EIT Food is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT)
A consortium of over 60 partners (universities, companies and research organizations) aiming to revolutionize food innovation, education and entrepreneurship in Europe, focusing on the consumer at the epicenter. Two of the EIT FOOD partners are from Israel (Technion and Strauss-group), and 9 out about 50 startups which form the EIT FOOD “Rising Food Stars” startup club are from Israel.
The consortium has a budget of 1.6 billion Euro for 7 years, established by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT), which supports the activities with 400 Million Euro.
Since Prof. Livney was personally invited in 2015 by the consortium organizers to bring the Technion into the consortium, Livney has devoted himself to promote this important initiative. Some of the actions taken in recent years to promote this field are:
- Participating in the writing of the Consortium Proposal towards the competition (which was later won against 3 other competing consortia in 2016);
- Raising the local funds which were required to join and become a core member of this consortium; (100kEu per year- from faculties, individual faculty members and from the Technion president Fund)
- Nominating- and promoting the successful appointment Mr. David Shem Tov of the TRDF to be a member of the Supervisory Board of the EIT Food;
- Promoting campus wide participation in grant submissions,
- Submitting several proposals in education and in innovation, some of which in collaboration with other members of the faculty, which were all funded;
- Representing the Technion in the EIT food partners assemblies and in the regional partners group (“Co-Location Center South”) as a CLC-South Board member.
- Livney serves as the Academic Coordinator of the Technion activities within the EIT FOOD.
Thus far (2018-20) the Technion has won over 3 million Euros in grants within the EIT FOOD.
