household living and mobility. The KIC would build upon and support the current strengths of the Midlands. Examples include the 21 universities including 5 top research universities, the European Bio-energy Research Institute in Aston, the National Energy Graduate Centre in Birmingham and the hydrogen energy research being carried out at Birmingham and Warwick universities under the Birmingham Science City initiative.
We are talking to a number of potential EU partners who could join us in developing a European network of “demonstrator conurbations” for systemic innovation in low carbon economy. The KIC is expected to have four to six such nodes (centres) across Europe. If you are interested in learning more or in partnering with us, please contact us through the details below.
A significant step towards the development of the Midlands proposal was taken on 17th February when partners from the Midlands gathered in Birmingham to discuss the way forward with the proposal. Presentations from the meeting can be viewed in the Related Documents section.
Next Steps
All bids are required to be submitted by August 09 with the KICs due to start in 2010.
This section of the website will be kept up to date with the latest developments of the bid and more information on KICs can be found in the Related Documents.