Higher Education Initiative Business Plan 2026

The competition will consist of two stages: Stage 1 – Online Proposal Submission and Stage 2 – In-Person Startup Pitch Competition.

Stage 1: Online Proposal  

Within the first stage, startups will submit an online application, including a Pitch Deck presentation. Based on the evaluation of these applications, the top five-ranked startups will be selected and invited to the in-person Startup Pitch Competition (second stage).

Online applications need to be submitted through the  EIT Urban Mobility Programmes Portal (NetSuite) (see section 7.2 of the Call for a Prize-Rules of contest ) for submission steps). Proposals will have to follow the standard submission and evaluation procedure. Proposals will first be checked for admissibility and eligibility, see Section 6.1 of the HEIPowered Startup Pitch Competition Call for a Prize-Rules of contest . Proposals found admissible and eligible will be evaluated against the award criteria by an External Expert.

Stage 2: In-person Startup Pitch Competition and Selection ,

In the second stage, the five shortlisted startups will present their ventures through live pitches at the in-person Startup Pitch Competition and selection of the three winners. This event is scheduled to take place in Q4 2026 in a European city (tbc).

The EIT HEIPowered Startup Pitch Competition Selection Committee will selected the three winner startups (see Section 6.2.2 of the HEIPowered Startup Pitch Competition Call for a Prize-Rules of contest ). Three winners will be selected to receive:  

Cash fund:  

1st place: 15.000€   

2nd place: 10.000€  

3rd place: 5.000€   

Mentorship:  

The three winning startups will each receive 8 hours of individualized mentoring from a pool of expert mentors. 

Additionally, the two remaining finalists will each receive 3 hours of individualized mentoring. 

Applications must be submitted through the EIT Urban Mobility Programmes Portal (NetSuite). Detailed information on the submission and evaluation process is available on the EIT Urban Mobility website (Prize page accessible here), and in the Prize document (accessible here).

For further information, the Guidelines for Applicants are accessible here. Register to the information session on 22 June from 12 am to 1 pm, through the EIT Higher Education Initiative Community, with the following link.