EIT Food

Government Executive Academy


an executive-level advisory and capability-building program

for public sector representatives

that offers insights into challenges related

to food system innovations and regulations



EIT Food Government Executive Academy is an executive-level training program for public sector representatives from Southern and Eastern European countries, deepening their knowledge of agri-food innovations and sectoral regulation, and helping address societal challenges across Europe through mission-based policies and Smart Specialization Strategies.

EIT Food GEA will be held online on 4, 11, 18 and 25 May 2022 with subsequent mentored teamwork and final session in November 29th, 2022. The application deadline is March 15th, 2022.

Listen to Laura Supjeva, EIT Strategy Officer, explaining the benefits of EIT Food Government Executive Academy.

Please read EIT Food GEA brochure

EIT Food is one of the largest and most impactful food-related initiatives worldwide. As a part of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), EIT Food connects partners from leading businesses, universities and research centres across Europe. It is a people-centric and resource-smart transformer of the European food system, driving consumer confidence and improved global health.

EIT Food wants to transform Europe’s food system, making it better for people’s health and better for the environment. EIT Food is a pan-European partnership designed to empower innovators, entrepreneurs and students to develop world-class solutions to food challenges, accelerate innovation, create jobs and increase Europe’s competitiveness. As one of the largest food-related initiatives worldwide, EIT Food wants Europe to lead a global revolution in food innovation and production, improve nutrition and make food systems more resource-efficient, secure, transparent and trusted.

EIT Food Government Executive Academy brings together public sector representatives from countries in Southern and Eastern Europe, covered by the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme (EIT RIS), with professionals working in the field of agri-food innovations from industry, academia and European institutions.


The Academy is an advisory and capability building program that offers insights into challenges related to food system innovations and regulations. It is also an opportunity to exchange best practices that will contribute to further improvements of Research & Innovation Smart Specialization Strategies (RIS3) and inspire the future development of operational programs based on the EU Structural and Investment Funds as well as networking opportunities for public sector representatives from different regions and countries.

Key features:

  • workshops focused on real-life challenges experienced by food industry players and actual needs of industry and customers

  • lectures offering insights into the complexity of food system, state-of-the-art technologies and innovations developed by the agri-food industry

  • highly interactive learning program based on case-studies and real-life examples

  • working with European experts in agri-food industry and innovation management

  • excellent opportunities to build an international network of policy makers working on the agri-food related Research & Innovation Smart Specialization Strategies (RIS3), exchanging experiences to continuously improve the national and regional policies

  • participants do not pay tuition

You will meet:

You will be part of a cohort including public sector representatives from countries of the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme, involved in the design, implementation and/or monitoring of Research & Innovation Smart Specialization Strategies (RIS3) related to agri-food industry or in defining regulatory policies related to agri-food industry. During the Academy, you will meet government executives, directors, managers, scientists and other experts working in the agri-food industry, non-governmental sector, European institutions and media.

You can expect:

The Academy will provide you expert knowledge on challenges faced by the global agri-food industry, state-of-the-art technologies relevant to the contemporary food system and best practices in innovation management. With our guests and experts from the field, you can expect to strengthen the innovation eco-systems in your country, increase the internationalization of your country’s agri-food companies and increase success rates of new product launches to leverage the benefits of public funding distributed for Research & Innovations.

You will also have an opportunity to share good practices, benefit from lessons learned of other countries and participate in an international network of policy experts involved in the updates of RIS3 and the development of the future operational programs based on European Structural and Investment Funds, 2021-2027.


Project partners

Mentors and lecturers

Learning objectives

Testimonials

“Most innovation in the food space today is taking place through entrepreneurial ventures. The most important thing that governments have to undertake is anything that can promote entrepreneurial endeavors. The governments have to ensure that markets are open to new entrepreneurial initiatives, that they can establish themselves and are able to put a very good price on their products.”

Peter Kruger,

Startupbootcamp, PeakBridge VC,

Italy-Malta

I joined the EIT Government Executive Academy to learn how other countries face their food challenges and to network with the Polish enterprises, with government officials from other European Union countries. I wanted to learn from their experience. We had spent three very busy days learning from big companies like Pepsico or Danone about how they innovate and about the tools they use.”

Martins Kokalis,

Ministry of Economics,

Latvia

“I knew from the very first moments this is going to be interesting for networking, which is important in our daily work. My lab is very strongly connected with our region. I thought this is going to be interesting for our regional network and it would help to develop our regional activities in our field.”

Eda Maria Flores Rodas,

Instituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Lazio e della Toscana,

Italy

“My main purpose for being here is to learn how to develop innovation strategies in agri-food sector. I hope that in the new EU [financial] perspective we will have skills, knowledge, how to promote such innovation projects and how to cooperate with business partners and scientific partners to implement advices from this course.”

Monika Woźniak,

National Centre for Research and Development,

Poland

“We have many opportunities to learn about strategies and learn how to improve our agriculture and food sector, to help manufacturers to get better chance in market. Also, I am really glad to have new contacts, have [encountered] different people and different measures and different meanings, and I hope this will help me in my future job.”

Anamarija Matić-Kardoš,

Department of Economy,

City of Osijek, Croatia

“For Castilla and Leon, it is absolutely compulsory to be linked and connected with other regions and stakeholders to produce an open innovation in the agri-food sector. We need to cooperate if we want to produce more economy [outputs] and if we want to increase knowledge to create new jobs in the food industry of our region. The EIT Food Government Executive Academy can provide us with opportunities to get this.”

Pablo Gomez,

Regional Agrifood Ministry,

Castilla y Leon, Spain