2021 is almost over, and ready to call it a wrap. With the COVID-19 Pandemic still front and centre, in 2021 the EIC Community continued to reinvent the wheel. We transformed the pandemic restrictions into new hybrid event formats, new challenges into new collaborative platforms, and calendars got full of eventful activities on the virtual stage. From the hottest trends to the greatest announcements of 2021, we invite you to join us and review the stories, challenges and achievements that shaped our Community in 2021.
What made the news and headlines?
It arrived that time of the year. And by saying this, we don't mean the Christmas fever or your Secret Santa. We mean the traditional wrap-up articles trying to summarise the past 12 months in three paragraphs, or even better: in one single word. We don't like to miss trends, so if we have to define the EIC Community's year in one word, 'creativity' might be the one. 2021 was a creative year for the EIC Business Acceleration Services. We launched 3 new programmes, different event formats and new platforms/tools. All these novelties and changes were announced in our main virtual stage, generating more traffic and buzz than ever.
In 2021, the EIC Community published more than 270 articles, and it's not a surprise that during the second year of the pandemic, a huge part of our coverage was dominated by health success stories or events, initiatives from female entrepreneurship, and environmental actions. The new EIC Greenhouse Gas Programme, EIC Overseas Trade Fairs (OTF) Programme 2.0 and EIC Women Leadership Programme's initiatives have fed the news and kept our beneficiaries' agenda busy.
The must-read article of 2021 is also the all-time record of the EIC Community: the call for mentors from the EIC Women Leadership Programme achieved more than 10K views and gathered more than 500 registrations.
A year full of challenges (literally)
2021 also marked the launching of the EIC Challenge Platform. Through this new website, EIC-funded startups, large corporates, private and public procurers, and other organisations with access to the EIC Community can promote the solutions they seek as a new challenge and use the power of the EIC crowd and its virtual stage to find innovations and potential partnerships.
This new digital environment brings together EIC challengers with problem-solvers eager to develop and implement innovations in different sorts of fields. The platform already has open challenges from large Corporates such as Mastercard, Deutsche-Ban or Merck, and you can be the next one challenging or being challenged!
Networks are here to stay
The pandemic has also taught us the value and power of a collective mindset. This year, the EIC continued its strong work in providing beneficiaries with several Community Events to improve their business development and enrich their network. The sessions covered different areas of interest, such as Marketing, Funding, Intellectual Property Rights and Negotiation, gathered more than 190 EIC Community beneficiaries, and registered an overall satisfaction of 91% among the participants.
It is also safe to say that 2021 marked in stone that our Winter & Summer Schools are one of our Community's favourite formats, generating great attention and a high level of engagement. According to our beneficiaries, these events are a great place to promote peer-to-peer learning experiences. Marina Gabarró, Marketing Manager at Mitiga Solutions, highlighted this aspect after attending the EIC Winter School in 2021. "My motivation to join the Winter School was to connect with other experts in the field and exchange best practices, stay up to date about new trends and look for different sources of inspiration and advice", she noted.
For Géraldine Baekelandt, Application Specialist at Irubis, the session helped her take an important first step to develop an unexplored marketing side. "I'm a scientist, but I also need to develop our marketing strategy even if this task is quite new for me. I'm trying to find places where I can learn more about these topics, and the EIC Winter School was one of them".
Moving forward
The EIC Community will have more tools and activities to meet the business needs. If you have any suggestions for topics that you would like to see us cover, you can share your ideas in the comments section!
The EIC Community Events will continue to be a regular part of the European Innovation Council Business Acceleration Services and we will start the year with a Community Training, particularly focused on ‘Internationalization: going beyond borders’. Keep your eyes on our EIC Community for more wrap-ups on Corporate, Investor and Procurers Day, as well as our activities for Pathfinder-early-stage companies. And, as always, check our BAS Calendar for future events!
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.