EIT Climate-KIC restructures to deliver services

EIT Climate-KIC is implementing a new organisational structure, designed to meet the increasing demand, across Europe, for EIT Climate-KIC’s role as an orchestrator of ‘systems transformation as a service’.

This is a method to help catalyse fast decarbonisation across the economy; to drive climate adaptation and resilience through circular economy approaches in cities, countries and regions; and, in the case of industries, to generate new markets, business models and value chains coherent with a 1.5 degree world.

“Our long-planned restructuring could not come at a more relevant time, when COVID-19 has shown the need for agile organisations who can help deliver on Europe’s Green Deal ambitions,” said Kirsten Dunlop, CEO of EIT Climate-KIC. “Governments, cities, regions and companies are looking for transformative ways to become zero carbon, as they emerge from the crisis. EIT Climate-KIC will now be ready to support them by orchestrating solutions to these massive challenges.”

Despite the timing, the restructure is not a response to the impacts of COVID-19, but rather a planned step in a strategic development process that began in 2017. 

“Through the restructuring, the organisation is building on its most important assets: its people and its community of over 400 partners,” said Anders Wijkman, chair of the EIT Climate-KIC Association Governing Board. “EIT Climate-KIC orchestrates, catalyses and supports innovation for climate action, and it is our partner universities, businesses, cities and NGOs who are giving us an unrivalled breadth of knowledge, expertise and relationships to make that innovation happen.”

The restructure should help the organisation broaden its revenue sources as it opens up beyond the funding cycle of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT) grant, on which EIT Climate-KIC was founded in 2010. 

At the heart of the organisation’s strategic approach is the Deep Demonstration initiative, through which it offers ‘systems transformation as a service’ to some of Europe’s most ambitious ‘challenge owners’—including city mayors, government ministries, industry and community leaders and CEOs of major companies.

Deep Demonstrations provide a framework for delivering on a European Green Deal, putting climate innovation at the heart of economic development to deliver inclusive and sustainable prosperity, social cohesion, and futureproof skills, capabilities and jobs. EIT Climate-KIC is already working with 40 challenge owners in cities, regions, countries and industries across Europe.