In mid-June, the Luxembourg-based European Investment Bank (EIB) officially launched the EIB Institute, an entity whose purpose is to further contribute to the realisation of EIB’s objectives through community engagement. While the EIB Institute has de facto been created in January this year, its inauguration took place only on 11 June, when its supervisory board convened for the first time. The board encompasses a total of six European personnalités, including the 2010 Nobel Prize laureate Christopher Pissarides, of the London School of Economics, and has a management staff of three.

The activities of the new institute cover three priority areas through three specific programmes, namely a social, knowledge and an arts programme. The institute’s current activities include: awarding of grants to research centres; financing of young researchers; teaching and lecturing; cooperation with economic associations and higher education institutions; and local support for NGOs. Amongst the activities foreseen in the immediate future is the EIB Prize, which is meant to recognize excellence in (applied and/or applicable) economic and social research.

This month, the institute also signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation with the University of Luxembourg. Further, it launched the call for the EIBURS programme, the EIB University Research Sponsorship Programme, which offers sponsorships of up to EUR 100 000 per year for a period of 3 years to university departments or research centres.

EIB Institute