Energy for Europe: KIT Coordinates Association for a Sustainable Supply System
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology will fund the KIC InnoEnergy in a first phase with presumably about 30 million Euros annually until 2014.
“By establishing a European network, we are meeting the challenge of a sustainable and climate-neutral energy supply. With this, we want to close the innovation gap in the energy sector in Europe”, underlines Professor Hans-Jörg Bauer, spokesman of the KIT Energy Center and of the KIC InnoEnergy. According to Bauer, this requires entrepreneurial thinking in research, education, and innovation. The consortium will therefore be managed like an enterprise.
In the first four years, KIC InnoEnergy plans to train 1500 master and Ph. D. students. It is aimed at producing 65 energy patents and 50 spin-offs. In addition, 90 new products in the field of energy technologies shall be commercialized. In 2011, the annual budget of KIC InnoEnergy will be about 110 million Euros. In the coming years, the budget is expected to increase continuously.
The KIT Energy Center assumed a central role in the preparation of this successful proposal.