COST-EIT pre-Jumpstarter webinar 2026

Join us on 19 March at 10:00-12:00 Brussels time!
🔗 Link to join the meeting on Teams

Please register at the bottom of this page
and on the day use the link above to join in.

What is the EIT Jumpstarter?

EIT Jumpstarter is the award-winning pre-acceleration programme for scientists, researchers, and innovators, who want to validate their idea and develop business skills to create and run its own start-up.
The programme, powered by the EIT Community, focuses on talents coming from the countries located in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe as well as EU Outermost Regions (further specified below), where the overall pace of innovation is moderate or Modest, according to the European Innovation Scoreboard.
EIT Jumpstarter has brought to live already over 150 startups and trained over 1500 researchers, scientists, and professionals. It is free of charge and doesn’t require equity-shares.
Thematic fields: Healthcare, Food & Agritech, Metals, Minerals, Advanced Materials & Industrial Side Streams, Energy & Renewables, Advanced & Green Manufacturing, Smart Cities & Mobility. This year's edition will also host a special cohort for Maltese founders with solutions in all mentioned areas as well as Digital, Climate and Creative Industries.
Find out more at 🔗 eitjumpstarter.eu!

Who are the participants?

Researchers, scientists, professionals curious and eager to find solutions to some of the global intersectional challenges such as energy crisis, access to raw materials, health, well-being and active ageing, sustainable manufacturing or smart and livable cities. Very often they have necessary scientific background and research experience, but they lack business skills or have never validated their idea on the market.
During the seven-month-long programme, the participants are equipped with a unique business skill set that is a must for future entrepreneurs, including business modelling and validation of the market need. They also gain best-in-class networking and understand how to bring their innovation from the lab to the market and make a potential impact in their respective industry.
EIT Communities are carefully selecting the best candidates to enable quality peer-to-peer learning. The most promising teams will be awarded cash prizes for further development.

Eligibility criteria:

The competition is open to all individuals and teams of natural persons – citizens of the 🔗 EIT Regional Innovation Scheme eligible or Western Balkan countries. This year for the first time programme will be open to applicants from Armenia.
Natural persons: researchers, master and PhD students or research groups from universities and research organizations; professionals, entrepreneurs or idea owners that have an idea/ solution that is targeting the scope of one of our categories and want to start a company.
As a result of the programme, the newly created company connected to the business idea should be registered during the year of 2026 in one of the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme eligible countries and territories: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Türkiye, Ukraine, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Réunion, Martinique, Mayotte and Saint-Martin (France), the Azores and Madeira (Portugal), and the Canary Islands (Spain).
The applications can be submitted either by a single idea holder or by a team represented by a contact person.
There is no pre-set number of members in a team, but maximum two (2) members are eligible for financing support.
The programme is run in English.

Additional information:
COST-EIT pre-Jumpstarter webinar 2025 (webinar, February 2025)
From ideas to solutions – The concrete wins of the COST - EIT Jumpstarter synergy (COST News, February 2026)