Abstract:

Europe currently faces a significant innovation challenge. Despite an excellent research base, dynamic companies and creative talent, good ideas are all too rarely transformed into new products or services. It is necessary to change the mind-set and promote a more innovative and entrepreneurial culture. This is essential for capturing the value of research and innovation, for setting up new ventures and for the market deployment of innovations in potential high-growth sectors.

This is why the European Institute of Technology (EIT) created in 2010 the first KIC (Knowledge and innovation community), aiming at integrating education and entrepreneurship with research and innovation and by employing a results-oriented approach and a business logic.

InnoEnergy was created as a KIC in the field of sustainable energy in 2010. It allies a large partnership of industrial and academic actors, developing together different projects aiming at increasing the innovation in this field.

Education plays a vital role in this value chain. By developing and teaching excellent education programmes to equip the young generation with the right skills and competences (entrepreneurship, innovation, business, multidisciplinary approach,..), we can feed more easily the market.

As part of these education programmes, the InnoEnergy PhD School was set up to inculcate into PhD candidates the knowledge and competencies required to drive innovation in the field of sustainable energy in Europe, and make Europe a source of disruptive innovation in the global energy landscape. Specifically, the PhD School focuses on transforming early-stage research (low-TRL concepts, laboratory research, papers and patents) into innovations with market potential (high-TRL concepts, prototypes, and products) through a curriculum that brings together education, research, and industry in ways that go beyond what traditional PhD programmes can offer, backed by a strong partnership and entrepreneurship strategy designed to get new innovations to market.

The InnoEnergy PhD School brings together a unique combination of strengths:
· a sharp focus on the energy sector,
· PhD candidates’ exposure to non-academic research organisations and companies,
· 100% international mobility,
· a strong Business, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship component in the curriculum,
· and a broad network of academic and non-academic partners. Of the PhD School’s 41 partners, 30 are from higher education and 11 are non-academic research organisations and businesses.

Thanks to this partnership with universities and high-ranked business schools in Europe, we are able to provide to the PhD candidates usually focused on their research work, a larger scope of opportunities. They have access to different modules during the time of their PhD research, so they can go deeper in topics such as : Entrepreneurship and creation of business opportunities - Market analysis and IPR (intellectual property rights) - Business planning - Financing and budgeting - Sales and communication.

As a result, 11 PhD candidates from all over Europe who participated in this programme from 2011 created their own start-up.

Keywords:

Europe, research, innovation, entrepreneurship, market.