EIT Food HUBs

Bulgaria

Agricultural University of Plovdiv (lead entity)

Agricultural University Plovdiv (AUP) was established in 1945 as a national center of agricultural science and education in Bulgaria. AUP is a leading institution in providing high quality student-centered education, releasing competent specialists committed to civic virtues and fostering research for rapid innovation in the agriculture by collaborating closely with business.

AUP’s expertise stretches over agronomy technologies, plant protection, agroecology, environment and food safety and quality, marketing and management, sustainable agriculture and forestry, responses to climate change, resource efficiency etc. In its extensive experimental fields, AUP supports the implementation of integrated applied research for designing solutions for agricultural business. The structure of AUP comprises of four faculties and 14 auxiliary units employing 203 teachers, including 124 professors and associate.

AUP is well-positioned on the national and international research scene. Through academic and research contracts and agreements for cooperation with national and international agencies and institutions, private agricultural companies and more than 100 universities from Europe, Asia, Africa and the USA, AUP ensures continuous excellence in research results and innovation projects. The university is active in the students and teachers exchange and joint degrees with international partnering universities.

Croatia

TERA TEHNOPOLIS Ltd.

TERA TEHNOPOLIS Ltd. is one of the leading regional technology transfer hubs in Croatia, with strong emphasis on agriculture and food. It has a considerable portfolio of services, know-how (including patents, trademarks etc.), and an extensive network of relevant stakeholders which enables it to support knowledge-based entrepreneurs in the field of agriculture and food technology.

Czech Republic

University of Chemistry and Technology (lead entity)

Faculty of Food and Biochemical Technology of the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague is where EIT Food Hub’s activities are performed. It ranks among leading university centers of food science and embraces both traditional food science fields, food technologies and innovations for the food industry, as well as current trends in the development of food and biochemical sciences, food analysis and nutrition, including several ISO 17025 accredited laboratories dealing with food quality, safety and authenticity assessment.

Hub Innovation (startup support)

Impact Hub is a global network focused on building communities with impact at scale via collaboration. In the Czech Republic, the organisation brings together a community of 1,700 entrepreneurs in 4 coworking centers for which we create not only inspiring spaces for cooperation and meetings but especially acceleration programs, startup incubators, workshops and conferences. The main driving force is the emphasis on impact & sustainability and we use SDG goals as a lens through which we view our impact in the world.

Estonia

Tartu Biotehnoloogia Park

Tartu Biotechnology Park (TBP) provides physical infrastructure and business development and consultancy services to companies and R&D institutions. It supports companies in finding cooperation partners and is active in the establishment process of new companies.
The main aim is to support companies in developing their business through direct consultations, provide support with the help of EU programs and support the local innovation ecosystem through different collaborations, projects and events.
The aim of TBP is to create a favourable and developing environment for the promotion of biotechnological entrepreneurship in Estonia.
Starting from September 2005 TBP runs the BioMed incubator for biotechnology (including foodtech and cosmetics).

Hungary

Campden BRI Hungary Ltd. (lead entity)

Campden BRI Hungary is an independent R&D centre that has skills and experience on knowledge transfer, training, networking, fostering innovation on FSCM, transparency and food safety risk assessment, application of transdisciplinary knowledge and solutions from ICT, advanced manufacturing sectors for solving technological problems in the modernization of the food industry by using their enabling functions. This is supported by practical experience in food and process development, legal, consumer and sensory research.

PANNON Pro Innovations (startup support) 

PANNON is a private consultancy providing a wide range of innovation management and entrepreneurship support activities. Their key focus areas are sustainability, food innovation, circular economy, sustainable cities, energy-transition and bioeconomy. PANNON works with startups from the very early stage to mature, investment-ready ones. With their excellent team and a huge network in the sustainability and business sector, they are pioneers in supporting cleantech startups and entrepreneurs in Hungary. They have been delivering EIT Climate-KIC startup programmes since 2014, have been organizing local workshops and recruiting Hungarian startups for EIT Food and EIT Raw Materials programmes since 2021.

Latvia

Riga Technical University

RTU is the only polytechnic university in Latvia and the largest university in the country – it educates and trains almost 15 thousand students. RTU is focused on becoming a third generation university that not only provides high quality education, but also conducts advanced research and ensures innovation and technology transfer, practically implementing scientific discoveries. RTU is constantly developing its infrastructure by constructing a campus on Ķīpsala Island. On completion, the campus will be the most advanced engineering study centre in the Baltic Region.

Lithuania

AgriFood Lithuania DIH 

AgriFood Lithuania DIH is a one-stop-shop for AgriFood Tech innovation development services and cooperation opportunities. In 2020, the European Commission included AgriFood Lithuania DIH as one of two good practice examples of European sectoral DIHs in the JRC science for policy report. This digital innovation center connects the most important Lithuanian research, business and public stakeholders united by the common goal to develop new digital solutions for the agri-food sector.

Romania

Impact Hub Bucharest

Launched back in 2012, Impact Hub Bucharest supports the development of entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives with positive impact through coworking spaces, growth and incubation programs, conferences and events and an online platform to digitize our support for entrepreneurs and make it available nationwide. Impact Hub Bucharest is part of the global Impact Hub network that has over 100 locations on 5 continents.
Impact Hub Bucharest has an active role in both innovation ecosystem as a connector and facilitator, but also in the food system as an events and acceleration programs organizer. For Impact Hub Bucharest to represent EIT Food as an EIT Food Hub is a great opportunity to connect the national network of agri-food entrepreneurs and innovators with European opportunities.

Serbia

Association "SEE ICT" 

Startit is building the Serbian tech and startup community by leveraging its dominant tech media outlet with up to 100.000 readers every month, the biggest nation-wide network of tech community spaces which garner 25.000 visits to 500 events per year and longest-running startup accelerator which was the first European partner in Google’s new global acceleration programme.

Slovakia

Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (lead entity)

Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra is the only agricultural university in Slovak Republic. One of the main research focuses of the university is the food sector. With its national scope, the university brings the education, research and development and the transfer into practice together. The relevant internal infrastructure of the university for "agricultural product - food system" prioritly includes the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Sciences and the AgroBioTech Research Center with Transfer Centre. The university created National Platform AgroBioFood Nitra to present Slovak Republic in the field of foodstuffs and biotechnology as the national node.

Slovak Business Agency (startup support) 

Slovak Business Agency (SBA) is the oldest specialized non-profit organization for the support of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It is the unique platform of public and private sectors. Under the umbrella of the National Business Centres present in each of the 8 regions in Slovakia, acting as a one-stop-shops, SBA provides a broad portfolio of support services for potential starting and existing small and medium businesses (SMEs) from different sectors of the economy. The services are provided within the frames of 4 programmes designed according to the needs of existing and potential SMEs at different life-cycle. The main type of services provided includes organisation of seminars, webinars, lectures, and conferences for SMEs; individual consulting and mentoring; an internship programme; match-making services; assessments and studies to analyse Slovak business environment and to provide recommendations to reform the regulatory and policies framework in order to improve business climate and boost investments; awareness raising and communication activities.

Slovenia

University of Ljubljana Biotechnical Faculty

The Faculty’s mission is to offer higher professional education, undergraduate and postgraduate university study programmes, as well as research and professional and advisory services in the areas of living nature (biology, microbiology), agriculture, forestry and fishery (forestry, animal science, agronomy) and in closely related production technologies (wood science, food science, biotechnology). All the educational and research disciplines provided at the Biotechnical Faculty incorporate the issues of management of natural resources (soil, space, flora and fauna, water). The Biotechnical Faculty, with its research into environmental resources and its sustainable management orientation, is an institution needed by every nation in its efforts to define and preserve its identity.

Türkiye

Impact hub Istanbul:

Operating in 60 countries around the world, and with more than 100 centers, Impact Hub is a platform which brings the impact driven changemakers together and provides the collaborative envirnment they need. Serving as a member of the global Impact Hub network, Impact Hub Istanbul designs collaborations with influencial partners and provides programs, events, mentorship, office areas and networking support for social entreprenerurs and impact oriented individuals and istitutions. The Impact Hub membership is based on a system that consists of people from a wide variety of discuplines like entrepreneurs, consultants, investors, designers, freelancers, etc. Vibrant community, inspiring space and meaningful content are the core of the Impact Hub experience.

With the local community and global network, Impact Hub Istanbul is making progress to build a more sustainable world for everyone and have a common language on the Global Sustainable Development Goals (SGD) for the global issues that demand urgent action.

Portugal

BGI

BGI is a deep technology accelerator spinoff of MIT Portugal. Over the last 11 years, we developed unique methodologies for maximizing impact and reducing risk of deep technology based ventures across 2 main sectors: healthcare and cleantech. BGI develops tens of initiatives ranging from education, acceleration to open innovation.

BGI has been granted several awards: considered top 50 accelerator in the world (Valuer.ai), top 20 in Europe (Fundacity) and top business accelerator worldwide (UBI). These distinctions were granted based on BGI’s achievements: so far, 149 ventures were supported; 7 of those exited; €274m were raised by alumni.

BGI collaborates with 5 of the EIT knowledge and innovation communities (KIC): Health, Digital, Climate, Urban Mobility and Food. Due to our track record, we have been distinguished as an example of the Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) community. BGI is part of the ENRICH (European Network of Research and Innovation Centres and Hubs), a global network focused on supporting EU research and innovation entrepreneurs internationalizing to other regions.

Italy

Impact Hub Siracusa:

An independent private cooperative company founded in 2012 focused on Social Innovation, with a wide network of partners and affiliates at a regional, national and Euro-Mediterranean level.

Impact Hub Siracusa counts on a local community of 100+ social innovators and entrepreneurs, a management team of 5 people, highly skilled as business and social enterprise experts, trainers, consultants and facilitators. Beside the core team, other professionals support the activities. Activities are carried on and delivered through services, project design, events, trainings, consultancies.

It runs a 400 sqm coworking space in Ortigia, historical center of the town, where local people and digital nomads work aside to learn from each other and to cross-pollinate.

Impact Hub is one of the world’s largest networks focused on building entrepreneurial communities for impact at sacle- home to the innovators, the dreamers and the entrepreneurs who are creating tangible solutions to the world’s most pressing issues. It counts today 100+ spaces around the globe and a community of 16.000+ purpose driven people.

The University of Bari Aldo Moro (UNIBA):

The University of Bari Aldo Moro (UNIBA), was founded in 1925 and is attended today by about 60,000 students, across the Bari, Brindisi, and Taranto campuses. UNIBA has 8 training courses on agriculture, food production and food biotechnology. In addition, there are 3 PhD courses and 1 Master relevant to food production, food safety, food chemistry, and nutrition.

Aside from teaching, the university is also focused on scientific research at the doctorate level. UNIBA is targeted to training of specific professional figures, transferring knowledge and research results to industrial, business, social and cultural contexts.

Moreover, UNIBA has a Contamination Lab in which young students, graduates, PhD students and start uppers meets and develop innovative ideas in different fields, like Food, agriculture e circular economy and has created TECNOPOLIS PST, a technological scientific park that promote innovative enterprises, spin-off, technology transfer to local and national enterprises.

UNIBA is member of more than 90 national and international academical consortiums and associations and is partner of National Technology Agrifood Cluster CL.A.N., a multi-stakeholder network of the key national players of the entire Agri-food chain: a partnership of companies, research centres and institutions set up to promote sustainable economic growth, based on research and innovation in the industry and acting as partner for Italian and European Institutions.

Greece

Industry Disruptors Game Changers (IDGC)

Industry Disruptors Game Changers (IDGC) is an independent non profit organization established with the vision to create an extrovert ecosystem that fosters innovative entrepreneurship on a global scale. We deliver this through initiatives that empower mission driven innovators to create scalable companies & bring them in effective partnership with investors, industry leaders & key stakeholders creating an impactful ecosystem.

Agricultural University of Athens (AUA)

The Agricultural University of Athens, in partnership with the non-profit organisation, named Industry Disruptors - Game Changers, taking advantage and making the best of its research and educational experience, inasmuch the research infrastructure, across the agri-food range, is expected to interconnect that development community, throughout Europe, with the domestic research, creativity and inventiveness, besides the entrepreneurial ecosystem, in the agri-food field.