Chair of Strategy, Innovation and Cooperation

Strengthening Startups and AI in Europe: €1.5 Million for the EU Project PIONEER+

The Chair of Entrepreneurship is a key partner in the newly launched European project PIONEER+ ("Pioneering Innovation & Entrepreneurship capacity building activities through Digital Transformation"), which is funded with €1.5 million by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) as part of its HEI Initiative.

The project’s goal is to turn universities across Europe into centers of excellence for digital innovation and entrepreneurial thinking. Under the leadership of the Ionian University (Greece), RPTU – represented by its Chair of Entrepreneurship and Startup Office – is working together with eight partners from seven countries.
RPTU’s involvement focuses on three main contributions:

  • Developing and researching a methodology to foster university-based spin-offs, in collaboration with the Business + Innovation Center Kaiserslautern (bic).
  • Designing and delivering courses on “AI in Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship”, which integrate cutting-edge AI tools into entrepreneurship education.
  • Organizing international summer schools to support technology-based startups led by researchers and scientists.
     

“With this project, we are exploring and developing ways to strengthen science-based entrepreneurship across Europe,” says Professor Dennis Steininger, project lead at RPTU. “Digital technologies in particular open up new opportunities to turn research into entrepreneurial innovation – and with PIONEER+, we aim to unlock this potential in a sustainable way.”
PIONEER+ is part of the fourth call of the EIT HEI Initiative and runs from 2025 to 2027. Coordinated by the Ionian University, the project takes a holistic approach to innovation support, including mentoring programs, TTO development, new curricula, and creativity-focused entrepreneurship training.
More information: https://eit-hei.eu/projects/pioneer/