Are you ready to bring your ideas for a sustainable food supply chain to life? Following the success of last year’s Winter School, Queen’s University Belfast, Technical University of Munich and University of Cambridge will come together to host an EIT Food Entrepreneurship Summer School this September in Belfast.

Programme description

During the EIT Food Summer School, 40 students from many different study backgrounds and countries will come together to bring their ideas for a sustainable food supply chain to life. Over the course of 6 days, participants will be working in interdisciplinary teams, to learn how digital technologies can be applied to foster sustainability and fair food supply chains. They will identify problems, prototype viable solutions with a validated value proposition and finally, pitch their results in front of a panel of experts.

The Summer School will take place in Belfast and be hosted by Queen's University Belfast along with partners, Technical University of Munich and the University of Cambridge. There will also be mentoring by industry experts and the chance to receive further online coaching on business model development.

Who should apply

Master students, PhD candidates, Post-docs and professionals.

Why should you apply

Participants will work together with mentors which will enable them to critically and precisely assess entrepreneurial concepts, enable professional communication, and presentation skills as well as interdisciplinary and intercultural skills.

Timeline of the programme

This activity took place in 2018. In 2019 we will offer a new portfolio of education activities for Masters, PhD's, Professionals and the general public. These will be published soon on our website.

Learning objectives and outcomes

Participants will gain knowledge of methodologies in product development in a food related start-up environment. They will enhance their ability to apply business model development and prototyping on practice-oriented problems in the field. The overall learning outcome for participants enables them to become responsible future innovators in Europe's food sector, which is equally important for both the economy and society.

Deadline for application

The EIT Food Summer School will accept 40 students in total. The spots will be filled on a rolling admissions basis. You will receive an invitation or rejection email, within two weeks of the closing date. This means you can submit your application between now and 20 July 2018 23.59 pm (BST). We will however, fill the available spots on a rolling basis according to our evaluation criteria, until they are full.

• The EIT Food Summer School does not charge a tuition fee.
• Travel costs: You will need to provide your own transportation to and from Belfast. Accommodation and meals between 7 and 14 September will be provided.

Applicants are required to submit an application, CV and video, in English.

In 2018, EIT Food will begin the initial phase of the development of EIT Food's flagship Food System Master Program, an integrated graduate degree program organized by 10 academic institutions and industrial partners from across EIT Foods pan-European partner network to prepare students to drive a future transformation of the food system and increase the competitiveness of their future employing companies. It promotes an integration of the food system by providing students with the opportunity to study consecutively at three institutions who provide distinctly different semester blocks focusing on different parts of the food system. This is coupled with a partner-mentored project/thesis work and non/academic activities offered by industrial partners.

Are you a food sector professional from a RIS country? Do you want to improve your skills in New Product Development? We invite you to be one of 25 selected participants in the EIT Food Summer School on new product development for the food industry!

Timeline of the programme

This activity took place in 2018. In 2019 we will offer a new portfolio of education activities for Masters, PhD's, Professionals and the general public. These will be published soon on our website.

During an intensive 8 day workshop, our industry experts had presented not only how to create and execute NPD by understanding the market and consumer’s needs but also provided insight on how to handle competing for project requirements and constraints. Participants of summer school on NPD received the entire spectrum of knowledge required to be an expert of New Product Development and much more.

It’s not a school if you only listen! That’s why we included Design Thinking workshops and hands-on experience in a simulated environment. Sounds interesting? That’s not all! Thanks to cooperation with market leaders from the food sector, we had shown where these theories meet reality. Moreover, we created opportunities to analyse actual case studies of NPD successes and failures learning from others real life experiences!

The EIT Food Summer School is organized by: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), Maspex (Poland), PepsiCo (UK), Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Israel), University of Warsaw (Poland)