Enhancing the involvement of philanthropic organisations in innovation ecosystems

Expected outcome

Project results are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• Increase the collaboration of philanthropic organisations with higher education institutions, TTOs, innovative companies and Venture Capital (VCs) in supporting innovative projects and companies to develop and grow;
• Support the transition of academic research and innovations from higher education institutions to market-ready solutions.

Scope

There are currently more than 33000 philanthropic organisations in Europe with EUR 50 billion of annual philanthropic expenditure and EUR 567 billion pool of philanthropic assets. Philanthropic organisations and higher education institutions have been working together for many years in supporting the development of breakthrough research and technologies. At the same time, the EU still faces challenges in bringing technologies to the market. Therefore, this action aims at building on these established models of cooperation to support the transfer of developed technologies to the market by supporting facilities (like living labs and test beds) and/or engaging relevant stakeholders to further commercialize technologies with concrete common objective.

The purpose of this topic is to incentivise philanthropic organisations support to projects with high-potential, not only through financial resources, but also by providing access to expertise and networks of like-minded stakeholders and investors, as well as by being themselves first users of new technologies, allowing for their testing.

Higher education institutions are expected to propose a plan outlining how they intend to advance and commercialize the research and technologies they have developed. This plan should detail how they will engage with philanthropic organizations and/or venture capital investors to support early-stage companies, as well as with businesses that could adopt university-developed technologies. It should also include strategies for involving other relevant stakeholders who can help bringing these innovations to market. The cooperation could take place at the regional, national or European level with the participation of at least one higher education institution or network of such organisations, RTO and one philanthropic organisation or network of philanthropic organisations. Consortia could also include accelerator or investors networks and government organisations and/or other relevant innovation stakeholders.

The role of the philanthropic organisation in the consortia could include, but is not limited to:

• Providing access to other investors and networks of like-minded stakeholders;
• Increase the awareness of the project among relevant stakeholders;
• Accelerate the implementation and adoption of developed technologies by other stakeholders;
• Being first users of new developed technologies, allowing for their testing.

The collaboration of beneficiaries should lead to concrete results, where the activities could include, but are not limited to one or more of the following:

• Bringing together diverse research and innovation actors to collaboratively develop a technology or combination of technologies. By the end of the project, the consortium should demonstrate the application—or confirmed interest in application—of the developed technology or technologies in the creation of new, or the improvement of existing, products and/or services by at least one startup, scaleup, or corporate entity;
• Supporting the creation of experimentation spaces and testing environments like living labs, testing beds, incubators or accelerators;
• In collaboration with Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs), supporting the launch of multiple spin-offs that successfully secure venture funding. The funding should come from at least one of the following investor types: angel investors, accelerators, venture capital firms, corporate investors, philanthropic organizations, or National Promotional Banks. As a result, a number of signed deals are expected;
• Building one or several accelerators with the aim to attract a number of startups to venture funding.

The duration of the project depends on the proposed project but in order to have quality results, it is foreseen to be between one to three years.

For the purposes of this call, eligible philanthropic organization should meet the criteria set by Philea for “public-benefit foundation”. Specifically, five criteria had been collectively defined to consider an organisation as a public-benefit foundation:

1. They are independent, separately constituted non-profit bodies.
2. They have no members or shareholders.
3. They have their own established and reliable source of income, usually but not exclusively from an endowment.
4. They have their own governing board.
5. They distribute their financial resources for educational, cultural, religious, social or other public-benefit purposes, either by
   1. Supporting associations, charities, and educational institutions or individuals; or,
   2. Operating their own programmes.

Participants are also encouraged to leverage relevant complementary programmes such as the EIT Higher Education Initiative.

To support the work of higher education institutions in identifying relevant philanthropic organisations to collaborate with, the Commission will also launch a study to map and profile the relevant philanthropic organisations working in the area of research and innovation in Europe.

[1] McKinsey and Philea. In this topic, philanthropy refers to foundations, corporate funders and individuals using their own financial and non-financial resources for the public good.

[2] EIT Higher Education Initiative