Powered by the EU|BIC community and co-hosted by EU|BIC JIC, the 2023 EBN Congress will gather innovation experts, business incubation executives, corporate leaders, and senior-level government officials in Brno, Czechia.
Together, #EBN2023 will find solutions, envision futures, and foster international collaborations for stability, prosperity, and well-being through
innovation.
The urgency for innovation is rising. The uncertainty of our times, caused by back-to-back global crises and existential challenges, must be tackled through innovation. The development of new technologies, business models, and tools is required at a pace never seen before. The innovation community needs to adapt its business, innovation practices (IR&D), structures, and talents to face incoming challenges, new markets, and society’s needs.
New methodologies are needed. More than ever, tailoring your organisation to specific focuses became a prerequisite in innovation, from digitalisation and systemic design to sustainability. Innovation is the beginning of new possibilities and can be a solution to crises.

Reasons to participate

• Meet future partners - develop a global network of innovation leaders, experts, and decision-makers
• Debate, co-learn, and design strategies to navigate your business through the instability of our times
• Develop new strategies, business models, and collaborations – mitigate risks and re-position your company
• Create opportunities - repurpose knowledge, resources, practices, and technologies to face adversity
• Tap into a cultivated and curated network of business support actors and business multipliers

Leading questions:

• How do you incorporate new tools and develop partnerships to your business support and your clients’ activities to meet sustainability & digitisation goals, and a higher quality of living?
• How should innovation deal with uncertainty while tackling the complex problems we face nowadays?
• How to increase the capacity for rapid innovation and response to new challenges—every day, not just in a crisis. How, where, and what existing knowledge, resources and technology can we repurpose? What skills are necessary to stimulate rapid innovation?

• Transversal themes:

  • Green Economy & sustainability
  • Digital Transformation
  • Cultural and Creative Industries
  • Space
  • Cybersecurity

Thematic Blocks

Orchestrating regional innovation ecosystems

• Building lasting partnerships for malleable, reactive, and responsive ecosystems
• Systemic design and frameworks for tackling local-global challenges

Business support innovation

• The best actions possible for business support organisations to make sure their clients have scalable success?
• Latest trends and best-practices in supporting innovative business
• The best actions possible for business support organisations to make sure their clients have scalable success?

Access to finance

• Innovative funding methods for the full life cycle of an innovative company
• Building networks of local and external investors (BA networks, VCs, and regional, national, and EU funding, for example)

Build to scale

• Actions that foster EU|BIC clients to have scalable (international) success from the start
• Best tool and methodologies for supporting organisations to scale sustainably

Ukraine

• How can we support Ukrainian Innovation actors and SMEsHow can we support Ukrainian Innovation actors and SMEs

What to expect?

• Direct access to 106 quality certified Business and Innovation Centres (EU|BICs) in 35+ countries worldwide
• Access to 36,000+ entrepreneurial innovators (startups and scale-ups) working on Europe’s most challenging issues, operating in areas ranging from Digital Innovation, Sustainability, to Agri-food, Industry 4.0, Advanced Materials, and New Space
• Brokerage networking with business support executives working with Europe’s future highly-skilled talents, among others active in European Digital Innovation Hubs, ESA Business Innovation Centres and leading university entrepreneurship centre

Why sponsor? Shaping future innovators

• Meet a curated audience of public and private innovation leaders and expand your global network of decision-makers and future innovators
• Gain exclusive access and discover how your organisation can best connect with Europe's largest innovation incubation network
• Hear from thought leaders from across the world, engage in debates, share your ideas and co-design futures for innovation support
• Help set the agenda for how the innovation and business support sector may be transformed by this period of crisis

EBN is a not-for-profit organization that serves a pan-European, global community of people using innovative business as a driver for regional (economic, sustainable, and social) development.
EBN’s initiatives include EU|BIC certification, development and distribution of quality business support programmes, facilitation and initiation of project collaborations, global networking, and advocacy for excellent business support actors like the EU|BICs. There are now more than 106 quality-certified EU|BICs and 40+ Associate Members in over 35 countries shaping the global EU|BIC community.

The EU|BIC community responds to the mission to use business and innovation as a force for regional development with the best possible actions to create thriving startups and SMEs. In other words, EU|BICs take real steps to ensure that their services are the most advantageous to their clients and support greater wellbeing in their regions.