On Wednesday, 8 October, the RTU Science and Innovation Centre in Riga will host EIT National Day 2025 - an event organised by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) that will bring together representatives of the science, business and innovation ecosystem from Latvia and abroad. Everyone is welcome to attend the event by registering in advance for free on fienta.com/eitnationalday2025.
During the event, the leadership of the research platform "Biomedical and Photonics Research Platform for Innovative Products" ("BioPhoT") will discuss opportunities for closer collaboration with the EIT community in Latvia, in particular with EIT Health a network to promote health innovation, photonics and biomedical technologies in Latvia and Europe
The aim of the collaboration is to help Latvian researchers and start-ups become part of the European health innovation community, learning from industry professionals and gaining valuable international experience.
Osvalds Pugovičs, BioPhoT Platform Manager said will take part in the panel "Bridging the Gap in Innovation: Potential for Latvian Deep Tech Startup Ecosystem Support". The topic of the panel will be tools for bridging the innovation "valley of death", i.e. the technological readiness level range TRL4 - TRL6 - national support tools, incl. "BioPhoT platform, EIT programmes, as well as opportunities for synergies between tools.
O. Pugovic stresses: "The synergistic use of support tools is probably more effective than simply increasing the amount of funding, as it allows the different elements of the innovation ecosystem - researchers, start-ups and industry partners - to be connected, creating a more sustainable and collaborative development environment."
EIT Community Latvia is the European Institute of Innovation and Technology's representative office in Latvia, based at Riga Technical University (RTU) and supported by the Ministry of Education and Science and the Latvian Science Council.
It aims to connect scientists, entrepreneurs and start-ups with European innovation networks, providing access to training, mentoring and funding opportunities for health, food, digital technologies and more.
By 2032 BioPhoT platforms At least 35 new technologies are expected to be developed, of which more than half will be developed to validation in real or full-scale conditions (TRL 5-6) and at least four to the commercialisation phase. This will significantly strengthen Latvia's competitiveness in high-tech areas.
