EBN EU

16:44 CET EU|BIC News From 12 October 2026, certified and associate EU|BICs can apply to co-host the event in October or November 2027. Techcamp takes one technology or sector and goes deep: trends, case studies, site visits and peer exchange. The event brings together around 100 participants from across the EU|BIC community, representing a broad mix of roles and expertise.

Last September, the EU|BIC Ecosystem Discovery mission to China gave participants access to people, organisations and opportunities that they would not otherwise have had. Organised by EBN in collaboration with the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), the mission brought 20 incubators and companies into direct contact with China’s innovation ecosystem.

11:00 CET EU|BIC News Early-stage founders at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands face a gap that grants and investors both skip over. The idea has moved past a sketch on paper. The team is serious. But before any investor will look seriously at the venture, some costs need covering: a prototype to test, a lab analysis to commission, and a user validation study to run. These are not large sums.

11:00 CET EU|BIC News NATO DIANA is the alliance’s dedicated programme for connecting deep tech startups with the defence procurement and testing environments of its 32 member countries. It operates through a network of accredited accelerator sites, each selected for its capacity to help startups develop, test and validate solutions against real defence needs.

A medtech startup needs clinical access to validate their products. Validation brings investment and allows them to apply for regulatory approval. It is the essential step before any foreign market becomes reachable. Instituto Pedro Nunes (IPN), a certified EU|BIC in Coimbra, tackled this head-on by embedding an incubation space directly within the University Hospital of Coimbra.

In 2017, Technoport, Luxembourg’s certified EU|BIC, co-founded Tomorrow Street with Vodafone Procurement. Tomorrow Street was founded with a twofold purpose: to find technology scale-ups that can solve Vodafone’s innovation challenges, and to help those companies establish a presence in Europe and access Vodafone’s global procurement ecosystem. Nine years on, Tomorrow Street has assessed more than 550 companies.

Ireland has four certified EU|BICs. AxisBIC is in the south and midwest, Furthr in Dublin and surrounding counties, Propelor in the southeast, and WestBIC in the west, northwest and midlands. Together they cover the whole country. Each operates independently, with its own regional focus, its own programmes and, in some cases, its own investment funds. What they share is a model of collaboration that produces results none of them could achieve alone.

11:26 CET EU|BIC News Of the 20 organisations travelling to China this September, one member has personal experience of around 30 China visits over the past 15 years. Another, a business incubator from Tripoli, Lebanon, is going with no prior China experience at all. That range, from seasoned China hands to complete first-timers, is roughly what the whole delegation looks like.

11:24 CET EU|BIC News From 19 to 27 September 2026, this is where 20 European innovation organisations will spend a week: not a single city, but a route through four of them. European companies rarely struggle abroad because their technology isn’t good enough. They struggle because they don’t know which door to knock on, or who can open it.” Pietro de Martino, President of EBN For 42 years, the EU|BIC community has answered that question inside Europe.

China is an enormous market, yet it comes with regulatory complexity and cultural distance from Europe. It boasts highly developed supply chains and a business environment that rewards local knowledge and presence. For a European company with a technology that could scale in China, the question is rarely whether the opportunity exists, but how to get through the door. The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) occupies a unique position in this landscape.