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Abonner Climate-KIC

Climate-KIC

Innovation boost to tackle Climate Change

Budapest, Hungary (ots)

While Heads of State are negotiating to
reach a substantial climate agreement in Copenhagen, the EU is 
stepping forward to take the lead in developing innovations to tackle
climate change. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology 
(EIT) has launched a groundbreaking new research, innovation and 
education initiative that aims to answer the various challenges of 
climate change. A pan-European consortium encompassing sixteen world 
class partners from academia, and from the private and public 
sectors, will implement this new and unique network.
The new "Climate Knowledge and Innovation Community (Climate-KIC)"
is a major initiative the EIT has announced today in Budapest (see 
box). The Climate-KIC program brings together the expertise of world 
class partners in a shared effort to make a step-change in Europe's 
innovation capacity to meet the climate change challenge in the years
to come and to prepare for a new low-carbon society. In responding to
this challenge, we need to bring about changes to how we produce, 
distribute, and consume goods, and to how we meet our requirements 
for energy, food, and water in the context of protecting the 
environment.
Major investments - high profile partners
With E120 million requested from the EIT, the partners themselves 
planned to contribute roughly five times that amount so that 
eventually a total of up to E750 million would be spent over the next
four years on a range of innovation and education programs. The 
detailed numbers that finally will be approved by the EIT have 
however not been communicated yet and are subject to negotiation. It 
is the first time that companies from various sectors and scientific 
experts will work together in a large integrated initiative in the 
area of climate change. «We are very pleased to have been selected 
for this important initiative that will equip the next generation of 
entrepreneurs and technologists with innovative tools and which will 
pioneer new thinking and practice», says Prof. Bert Van der Zwaan, as
interim CEO on behalf of the partners of the Climate-KIC. The 
Climate-KIC was selected at the end of a one year process.
Among the sixteen core partners are universities, companies and 
public sector organizations. From academia, the core partners of the 
consortium are: ETH Zurich (Switzerland), Imperial College London 
(UK), a French consortium consisting of Paris area campus (IPSL, CEA,
ParisTech, UVSQ, INRA, MeteoFR, Advancity), a German consortium led 
by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (including TU 
Berlin, TU Munich and GFZ), as well as a Dutch consortium consisting 
among others of Utrecht University, Delft University of Technology 
and Wageningen University and Research Center. The partner companies 
are: Bayer, Beluga Shipping GmbH, Cisco, DSM, EDF, SAP, Schiphol, 
Shell, Solar Valley, and Thales. Climate KIC also brings together an 
association of six major European regions which will test, develop 
and facilitate the real-world application of new eco-innovations.
Educate a new generation
The Climate-KIC will foster interactions between European 
research, education and business innovation.The aim is to create a 
generation of climate change entrepreneurs who will have the 
multidisciplinary skills to develop economically, environmentally and
socially sustainable approaches to coping with the effects of global 
warming. Furthermore, roadmaps with short- and long-term goals will 
be developed to elaborate investment strategies and to support 
innovation in small and medium sized enterprises. The research and 
educational projects are to be conducted at five co-location centers 
in Berlin/Potsdam, London, Paris area, Utrecht and Zurich, places 
where the partners will come together to work on the projects.
Pioneering research and innovation projects
The Climate-KIC will focus on strategic research and innovation 
projects that are expected to have the greatest impact in terms of 
enabling regions to mitigate against climate change, and adapt to its
effects. Four themes are of particular interest: Assessing climate 
change and managing its drivers, Transitioning to resilient low  
carbon cities, Adaptive water management, and  Zero carbon production
systems.
For example, among the numerous challenges European societies are 
facing with regard to the climate change, one is the question of how 
to monitor, assess and certify the effective CO2 emissions on a local
level, to establish a fair market where CO2 certificates are to be 
traded. This requires new collaborations between companies engaged in
the development of sensor/observation technologies, and those  
involved in modeling and accounting. Using such cross-fertilization 
of the partners' expertise, one of the many projects aims to develop 
tools and mechanisms to account and verify emissions of CO2 from the 
level of companies and cities to the globe.
Other projects will develop new tools for urban planning, for  
water management, new adaptive agricultural processes or low-carbon 
emission manufacturing in various sectors. «A strength of the KIC 
initiative is that with sixteen partners from various sectors we  
will be able to develop solutions that integrate well in the whole 
value chain», says Prof. Bert Van der Zwaan.
Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs)
The Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) are an initiative 
of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). Their 
main goals are to create a vision for a sustainable future with 
strong impact on European society and to transfer higher education, 
research and innovation activities to the business context and their 
commercial application by creating e.g. spin-offs and start-ups. The 
KICs are financially supported by the European Union, which has 
pledged initial funding of over 300 million Euros, and by corporate 
partners joining particular KICs. The KICs will be established for   
periods of up to fifteen years to guarantee mid- to long-term 
perspectives to the chosen partnerships. In an initial round the EIT 
has launched three KICs in the fields of climate change mitigation 
and adaptation, sustainable energy and future information and 
communication society.
www.eit.europa.eu
www.climate-kic-proposal.org/ (including information on the   
Climate-KIC partners)
Please note that the EIT will hold a press conference in Brussels 
on Thursday: 17 December, at 11.15 a.m.
For more details see:  http://www.eit.europa.eu/
For the webcast see: http://scic.ec.europa.eu/str/basic/berlsal7/

Contact:

ETH Zurich
Corporate Communications
Media Relations
Roman Klingler
Tel.: +41/44/632'41'41
E-Mail: media_relations@cc.ethz.ch

Imperial College London
Press Office
Laura Gallagher, Communications Department
Tel.: +44/20-7594-6702
E-Mail: l.gallagher@imperial.ac.uk

Dutch Consortium Universiteit Utrecht
Communicatie Service Centrum, Press Office
Peter van der Wilt
Tel: +31/30-253-3705
E-Mail: P.M.vanderWilt@uu.nl

German Consortium Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact
Research Press Office
Uta Pohlmann & Patrick Eickemeier
Tel.: +49/331-266-2507
E-Mail: presse@pik-potsdam.de

Paris Consortium
Press Office
Stephane Laveissiere
Tel.: +33/1-64-50-27-53
E-Mail: stephane.laveissiere@cea.fr