Portugal is one of the leading countries driving innovation in Europe. Highly focused on startups and with a system supported by hubs and growth accelerators, it attracts the attention of technology companies. How important has the country’s contribution been in leveraging innovation in leveraging innovation in Europe?
Portugal has become one of Europe’s key engines of innovation — and its impact is increasingly visible. In the European Innovation Scoreboard 2025, Portugal ranks above the EU average among Moderate Innovators, driven by strong public support for business R&D and a high share of companies bringing new products and services to market.
This momentum comes from a dynamic ecosystem of universities, SMEs, and public institutions, with small and medium-sized companies making up around 70% of business participants. Portugal’s model — combining local creativity with strong European cooperation — shows how national innovation systems can help close Europe’s innovation gap and turn research into real benefits for citizens.
The EIT is proud to be part of this success. Between 2021 and 2024, we invested €37 million in Portuguese innovators, supporting 79 partners across nine Knowledge and Innovation Communities. In this period, we helped 407 Portuguese start-ups and scale-ups grow — including Porto-based Sword Health, now valued at €3.6 billion — and supported the launch of 55 new innovations. Nearly 30,000 learners also received entrepreneurship and deep tech training through the EIT Community.
Portugal’s growing leadership reflects its strong alignment with Europe’s green, digital, and regional development priorities. Through the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme and other place-based activities, we help innovators connect with partners, access programmes, and strengthen their capabilities.
With the new EIT Community Hub in Portugal, start-ups, researchers, and entrepreneurs now have a direct entry point to Europe’s largest innovation network — boosting their ability to scale across borders, attract investment, and contribute to a more resilient and competitive European innovation landscape.
One of the highlights of the Draghi report is precisely the importance of innovation for Europe’s competitiveness. What is the role of the EIT in this work of developing and supporting the evolution of technology and innovation?
The EIT plays a central role in turning the ambitions of the Draghi report into real, practical results. Its mission is simple: bring together business, education, and research in bottom-up communities of trust so that good ideas can reach the market faster. Through our network of Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs), we connect startups, companies, universities, and researchers across Europe — making innovation more collaborative and opening opportunities to regions that have traditionally been left behind.
The EIT’s vision focuses on closing Europe’s innovation and skills gaps. It supports entrepreneurs and learners through education and training in areas such as AI, clean energy, advanced materials, and sustainable mobility. It also works closely with regions that are less developed in innovation, helping them build stronger ecosystems so that talent and ideas can grow everywhere — not just in Europe’s main hubs.
Aligned with major EU priorities such as the Union of Skills, the Startup and Scale-up Strategy, and the Clean Industrial Deal, the EIT acts as a bridge between policies and people. It helps innovators move from ideas to impact, encourages cross-border cooperation, and strengthens Europe’s ability to compete globally. In short, the EIT turns Europe’s innovation vision into concrete action — driving growth, sustainability, and opportunity across the continent.
How is Europe developing these areas, especially when we talk about, for example, artificial intelligence?
Europe is taking a coordinated, application-led approach to artificial intelligence — combining major investment, skills development, and a values-based model of responsible innovation. The new EU package on AI — including AI Factories, AI Gigafactories, and the AI-Continent Action Plan — together with the recently published strategies on AI in Science and Applied AI, makes sure European citizens and businesses can obtain real benefits from the new technology. The EIT is explicitly named in these strategies as a key partner. At the same time, the newly launched RAISE virtual institute will bring together Europe’s AI resources — from compute and data to talent and research funding — under one shared framework.
The EIT is already contributing strongly to this momentum. Today, around 800 EIT-supported start-ups use AI as their core technology, with a combined value of more than €25 billion. On the education side, we offer a growing range of AI training programmes across our communities, and through EIT Campus and the Deep Tech Talent Initiative we are expanding access to deep tech skills for students, professionals, and workers looking to upskill across Europe.
Europe’s challenge is not only to keep pace with the US and China, but to shape its own model — one rooted in European values, where responsible, inclusive, and ethical AI becomes a competitive strength. Achieving this will require boldness, ambition, and coordinated action across the EU and all Member States.
Is there an estimated calculation of the impact that well-developed innovation and technology could have on the European economy and its market position in the coming years?
Strong innovation and technology deliver real, measurable benefits for Europe’s economy — and the results achieved through the EIT’s Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) show what is possible at scale. The EIT Community is now one of Europe’s most successful innovation networks. We have so far supported almost 10,000 ventures, helped launch over 2,400 products and services, and the companies coming through our pipeline now have a combined valuation of more than €70 billion. Between 2021 and 2024, innovations brought to market by EIT-supported ventures generated nearly €392 million in revenue, with especially fast growth from clean-energy start-ups working on renewables, smart grids, and batteries. Overall, KIC-supported companies recorded €1.1 billion in cumulative revenue growth — a 104% increase from their starting point.
But the impact goes far beyond financial returns. Since 2021, the EIT has helped create over 900 start-ups, supported more than 12,000 young ventures, and trained more than 7,400 graduates through its EIT-labelled Master’s and PhD programmes. With a network of more than 2,100 active partners across Europe, the EIT brings universities, businesses, and research organisations together to turn knowledge into market-ready solutions.
The employment impact is equally significant. While the average European start-up begins with just over one employee, EIT-backed ventures usually start with around seven — showing that they enter the market with stronger technological and organisational foundations. They also grow faster: companies supported by the EIT between 2017 and 2022 increased their employment by an average of 183% within five years, more than twice the EU average.
These results make one thing clear: when Europe invests in innovation, skills, and entrepreneurship, it gains not only competitiveness but also new industries, quality jobs, and sustainable growth for the future.
For 2026, what are the main aspects to be considered, and what projects will be implemented and are worth highlighting?
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, the EIT will continue delivering initiatives that strengthen Europe’s innovation capacity — with a particular focus on skills, deep tech, and the translation of research into deployment.
A key element of our plans is the rollout of the new KIC model, designed around streamlined governance, stronger industry engagement, and financial sustainability from the outset. This approach is being applied immediately with the launch of EIT Water, our newest Knowledge and Innovation Community dedicated to water, marine, and maritime ecosystems. EIT Water will start building its operations in 2026, while preparing for full operations in 2027, and represents an important milestone in applying this next-generation EIT model.
At the same time, we will continue driving initiatives that address Europe’s skills gap. The EIT Higher Education Initiative will keep helping universities become more entrepreneurial and innovation-driven. A new set of projects will support the Union of Skills and the STEM Education Strategic Plan, boosting innovation and entrepreneurship capacity in STEM fields. We will also invite the European Universities Alliances (EUAs) to deepen their cooperation with the EIT ecosystem.
Our Deep Tech Talent Initiative, which has already upskilled and reskilled 1.3 million people, will enter a new phase in 2026. The focus will be on expanding training programmes in line with emerging EU policy needs — especially in advanced digital, industrial and green technologies.
The EIT will also continue contributing directly to the EU Start-up and Scale-up Strategy by tackling barriers such as funding gaps, regulatory obstacles, market fragmentation, talent shortages, gender disparities, and weak links between ecosystems. We support early-stage funding via our sector-specific KICs, help develop regulatory sandboxes, and strengthen intellectual property expertise in cooperation with EUIPO and the European Patent Office. The goal is clear: to build a seamless EU innovation funnel, connecting ideas, start-up creation, and scale-up finance. Several KICs, including EIT Urban Mobility and EIT Manufacturing, are already fully aligned with this effort.
Implementation and scale will be the top priorities in 2026 — for the EU as a whole and for the EIT. Our nine KICs will roll out their Business Plans with ringfenced budgets for AI activities worth tens of millions of euros. In parallel, we have launched the EIT Community AI, which brings together all KICs to support high-potential AI start-ups and accelerate innovation projects that turn AI research into deployable products and services.
The physical side of AI — including AI-enabled robotics — will become increasingly important, alongside continued investment in research, compute capacity, talent, high-quality data, and model development. In 2026, the EIT and its KICs will continue initiatives such as the AI Founders Club and the AI Challenge to speed up adoption and scaling. The priority is clear: moving from innovation to deployment, and ensuring Europe’s human-centric approach delivers visible benefits for citizens and businesses.
Finally, strong private-sector engagement will be essential. Europe’s global position will depend on companies stepping up, co-investing, and building on the significant public investments made at EU and national level — across AI, deep tech, and our new KICs, including EIT Water.
