New European Bauhaus (NEB) - Stakeholders day

Strategic collaborations to empower the New European Bauhaus accelerator 

• More than 150 people from 28 different countries expressed their interest to attend the meeting for actors involved in leading the New European Bauhaus (NEB) strategy. 
• This session highlighted the common interests of entrepreneurs, investors and professionals from relevant sectors, as well as public and private entities. 
• Furthermore, 12 NEB innovative start-ups participated in a matchmaking activity with 12 international investors focused on sustainability and technology.

Innovation, creativity and design must be connected in order to improve citizens´ quality of life. This is the main emphasis of the New European Bauhaus (NEB) strategy, which was discussed during the Stakeholders day in November. 

This session gave the audience the chance to explore the NEB principles and their relevance in the European ecosystem, the different concepts and their current applicability from a public and private perspective, as well as the connections addressed with entrepreneurship. 

The first part of this workshop, targeted at general public interested in the topic, was opened by Mª Luisa Martínez Muneta from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Alexandros Nikopoulos from the EIT Community NEB, who introduced the specific acceleration and sustainability programmes, and the results in their respective institutions.

Today, sustainability and impact are two key concepts to consider under this NEB scope, and the basis shared by representatives from academia, cities, start-ups and entrepreneurship programmes are critical to boost and grow. 

'The NEB is not a new trend, but a must-have in order to achieve an exponential systemic change for the long term', remarked Laurent Lasserre, VP Sales (Western Europe) and Country Manager (France) from Plan A - a reference corporation that enables thousands of businesses to decarbonise and reach net-zero and SDGs. 

According to María Risueño, Architect from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Senior Design Strategist at Other Tomorrows: 'there are current challenges that involve everybody in the society. We are employees but at the same time we are citizens. We have to understand who is in the room and who is missing to keep playing, not to win'. 

In the session, public institutions were represented by Pier Paolo Peruccio, Member of the Board of Directors at the World Design Organization and Director of the Master’s in Design for Arts at Politecnico di Torino; and Mark Stoevelaar, Project Lead Start-up Residence at City Hall of Amsterdam. Both agreed on the strength of cooperation between the public and the private sector: 'this is a competitive advantage. It's all about balance, a transdisciplinary approach and mindset. We should think outside the box'. 

The NEB translates the European Green Deal into tangible outputs, impactful results and positive experiences, in which the human viewpoint meets business with a climate and design perspective. 

The event provided an opportunity for conversation and debate featuring representatives from public and private entities, academia, industry, as well as entrepreneurs and investors. The strong international emphasis was demonstrated by the fact that more than 150 people from 28 different countries expressed interest to attend virtually. 

"Fostering the investment ecosystem" networking 

Boosting connections was the focus of the second part of this session. For more than two hours, using the popular elevator pitch methodology, the 12 innovative start-ups of the EIT Community NEB Booster 2.0 Accelerator programme introduced their companies, products and services to 12 international venture capital and business angels from 8 different countries, establishing about 150 potential links. 

The purpose of this activity was to develop existing and new contacts all over Europe, as well as generating future opportunities between participating start-ups and stakeholders, which is what start-ups value most about acceleration programmes. 

The activity was led by the Entrepreneurship Department at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid with the support of EIT Climate-KIC, in the framework of the EIT Community NEB Booster 2.0. Accelerator programme.