Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has once again approved the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra as the EIT Food Hub. This year, too, SUA in Nitra will be able to use the EIT Food Hub logo to contribute to the development of new business talents, support their innovative ideas and expand activities in line with the EIT's food strategy and business plans.

The EIT Food Hub at SUA in Nitra continues on the basis of an application submitted in December 2020 by the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra in cooperation with the Slovak Business Agency (SBA), whose mission is to provide comprehensive business support at the national, regional and local level and transfer this mission to the EIT goals. The coordinator of the EIT Food Hub activities at the national level for the SUA in Nitra is prof. Ing. Adriana Kolesárová, PhD., Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Science. The decisive attribute for the successful continuation of the EIT Food Hub at SUA in Nitra was declared cooperation with the Slovak Business Agency in the previous period, intensive cooperation with the agri-food sector with significant implementation of science and research results, as well as active cooperation with food companies and government organizations in common agricultural policy. The SBA provides support in the area of startups and start-up business ecosystems in the agri-food sector and, together with the SUA in Nitra, implements an individual plan of EIT Food activities for 2021. The coordinators of activities for the SBA are Ing. Ľuboš Kulháň and doc. Milan Fila. SUA in Nitra, together with the Slovak Business Agency, form the only EIT Food Hub in Slovakia, which belongs to the collocation center in Warsaw in order to provide information on current events and challenges of EIT Food in the field of food and technology at the national level.

The undeniable contribution of the EIT Food Hub lies in supporting EU health, food and agricultural policy, but also in developing cooperation between businesses, educational institutions and research organizations, creating a favorable environment for creative thoughts and ideas. The EIT Food Hub helps to find answers to key questions through collaboration between research and business and provides an opportunity to design new functional foods, propose innovative and non-traditional approaches to developing modern food production methods, as well as help define practical examples of food and agricultural sustainability and elimination risk factors in the food chain, thus contributing to knowledge and innovation schemes.

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) is an independent EU body based in Budapest, which is an integral part of the Horizon 2020 Framework Program for Research and Innovation. An important role of the EIT is to strengthen Europe's innovation capacity and contribute to its competitiveness, support EU objectives, create sustainable economic growth and new jobs, but also to enable entrepreneurs and innovators to transform the best innovative ideas into products and services.