EPFL

Innovation is key to a successful growth strategy, but how to embrace it ? How to build and feed your innovation pipeline ?

KNOVA is a partnership acceleration program to have companies harness academia as a source of innovation. Discover the potential of academia in innovation, maximize the impact of opportunities, benefit from a vibrant and unique ecosystem of startups, corporates, SMEs, and other research institutes.

The program

This one year program guides your explorations to find the way to get the most out of the EPFL ecosystem. You will be challenged and will exchange continuously with our innovation team and EPFL innovation community.

At the end of the program you will have:

Pinpointed the part of your open innovation strategy you can develop with academia/research institutes
Identified and launched innovation projects, acquired new knowledge, explored IP licensing and access to new talents to grow the competitiveness of your company
Been continuously exposed to our ecosystem to grow your network and create new business opportunities with startups, corporates, and SMEs

Be a part of the EPFL ecosystem, Build innovation projects, Boost your knowledge.

Want to learn more about KNOVA?

FAQ

No, the program is meant to be hands-on, focused on your company’s innovation pipeline, and contribute to nurturing it.

No, the person/people joining the program will have max 1day/week of workshops. Most of those activities are concentrated in the first quarter of the program to build the foundations for relevant explorations.

A maximum of 2 people per company can join the program. The offer is limited to a maximum of 12 people per year.

The 2021 cohort will start in Q3-Q4 for pandemic related reasons. The 2022 cohort will start in Q1.

The person needs to be deeply involved in innovation in your organisation, have direct access to R&D teams, and to the business strategy management. A technical background with a business flair would allow direct interaction with our researchers on campus and link technical competences to business opportunities.