Pathways to Impact for PhDs

Pathways to Impact of EIT Food is for Talented PhD students from across Europe and globally.

This programme will provide an introduction and starting tools on how to change the world by using your PhD research. Join us, if you are motivated to:

• Bring entrepreneurial skills into your work & boost your future career
• Learn how to change the world using your research
• Get an introduction to technology commercialisation
• Dive into EIT Food network of leading academic & industry partners

Upon successful completion of the course, you will be able to

• recognize the role of technology in our society and the food system and learn how innovations can contribute to achieving social impact
• Identify sustainable challenges for the food system and understand the impact of the own research on the environment. 
• recognize the importance of IPR management
• to formulate and articulate their entrepreneurial competencies
• to formulate the key elements of their PhD and apprise the impact on the society of their research.   
• adjust messaging for different audience and devise effective communication methods

The entrepreneurial skills you will gain will improve your employability, benefit your research funding or help you get inspired in creating a spin-out from your PhD research. As this course will teach you how to take a complex research concept, like your PhD, and formulate it into clear value propositions that can be used in your grant applications, for potential investors, and in the engagement with any other stakeholders.

Our online entrepreneurship learning is fully interactive and enables you to engage with our top-notch trainers and mentors. Pathways to Impact will not only give you access to our excellent resources, food experts, pitch trainer and coaches, but will also allow you to become part of the inspiring EIT Food community.

Next to our online interactive workshops and one-on-one sessions, the asynchronous training allows for a great flexibility and the comfort to learn at times and from locations that suit you and from your own home or workplace.

PROGRAMME STRUCTURE

This course will provide an introduction and starting tools on how to change the world by using your PhD research.

You will be trained by top EIT Food partners coming from higher education institutions like University of Turin, Technical University of Munich, Aarhus University, Queens University of Belfast, Swiss Food Research and other collaborators, whose expertise lies in entrepreneurship, innovation, and commercialisation of academic research.

Throughout the course, we will focus on following key topics:

• Sharp messaging & Communication Training for your research (3 stages)
• Entrepreneurial competencies
• Research Canvas & Research Impact Canvas 
• Impact of your Research within the society 
• Value creation & IP Protection
• Ecosystem and (Business) Ecosystem Strategy
• Successful collaborations

Additionally, you will be offered a unique mentoring experience by EIT Food PTI who will support you with your research impact creation, and offer additional networking opportunities within their ecosystem.

The course concludes with a final event at which the students present their research using the within the course learned communications skills and will have the chance to win a prize (Free access to a relevant conference). 

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PROGRAMME TIMELINE.

Throughout the course we will focus on following KEY TOPICS:

Pathways to Impact, Ideation, Entrepreneurs Cases, Market scoping, Problem/Solution fit, Commercialization of Innovation, IP protection, Research Impact CANVAS, Business Model CANVAS, Funding for researchers, Evaluating & Communicating your impact, Practice pitching & appreciate feedback. Additionally, you will be offered a unique mentoring experience by EIT Food partners, who will support you with your research impact creation.

IN A NUTSHELL:

• You will have access to five (5) Asynchronous Modules with small assignments on the EIT Food
• education learning platform CANVAS.
• You will receive one-on-one mentoring over 5 weeks, from partners that have vast experience in
• supporting PhDs acquiring entrepreneurial skills.
• You will participate in a series of synchronous workshops so that you do not feel alone in your
• journey.
• You will have the experience of pitching your PhD towards the end of the course in front of an
• expert panel and receive feedback from judges and peers.