In an era marked by economic uncertainty and market volatility, understanding the dynamics of private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) has never been more critical. The European Investment Fund (EIF) is stepping up its efforts to make these markets more accessible and transparent — not just for institutional investors, but for the wider public. Two new initiatives are at the heart of this mission: the VC/PE Barometer and TrackVC.

Quarterly VC/PE Barometer: real-time market sentiment

The first of these initiatives is the launch of a quarterly VC/PE Barometer, a new format within the EIF’s long-running equity surveys. This tool is designed to capture market sentiment more frequently and with greater granularity, reflecting the fast-changing conditions of today’s investment landscape.

“We are navigating exceptional market conditions, characterised by unprecedented uncertainty and heightened volatility. These turbulent times require more regular market insight,” indicates EIF Chief Executive Marjut Falkstedt.

The Barometer surveys fund managers across Europe, gathering their perspectives on key indicators such as:

• Fundraising activity
• Exit opportunities
• Valuation trends
• Access to external finance
• New investments
• Deal flow

📊 Summary of the Q1 2025 Barometer

The survey indicates a mixed outlook:

• Fundraising remains challenging, with many managers reporting delays or downsizing.
• Valuations are under pressure, especially in later-stage deals.
• Deal flow is steady but selective, with increased scrutiny on fundamentals.
• Access to finance is tightening, particularly for first-time funds.
• Exit activity is subdued, though some managers expect improvement in H2 2025.
• US policy impact is seen as a wildcard, with potential regulatory and capital flow implications.

TrackVC: unlocking performance data for all

Complementing the Barometer is TrackVC, a groundbreaking platform developed in collaboration with BlackRock. For the first time, performance data on European VC and PE funds is being made publicly accessible — information that previously was only available to paying clients.

TrackVC is hosted on a neutral domain (trackvc.eu) and features:

• 10 years of historical performance data
• Key metrics: IRR, DPI, TVPI
• Coverage: Over 1,000 anonymised funds, including EIF’s own portfolio
• Semi-annual updates
• Freemium access with a 6-month data lag

The data is sourced from the eFront Insight platform and reflects cashflow-based benchmarks reported by fund managers across Europe. All data is anonymised and aggregated to ensure privacy and compliance.

“TrackVC changes the game by offering validated, representative performance data — sourced from a broad base of limited partners — to help investors, policymakers, and the public better understand private markets,” says Marjut.

This initiative is not just about transparency — it’s about building trust, lowering entry barriers, and supporting the Capital Markets Union by encouraging broader participation in private markets.

In case you missed our TrackVC blog from March 2025, read it here: Tracking venture capital, unlocking investment, fuelling innovation

Connecting the Dots: insight meets access

Together, the VC/PE Barometer and TrackVC form a powerful duo:

• The Barometer offers forward-looking sentiment and qualitative insights.
• TrackVC provides retrospective performance benchmarks and quantitative data.

By combining these tools, the EIF is creating a more complete picture of the European VC and PE ecosystem. One that is timely, transparent, and accessible. Moreover, over time, further pillars from new market intelligence sources can be added to this picture.

Whether you’re an investor, policymaker, entrepreneur, or simply curious about private markets, these initiatives are designed to help you navigate the complexities of VC and PE with confidence.

“We will continue supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes. Ukraine can count on Europe to help rebuild a more resilient country, that progresses on its path to join the EU.” — Ursula von der Leyen, February 2023.

Doing exactly that, the EIF has recently launched a new pilot initiative through the InvestEU programme — called the Export Credit Pilot — aiming to support Export Credit Agencies across the EU in their quest to boost trade with Ukraine. Ultimately, this will contribute to boosting economic activity in the country and strengthen ties with Europe.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 came with sirens and smoke. Beyond the horror of another war on European soil, its quieter toll echoed through shuttered warehouses, broken contracts, and frozen trade. Ukraine’s GDP fell by nearly 30% since the beginning of the war, and direct damage to infrastructure has been estimated at more than $150bn. At the same time, SME exports have contracted by 35%, with 5 million people employed by the SME sector in Ukraine facing risks of losing their jobs. Trade with the EU — its largest partner — has been thrown into disarray as supply chains fractured and investment flows stalled.

It’s now been three and a half years. Three and a half years of trying to hold the line, rebuild what’s been lost, and imagine life without it. The EIB Group has stepped up to the challenge, providing more than €3.5bn in financial support to Ukraine. One of the most recent initiatives is the Ukrainian Export Credit Pilot, an innovative initiative managed by the EIF that aims to rejuvenate trade flows by reducing the risk factor for European businesses and re-connecting them to their Ukrainian counterparts.

Export credit agencies (ECAs) have been established with the goal of facilitating domestic companies’ international exports. Most countries have ECAs that provide loans, loan guarantees, and insurance to reduce the uncertainty of exporting to other countries. Essentially they aim to support exporters and boost trade flows.

The Ukrainian Export Credit Pilot

Launched by the EIB Group and the European Commission in July 2024, the Ukrainian Export Credit Pilot is a €300 million guarantee facility designed to support EU companies exporting to Ukraine. It’s a financial instrument with a clear mission: reduce the risk of doing business in a war-torn market and keep trade flowing. Backed by the InvestEU programme, the official export credit agencies in EU Member States act as intermediaries, facilitating the deals.

Within the €300 million guarantee, 13 deals are expected across EU Member States in the initial phase. The first deals materialised in May 2025, when Danish export credit agency EIFO and the EIF signed a deal worth €20 million. Since then, six additional deals have materialised in Italy, Finland, Romania, Latvia, Slovakia and Slovenia, for a total guarantee amount of close to €150m — with more in the pipeline.

How does it work?

In practice, ECAs will be issuing seller’s credit (i.e. export insurance), buyer’s credit (i.e. helping the importer with cashflow) or letters of credit (issued by a Ukrainian bank and confirmed by an EU bank) in order to boost trade flow. The guarantee covers the risks of default on payments of goods and services purchased exclusively by Ukrainian importers from EU-based exporters.

As Yulia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine pointed out, “It is encouraging to see strong interest from export credit agencies in EU Member States in supporting Ukraine’s recovery and strengthening economic ties. A strong economy is key to our resilience and future integration.”

The benefits

Amid the uncertainty, this pilot offers something steady. And the benefits are both practical and far-reaching. It will help to restore the disrupted trade flows — and even ensure that essential goods and services — like pharmaceuticals and agricultural products — continue to reach Ukraine.

But it also does something quieter: it brings structure, builds trust and closer ties. Through InvestEU and EIF requirements, the pilot promotes transparency, accountability, and alignment with standard EU practice for Ukrainian importers. It’s a demanding process — but one that helps build trust across the financial ecosystem between the EU and Ukraine. In a landscape still shaped by war, this kind of technical and financial cooperation offers something rare: a sense of normalcy, and a path forward.

Life beyond the frontlines

These efforts have also taken another form, as, through the EU4Business programme, the EIF, alongside EIB Global, has been working on extending loan portfolio guarantees to several banks in Ukraine. The goal is to build loan portfolios exceed €100m for more than 1500 Ukrainian businesses, at more favourable terms, making financing that little bit more accessible and the recovery more tangible.

The Ukrainian Export Credit Pilot and the loan portfolio guarantees are a source of pride for the EIF. In our own way, we are contributing to the recovery of the Ukrainian nation by doing what we’ve done for 30+ years — supporting small and medium-sized business by improving their access to finance.

We believe that as Ukraine moves toward recovery and deeper integration with the EU, quiet technical efforts like these help build the resilience and economic ties needed today — so that the transition to a more peaceful, stable Ukraine can happen tomorrow.

And it’s also a good-news story for the EU more broadly. The InvestEU programme has provided the flexibility and openness for the export credit pilot to materialise. It’s critical that EU financial instruments are able to adapt to changing circumstances around us and that we are able to respond with decisive action, efficiently and effectively as a financial institutions. The export credit pilot proves that this is possible. And this is something we need to keep in mind for the architecture of the future budget. But the real impact is in Ukraine.

Back in November 2024, President Zelensky had said that “Every operating enterprise and new job is an investment in Ukraine’s future and its security.” We couldn’t agree more.

Innovation potential defines our future

Looking at our innovation potential and what it takes to realise that potential has never been as critical as it is today. The world is changing fast. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data are becoming central to so many different sectors of the economy. From medicine and biotechnology to generative text platforms and space, and from defence to agriculture, innovative technology is spreading like wildfire, changing everything around us.

However, Draghi continues, “Europe’s position in the advanced technologies that will drive future growth is declining. Only four of the world’s top 50 tech companies are European and the EU’s global position in tech is deteriorating: from 2013 to 2023, its share of global tech revenues dropped from 22% to18%, while the US share rose from 30% to 38%.”

Fuelling bright ideas

So the race is on, and we’re not exactly in pole position. And while it is generally agreed that we do have the skills and the depth in research and academia to come up with bright ideas, these bright ideas don’t become commercialised household names overnight. Typically, a bright idea has to undergo a lengthy, painful and expensive process of commercialisation, making its way out of the lab, into a start-up, and from there out into the world.

One of the key factors determining the success of any bright idea along that path is the financial backing it receives. Enter venture capital (VC), where innovative ideas find the fuel they need to lift off. If we want to counter the trends that Draghi is describing, we’re going to have to boost the European VC ecosystem. VC investments in the EU averaged a meagre 0.3% of GDP per year over the last decade. In the US it was triple that. During the period 2013–2023, EU VC funds raised about €130bn compared to more than €920bn in the US.

European investors seem to shy away from venture capital investments or at least don’t engage in the same way that Americans do. Is there a difference in risk appetite? Entirely possible. But, with ample liquidity in the markets in the post-covid era, we need to do better in steering investors towards supporting our innovative entrepreneurs. Large institutional investors and pension funds, in particular, need to be encouraged to see more of the opportunity and less of the risk in venture capital investments. European pension funds have €3.5tn under management, yet their VC exposure doesn’t exceed 0.02%. It could be as high as 3%.

Addressing information gaps

So, what can be done? Well, one aspect of the problem is information. Venture capital is by nature opaque. Those bright ideas often don’t have a wealth of information behind them to facilitate investment decisions. They’re ideas and that’s the nature of venture capital. But if we take the VC ecosystem as a whole and look at past performance, we may be able to draw some conclusions.

At the EIF, we’re sitting on a wealth of data. We’ve been active for more than 30 years in the European venture capital and private equity markets, investing more than €42bn, and working with more than 1500 fund managers. In total, we’ve supported close to 30,000 European businesses in this way. All of that has created a lot of interesting data. And there are other organisations out there with equally voluminous and interesting data. We want to put that data to work. That’s why we’re in the process of developing a new platform, TrackVC, that will offer insight into the European venture capital scene and the broader equity ecosystem, tracking performance and improving transparency, ultimately contributing to de-mystifying it and making it more attractive for potential investors.

This is just the start of a journey. The platform is only just getting off the ground, but we want to move fast and we want to make a real difference. Working with Blackrock — and hopefully also other investors going forward — we aim to feed it with fresh data and strengthen it so that it can do its part in bridging information gaps and shedding more light on European venture capital. Because, at the end of the day, European innovators deserve it.

Mention Artificial Intelligence (AI) in conversation, and you’re likely to hear two things: excitement about its potential and anxiety about its consequences.

Whether you’re an English Year Six teacher worried about plagiarism, a car manufacturing worker fearing for the future of work, or an everyday citizen worried about constant surveillance or the erosion of human relationships — the fear of AI is very real.

But while caution is necessary with such powerful tools, it’s equally important to acknowledge their vast potential. One of the greatest advantages of working at the EIF is seeing first-hand how European businesses are dedicated to transforming their local communities — and, in many cases, making a global impact as a result.

From changing traditional fishing practices to tackling Alzheimer’s, this article explores how EIF-backed SMEs are turning the potential of AI into tangible solutions.

AI and healthcare

According to the WEF, 4.5 billion people lack access to essential healthcare services. AI can help bridge this gap, though healthcare remains ‘below average’ in AI adoption compared to other industries.

Healthcare is deeply personal, yet the way we develop yet the way we develop medicines remains largely one-size-fits-all.

“There is more personalisation in clothes than in how you buy medicine,” says Luis Valente, CEO of iLoF, a digital health company specialising in personalised drug discovery, currently mostly focused on Alzheimer’s. “If a T-shirt is too small, the shop assistant simply brings a new one. But in clinical trials, they’ll say the T-shirt is broken.”

Porto-based iLoF uses an AI-powered platform to analyse light-based signals from biological samples. These signals, in turn, create a unique profile that reveals key characteristics, ultimately allowing iLoF to group patients in clinical trials by disease cause, stage, or severity, reducing the inefficiencies that hinder drug development. Alzheimer’s is the largest and fastest-growing disease without a disease-modifying treatment and clinical trials are notoriously difficult, as one drug doesn’t fit all. In practical terms, this is groundbreaking.

While AI can be applied to treating widespread diseases, French deeptech company Kiro uses it to analyse lab results, offering clearer insights for better medical decisions.

“Think of finance, trade, or advertising — we can look at extremely detailed information and analyse it at a super-micro level. That’s what we want to do in medicine,” says Alexandre Guenoun, CEO of Kiro.

Lab results can be complex, requiring doctors to track multiple data points over time. Kiro’s AI simplifies this process, helping professionals analyse data more efficiently and making results easier for patients to understand.

AI and sustainability

Innovation is at the heart of building a more sustainable society, and AI has become a powerful tool for environmental and climate action. At the EIF, we see SMEs driving impact in ways that are as diverse as they are innovative.

OroraTech, a data intelligence start-up from Munich, combines satellite temperature data with AI to detect wildfires early and minimise their environmental impact.

“Eighteen percent of global CO2 emissions come from wildfires,” explains Thomas Gruebler, co-founder and CEO of OroraTech. “The best way to fight climate change is through precise temperature data because it’s all connected to temperature. If we use this data efficiently, we can do a lot to protect the planet,” says Thomas.

OroraTech’s platform can see through smoke from space, accurately monitor heat events on the ground, and then process the data using AI. Users receive instant notifications, allowing faster responses, long-term risk mapping, and a cheaper alternative to traditional firefighting methods like planes and lookout towers.

Moving from space to the ocean, AI also plays a part in Norwegian company Ava Ocean’s mission to reinvent seabed harvesting. Ava Ocean wants to create an alternative to ‘scallop dredging technology’, a blanket ‘solution’ that destroys the seabed and everything in its path to get scallops.

“Our harvesting units operate just above the seabed. A pumping solution creates a water flow, lifting the scallops into the basket with little to no damage to the seabed. A sorting mechanism can also return non-scallops to the seabed and there’s camera technology so we can see where it’s best to harvest. We call it precision harvesting,” says Øystein Tvedt, CEO of Ava Ocean.

AI helps Ava Ocean to live monitor the harvesting and collect data from the seabed. AI is also helping them locate the scallop target areas, giving them a competitive advantage in a traditional industry. “We’re seeing that the industry is very interested in this better, modern, sustainable solution to harvesting,” says Øystein. ” We need to go forward and find solutions that work for fishermen, and we need to do it in a collaborative, thorough, step by step manner.”

AI and the way we work

Forget the ChatGPT-written LinkedIn posts you keep seeing from colleagues — AI is transforming workplaces in far more impactful ways. It automates time-consuming, repetitive tasks, allowing organisations and individuals to focus on higher-value, creative, and strategic work while also unlocking new efficiencies.

Paris-based Shift Technology is a concrete example of this. They help insurance companies to detect fraud by integrating AI-enabled, machine-learning models into these companies’ processes. In an industry previously devoid of automation, fraud is common and often goes undetected. Shift Technology’s tool flags potential fraudulent claims by analysing multiple data sources and ultimately gives the insurer the best recommendations for suspicious claims.

“Not only can we help save endless hours spent scrutinising documents but also ensure that claims professionals can dedicate their time to satisfying customers’ real needs and guide them through often-complicated processes,” says Jeremy Jawish, CEO and co-founder of Shift Technology.

AI can also enhance one of the most fundamental expressions of human interaction: language. Unbabel is a Lisbon and San Francisco-based company active in the B2B space that enables modern enterprises to serve customers in their native languages with AI-powered, human translation support.

“Diversity of languages can become an issue when a company scales to other markets. From marketing to product descriptions, sales to customer service… This is what we have set out to solve,” says Vasco Pedro, CEO and co-founder of Unbabel.

But how does it work in practice? Well, Unbabel’s platform, powered by its constantly re-trained AI, allows a customer in China to write an email in Chinese to their English-speaking customer service. The service team reads the email and replies in English, with the response then translated back into Chinese for the customer.

AI for good

From improving healthcare to advancing environmental protection and bridging communities through translation, AI has the potential to reshape society and transform the way we work. The SMEs highlighted above are just a few examples of European entrepreneurs embracing the AI boom with optimism.

The EIF is proud to support these SMEs as they demonstrate AI’s vast potential when applied thoughtfully, reshaping perceptions of AI one innovation at a time.

Roger has overseen, driven and experienced so much of the change that has characterised the EIF during this period that we felt we couldn’t let him go without some reflections in hindsight. We caught up with him just before he left to get his thoughts on EU financial policy, the role of the EIF, and where we should be heading next.

SME to mid-cap

“When I started, we were more like an SME. Today, with more than 700 staff, we’re more like a mid-cap,” Roger says.

“I think the organisation has come a long way. It’s an organisation with people — very competent people — who translate policy into financial instruments. The Commission is a policy shaper, and the EIF is a policy taker. That requires some translation to turn the policy objectives into effective financial instruments. Back in the day, I think that, at the EIF, we were more mechanical, almost like we were in the machine room. But things have evolved in a very positive way, and today, we’re much more focussed on the policy angle of our work. The public policy goals are now our starting point and we speak the same language as the Commission. At the end of the day, you could say we’re better translators.”

Financial instruments: fringe to mainstream

Much like the EIF, financial instruments themselves have come a long way too in the course of Roger’s 35-year career at the European Institutions. “We initially had one financial instrument, with a modest €23m budget spanning across several years. I actually had to bury that eventually,” he adds, ironically enough, having spent the rest of his career building them up. “Financial instruments used to be a niche thing. Nobody really understood what they were or how they worked, there was no financial regulation or anything like that.” But today financial instruments are mainstream, scaled up to a multi-billion euro undertaking with a very active role across a wide range of different policy areas, from energy to agriculture, employment to environment and social policy, maritime and infrastructure.

“I think we have changed the way the EU budget is being spent, achieving much more than just grants. You simply cannot achieve the same outcomes relying only on grants. Financial instruments are now an established and effective policy tool that complements grants. And today, there’s a community of officials across not only all Commission DGs, but also in the capitals, that understand financial instruments and their potential. Ultimately, it leads to a more efficient use of the budget — and for me, in all humbleness, I think that’s my greatest contribution across my career.”

A long-term vision for Europe

With budgets increasingly strained, competing priorities, ageing populations and new challenges on the horizon, a more efficient use of the EU budget is paramount. Even more so in a political climate in which national governments are reluctant to boost their contribution to Brussels. Roger puts this into perspective: “We have to put ourselves in the shoes of the Member States. They themselves are facing difficult budgetary constraints too, and they have to answer to their electorate. They need to deliver in a short time-frame. Nevertheless, at the same time, what we need is a longer-term vision that transcends the short term of any given government. The EU can provide that longer-term vision, and this is already in place in economic policy coordination for example, or if you look at the ECB and the Euro.”

Who does what

This relates to the division of labour. The EU cannot and should not be responsible for everything. Many things are best addressed at national level, and conversely, many others at EU level. This applies equally to financial policy. “We need to clearly identify what’s best done at EU level and what’s best addressed at national level, for example through national promotional institutions,” Roger adds. “Draghi was very clear about this, explaining how certain challenges like defence, security, and innovation can only be overcome at the EU level. We need a clear roadmap on how we’re going to address the €800bn funding gap, knowing who does what. I think that limited EU resources should be focussed more on higher risk areas, like financing innovation. The more plain-vanilla instruments for financial support to SMEs are perhaps more likely to be deployed at national level in the future,” he says. “We need to focus EU instruments on the next generation of industrial players, actors of a certain size which can guarantee a healthy spill-over effect on other innovative businesses in the industries of tomorrow. And I’m convinced that that’s best done at EU level, with a Europe-wide perspective.”

Supporting champions

One such example is the focus on the scale-up gap, which has always been a top priority for Roger: “Identifying the scale-up gap and pushing for the creation of the European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI) has definitely taken up a big chunk of my time. It’s a big step in the right direction to keep Europe competitive.” Looking across the pond, but also eastwards, the competition is stiff, the stakes are high and there is little time to waste.

“The innovation gap is significant and it’s not just a question of funding. It’s about the risk-taking ecosystem, the culture, the role of foundations and the hubs that bring together academic research and entrepreneurs.

In Europe we replicate several hubs rather than specialise — there’s fragmentation. We should reflect on this and try to streamline rather than replicate. The other thing that needs to be done is bring in the private sector. European pension funds are currently spending less than 0.02% of their resources on venture capital, and a lot of that in the US. Our job is to convince them that we can offer an interesting opportunity. We need to intensify the dialogue with them to see what we can do to make investments in European VC more attractive. Achieving long-term, sustainable support for ambitious businesses to scale can only be done with the active participation of the private sector. And it won’t happen overnight. It’s a long game, but we need to invest in it now and provide the support that good companies need so they can grow and flourish right here in Europe without the need to seek financial support elsewhere.”

An EU Fund for tomorrow

Driving that effort from the standpoint of public institutions, Roger sees an important role for the EIF and EIB Group (EIBG) but calls for more ambition: “The ETCI has been key, but it’s crucial at this moment that the EIBG continues to work closely with policy-shapers (EC, EP, Member States) to come up with even bigger initiatives that can help us address key challenges in an efficient way. As translators, we are well-positioned for this dialogue. We need to look at the needs across the whole funding chain, putting together an EU fund that will cover the needs of tomorrow. The Solvency Initiative embodied some of these ideas but we didn’t manage to convince the Member States. Looking back, that’s probably my greatest regret. Yet the challenge is still there and we need to seize the upcoming opportunity of the renewal of the EU budget to push for an umbrella initiative that will target all the stages of business development, offering continuity in financing. I really hope that this will be pursued and that we will see a sizeable future fund in Europe with critical mass. active involvement of the private sector, and market discipline built in through the intermediation model.”

Reality-check

There is clearly a strong drive and conviction in his thoughts about EU financial policy, and this is something that’s also reflected in the way he has gone about his career:

“I began my career at a start-up in the US and I think that entrepreneurial experience has followed me throughout my time at the institutions. It’s important to understand how start-ups work — especially if you’re dealing with financial policy.

It helps you appreciate, for example, the notions of proportionality and not over-burdening small businesses with heavy requirements. Proportionality is key. We need to stop gold-plating requirements. Adequate requirements, sure, but proportional requirements. I would even consider a one-in-one-out approach to new requirements, whereby for every new requirement, an existing one should be dropped. Taxpayers’ money needs to be managed efficiently and effectively — that’s the starting point. But we need to look beyond controls and checks and focus more on performance, on outcomes, outputs and actual, real impact.”

Wrapping up & starting up

Roger closes our conversation with a word of advice on career management:

“Whatever you do, it’s important to be open and flexible and seize opportunities when they arise. It’s good to have a background in a specific field, but it’s unlikely that you will start and finish in the same area, so you need to be open-minded, not hesitate to change direction and make the best of it. I couldn’t have told you how every step I made was going to come in useful later, but I can assure you now that it did. Having gone from a start-up to the institutions for 35 years, I’m now going back to start-ups, and starting my own company.”

We wish him the best of luck.

Over thirty years, the EIF has been designing and deploying financial instruments that absorb risk to make financing more accessible to small businesses across Europe. More than half a trillion worth of financing.

But generating this financing would not have been possible without the contribution of like-minded partners that work with us: from the EIB, the European Commission, national and local authorities that entrust us with their resources, to the banks, funds, and other institutions that make sure the financing reaches its targets on the ground — all of them bold in their risk-taking. But every one of our EUR 613bn worth of mobilised financial support is also linked to an entrepreneur somewhere, who is rising to the challenge, taking on the competition and navigating the world of business — the embodiment of the word bold.

Bringing all of that together, we felt that the celebrations to mark 30-years-bold needed to involve all of these actors, first to look back, but also to look ahead.

Monday June 10th was a moment for more than 475 guests and partners to take stock of our common achievements, including an SME Expo that showcased 38 businesses and two individuals we have collectively supported through the years, spread out across the four public policy areas that define our work today: competitiveness, innovation, sustainability and social impact. The Expo was an opportunity to get up close and personal with people we have supported, experience their products, and engage with them in a truly interactive setting.

Turning the page, the next day was about sitting together and asking ourselves some difficult questions.

While we are all united in the pursuit of a greener, digital and more inclusive future, how can we really ensure that these targets are met? Can we think about the challenges differently and conceive solutions that don’t involve more of the same? Could we going about this differently?

A business case for the planet: from extractive to circular economy

We were joined first by Dr Jan-Gilbert Schultze, of Acton Capital, who made a fascinating presentation in which he drew parallels between the way the soil and the planet operate in regenerative fashion, and the linear, extractive model that we apply in the way we go about our existence, from our daily lives right through to the way we run the economy. Underlining that we are in a degenerative spiral, Jan-Gilbert called for a paradigm shift to re-align with the universal principles of life, like diversity, collaboration in the form of interdependent symbiosis and circularity, ultimately introducing the rights of life and the rights of nature into our laws and P&L calculations. Concluding on what it would take to shift to a circular economy, he concluded that “the people in this room can change the world if we work together. We need to re-align with the living system.”

Meta-trends: cancer immunotherapy

The discussion then turned to meta-trends that Europe should not be missing, in particular in the areas of global health and energy. Dr Sara Mangsbo of Uppsala University explained how precision medicine is being combined with immunotherapy and boosted with data to allow us to make new drugs that we couldn’t even have imagined in the past. When it comes to tailored vaccines, she made a call for European policy-makers and the investor community to maintain the fast-track approach we saw with covid, change the way we lead clinical trials to make sure that they are performed in Europe and focus on innovation and educational leadership to ensure continued industrial growth in the healthcare sector. In short, she said, “Europe needs to bring back big and bold.”

Meta-trends: clean energy from nuclear fusion

She was followed by Moritz Von der Linden, CEO of Marvel Fusion, who touched upon the challenge of decarbonising while protecting our old industries in Europe like steel and chemicals that are very energy-demanding. “We need an energy source that protects our standard of living while also tackling climate change,” he argued, pointing to nuclear fusion as the answer. “It’s clean, safe, abundant and reliable.” His vision came with a wake-up call as well, as he explained how his company has had to invest in facilities in the US “because there was no money for this in the EU.” The case for improved access to finance couldn’t be clearer. “We can be fast, we can be ultra-competitive, and we can be in Europe. But it takes everyone in this room and beyond to change this funding picture, to ensure world-changing non-linear breakthroughs.”

Making social inclusion truly inclusive

Finally, the third session of the day looked at people and what can be done to make social inclusion efforts truly inclusive, with insights from Cristina Gonzalez Viu of Microbank, Peter Surek of Erste Bank and Mathieu Cornieti of Impact Partners. The discussion touched upon many aspects of the inclusion debate, including, for example, the critical role of housing and improved living conditions in helping a vulnerable family adapt and change their approach, giving them a better chance of integrating effectively into the workforce. It touched upon the role of the CMU in financing the social sector, based on our common European sensitivities, and also on the need to “move the giants” with reference to the big banks and pension funds, whose resources could make a difference on the ground in social policy terms. Peter also argued that “many social issues could be tackled at lower cost in preventive fashion, rather than fire-fighting at much higher cost.” Cristina called on policy-makers to ensure “that funds are available beyond InvestEU. We have worked with five different EIF programmes that are making a real difference on the ground. Please don’t discontinue them,” while Mathieu called for “an Erasmus-type programme for social entrepreneurs.”

Next level bold

All in all, this celebration of partnership culminated with a series of very thought-provoking interventions from EIF partners and experts in their respective fields, encouraging the audience to consider things differently, from the way we run our economies to the way we pursue social inclusion and the way we tackle the challenges in healthcare and energy generation, ultimately reflecting Marjut’s point that we will need to move to a whole new level of bold — next level bold — to rise to the challenges we are facing. Here’s to thirty more!

Diversity and inclusion seemingly go hand in hand. Why? Because people with different backgrounds or different characteristics tend to bring a variety of different perspectives to any table. That adds value.

And if you look out of the window onto a fragile European economy, an energy crisis, climate change, environmental sustainability in question and unforgiving global economic competition, that sort of added value could come in quite handy. Put otherwise, we need all hands on deck.

We cannot afford to have parts of the population alienated from one or another industry. And in the case of the financial sector, we have been witnessing a historical marginalisation of women.

If we are to tackle the multitude of challenges before us head on, we are going to have to draw on the expertise and brainpower of our human capital. All of it. (Probably artificial intelligence too)

This is, of course, nothing new. What’s new is the determination and the pace of change. Looking back over the EIF’s 30-year history and indeed the entire EIB Group, we have been working on inclusive finance for some time now, in particular focussing on microfinance and social entrepreneurship for example, through instruments that serve to include otherwise excluded segments of the business world in our financing initiatives.

The EIF’s financing history for diversity and inclusion

The European Commission’s EPMF programme first, and then the EaSI programme, both aimed at improving access to finance for micro-entrepreneurs and social businesses. Looking at their more than 240,000-strong portfolio of loans, it’s interesting to note that, for about 80% of those businesses, this was their first loan. At the same time, 24% of these loans went to non-EU nationals while 30% went to female entrepreneurs. So we have been making inclusive dents in the financial landscape for a while. Encouraging, but not enough.

Today, the Commission’s new InvestEU programme continues to push the diversity and inclusion agenda, through more micro-loans, through investments in social impact and social businesses, and also through a series of gender criteria applied to its equity investments. And while the initial target was set at 25%, we are delighted that by 2023 year-end, 38% of our InvestEU equity investments already met the gender criteria.

We’re now expanding these targets across all our equity activity. Similar criteria have also been built-into a dedicated Gender Smart Equity Investment Programme (GESIP) that we have developed with like-minded National Promotional Institutions, ensuring that future programmes will move in the same direction. But that’s still not enough.

Our partnerships and charters for diversity

Overall, we are seeing a growing number of organisations signing up to charters and collaboration tools that pursue similar goals like the EIB’s Women Climate Leaders Network and the Women in Finance Charter of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, and certifications like EDGE help to set the bar high. These engagements oblige us to do more and also send the right signals. And they drive transparency, which is key when addressing a topic like this.

Gender balance: in our ecosystem and at the EIF

In that sense, we are also seeing more research on the topic, with the lens locked on gender balance, closely monitoring developments. Pitchbook recently reported, for example, that female-founded teams with at least one female co-founder are increasing their share of the overall funding pot: in 2023, they represented 20.5% of the total deal value in Europe, a 5% increase on 2022, and a very positive development. But, much like every other data point in this article, better, but not good enough. Here’s another: If we look at Europe’s VC firms with over €50m in assets under management, just 15% of the decision-makers in these firms are female.

In my own organisation, we’ve been making good progress at the level of our own human resources last year, with the number of women in middle management positions doubling to 38% on the back of an extensive internal reorganisation. This comes on top of good gender balance in our governing bodies, ensuring diversity throughout our decision-making processes. Once again, good progress, but not good enough.

Female representation: where next

Now, while the numbers are looking better, and the momentum is picking up, it needs to be clear to us that this is not just about numbers. Focussing too much on numbers and using quotas too extensively could jeopardise these efforts altogether. It’s not about ‘the token dodo’. It’s not about thrusting a woman into a decision-making position just to make up the numbers. That discredits her as much as the process.

What’s more important is making sure that the fundamentals are there. We have always maintained, for example, in our equity investments, that we won’t be making investments in female-led teams on the basis of that characteristic alone, but will always prioritise principles of sound financial management and a solid investment proposition.

As a financial institution, our goal in terms of diversity and inclusion is to move towards a more pluralistic environment with a more balanced sourcing of opinions, and most notably, that means better gender balance.

And while the numbers today are important (also in terms of signalling and inspiring others), making sure that the fundamentals are there entails looking at the long trajectory from education to developing skills and eventually professional growth. This means urging more women and girls into STEM subjects to better prepare them for the world of finance. It means executive programmes and vocational training modules, but it can also mean mentorship programmes that will open doors, empower and motivate. We’re looking at all these ideas more carefully at the moment, hoping to put something more concrete together soon.

As I have said, the momentum is building, but it’s not enough. With one foot firmly on the accelerator, it’s important that we take a bold, holistic approach to gender balance, diversity and inclusion. As the EIF has matured over 30 years, so have our challenges. And we need to be able to rely on the entire spectrum of Europe’s human capital to tackle them effectively.

Marjut Falkstedt, EIF Chief Executive

The EIF turns 30 this year. More than a line in the sand, this is an opportunity for us to stop for a moment and reflect. Looking back at the past thirty years, what’s the one characteristic that we’d attach to the EIF? If you had just one word, which would it be?

We’ve been active on the faultline between policy makers and the markets for three decades, translating policy considerations into financial products that make sense for small businesses. And we’ve been doing so by taking on a good degree of risk every time.

Each time we intervene, there’s a reason behind it: there’s a market failure, there’s a policy objective, there’s a sector that needs propping up. We have been bold throughout our journey, going where the markets don’t go: using securitisation when it was taboo, engaging with microfinance institutions to reach out to the underserved, embracing alternative financing models, stepping into under-developed ecosystems to kick-start venture capital activity where nobody dared to do that, and urging banks to go the extra mile so that the economy keeps ticking.

We have reached out to talk to private investors and convince them to join us in our efforts. Each and every time, taking on risk, but relying on our people’s expertise to do that in a way that makes sense for the European taxpayer, generating meaningful impact as well as returns, and ensuring that every euro we spend mobilises five on the ground.

We’ve been doing all this with one actor in mind: the entrepreneur. The SME. The small businesses that make up 99% of the European economy. And we’ve done that because, over thirty years, they are the ones that really personify bold. Bold in starting up their business, bold in innovating and in developing disruptive technologies, in adapting their business models to changing times, and in pursuing impact as much as returns. Bold in seeking financial support based on the conviction that they will be able to do better, get back on their feet and repay their loans.

They are the real champions of these past thirty years. We’ve been bold in supporting them and believing in them — more than two million of them. But they have been even bolder in their entrepreneurial undertakings, making the European economy tick and ensuring growth, jobs and a future for all of us on this continent. They are the ones who, every time they unlock the office door in the morning, drive European competitiveness. They are the ones that secure employment for our labour force and fuel the social model that makes Europe what it is today.

And of course we couldn’t have done any of this if it wasn’t for all our partners, who have put their faith in our team: the EIB, the European Commission, the EU Member States, our shareholders, and the long list of financial institutions that have believed in us over the years, entrusting us with more than €137bn worth of assets to manage and translate into €613bn in financing for European small businesses.

But, while we look back at thirty years, it’s also a moment to look ahead. In fact, it’s even more important to look ahead. And if we’ve learned anything from our experience across three decades, it’s that bold is the way to go. Bold has served us well and served the European economy well. Bold it is, then, going forward.

We will be venturing out into new areas, developing new products, testing and finding new, bold, solutions. Working with new sectors and industries, new types of intermediaries and new types of beneficiaries as well, going from households and individuals right up to infrastructure projects. We will be tackling new challenges and addressing new policy objectives as they emerge, from energy to gender equality, artificial intelligence to defence.

We will be working with our partners to feed back information from the markets and proactively devise solutions to address economic turbulence and bottlenecks before they become market failures, making sure Europe is at the forefront of innovation, supporting sectors of strategic importance and urging them forward. And we will continue to expand our tool set so that financial support reaches European businesses in as many ways as possible, through a variety of different channels, so that entrepreneurs have options, and they have opportunities.

The world isn’t standing still, and neither are we. We will be changing our ways, getting leaner and sharper in our interventions, digitalising, becoming more targeted, more focused, and not shying away from the challenges we face.

We will be leveraging off thirty years of partnerships and collaborations with more than 1700 funds, banks and other financial institutions and on the trust and confidence that we have so carefully built into these relationships, to make sure that we are able to steer EU taxpayers’ money into the direction of real, lasting impact.

Securing a greener, digital and inclusive future is what we are all working towards. And we know that’s no walk in the park. Ultimately, it will take a whole new level of bold to ensure a sustainable presence on this planet. That’s our goal.

Marjut Falkstedt, EIF Chief Executive

In the rapidly evolving landscape of sustainable transportation, electric vehicles (EVs) have emerged as the driving force behind a cleaner, greener future. As we collectively shift gears towards reducing carbon emissions and embracing eco-friendly alternatives to the internal combustion engine, the role of electric vehicles — and the European SMEs creating the infrastructure to power them — will assume even greater importance in the years to come.

Electric vehicles and the charging infrastructure needed to make them hum quietly along our motorways and city streets enjoy something of a symbiotic relationship. In order to support the growing number of electric vehicles on European roads, there needs to be a well-developed and accessible EV charging infrastructure, and various factors have come to define this relationship.

Range anxiety, for example, is a common concern among actual and potential EV owners, who worry about the availability of charging stations, particularly during longer journeys. Alleviating such concerns among European drivers, who cover much shorter distances than counterparts in other parts of the world, such as in the United States, will alleviate such concerns and encourage broader EV adoption.

However, other factors require more than a mere shift in consumer perceptions. Having diverse charging options or integrating EV charging infrastructure into smart grids will require public-private partnerships. Only through purposeful collaborations between governments and private companies will a comprehensive and well-connected charging network in Europe meet the mobility needs of the twenty-first century.

Laying the Groundwork for Europe’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure

The electrification of transportation requires the seamless integration of vehicles into a reliable, affordable and easy-to-use infrastructure for public and private use. In the coming years, we will likely see a shift in emphasis from owning multiple cars for private use to the adoption of sustainable mobility practices, which will include the expansion of car-sharing initiatives, more seamless public transportation integration and even alternative mobility solutions.

Several key components and factors are essential to the overall success of this transformation, including affordable electric vehicles — whether battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles — a robust network of charging stations, advances in battery technology, the integration of renewable energy into the grid, government policies and incentives, greater public awareness, and continued technological developments.

The transition to EVs also fosters innovation across sectors and industries, promoting job creation and economic growth. European SMEs have already demonstrated their leadership in terms of research and development, manufacturing, and infrastructure deployment, and this trend will continue as EV adoption scales.

EV Infrastructure, Energy Security and EU Decarbonisation Targets

This transition is also essential for meeting the European Union’s goals for decarbonisation and energy security. EVs produce fewer, if any, tailpipe emissions, particularly if they are charged with renewable sources of energy, helping to mitigate the negative effects of greenhouse gas emissions.

Crucially, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels will help us achieve the EU’s climate targets, such as an economy with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions (i.e., climate neutrality) by 2050. This objective is at the heart of the European Green Deal, and it is in line with the EU’s commitment to global climate action under the Paris Agreement.

It is by no means a stretch, then, to say that the expansion of electric vehicle infrastructure, continued investments in research and development, and consumer incentives will all contribute to the overall success of achieving both the EU’s energy security and decarbonisation goals.

Material Sourcing and Recycling: EV Lithium-Ion Batteries and Sustainability

The commercialisation of lithium-ion batteries in portable applications emerged approximately three decades ago, although the rechargeable battery itself dates to the second half of the nineteenth century. Today, rechargeable devices power virtually every aspect of our lives. From mobile phones, laptops, tablets, watches, bicycles and scooters to power tools, toys, toothbrushes and, increasingly, vehicles, lithium-ion rechargeable batteries literally power our world.

However, despite their ubiquity, the materials behind the magic, among them lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, are finite. And cobalt comes with additional concerns related to human rights and child labour. If we are to create a truly circular economy, one that obviates the ethical and environmental downsides of current mining practices, then a significant part of our ongoing commitment to sustainability will pivot around recapturing and recycling these elements rather than further mining.

As Europe continues to develop its battery recycling policies for the coming decades, a core portion of which has been detailed already in the EU’s new Batteries Regulation (July 2023), one may reasonably question whether other less apparent opportunities for achieving our sustainability goals vis-à-vis lithium-ion batteries and the electric vehicle sector have been overlooked. As nice as it would be to have one, there is no one-size-fits-all solution; rather, a multi-pronged approach is needed.

Innovative Charging Solutions: Battery Management System (BMS)

As its name suggests, a battery management system (BMS) is a system that monitors and manages a rechargeable battery (either a single battery or a battery pack), ensuring the battery’s safe operation, optimal performance, and prolonged life. The structure of lithium-ion batteries centres around three essential parts, namely the battery cells, battery modules, and the battery pack.

Since a battery pack contains numerous battery modules, which in turn are comprised of many individual battery cells, the performance of each battery cell can be difficult to manage because the cells tend to charge and discharge at different rates.

In addition, conditions such as current, voltage, and temperature will vary across individual cells, making an overarching electronic control system — or battery management system — necessary. Based on this information (i.e., current, voltage, and temperature), the BMS monitors (and can necessarily adjust) the state of charge (SOC), state of health (SOH), thermal management, and power optimisation parameters.

Aachen’s Accure and the Power of Predictive Battery Analytics Software

Data may be king, but you need to know how to interpret it — assuming, of course, that the data is accessible and indeed of sufficient quality. Battery management systems generate a tremendous amount of data, but the information contained within a simple microchip can often be inaccessible. The issue necessarily begs the question: what if there was a simple way to access and then extract that data in order to optimise lithium-ion batteries over the course of their approximate decade-long lifespan?

Aachen’s Accure aims to transform battery data into business intelligence through its innovative Battery Intelligence cloud platform, which can process thousands of complex data points and translate that information, providing useable insights in terms of battery safety, performance, and longevity. Harnessing data from a range of sources (e.g., field data, data sheets, lab tests, and warranty conditions), Accure offers off-the-shelf as well as bespoke battery analytics solutions.

The company’s battery analytics software focuses on three primary areas: safety monitoring, performance management, and maximising longevity. Rather than a strict focus on EV vehicles, Accure provides safety monitoring for a range of applications, including public transport, e-scooters, and e-bikes as well as grid, wind, solar and home energy storage, using physics-based models and statistical approaches that exceed the capabilities of a typical battery management systems.

Plugged In: The Growing Importance of EV Charging Software

Windows or iOS — the choice can have severe social consequences depending on one’s answer (obviously, Linux is the hands-down winner). All joking aside, whilst the issue of lithium-ion batteries receives the lion’s share of attention, the critical role of the operating system powering EV charging solutions can at times seem like an afterthought (unless, of course, it breaks down or proves to be too unwieldy to use).

Similar to the battery management system of a rechargeable battery, the operating software of chargers (particularly fast chargers) is akin to the brain of the EV charging infrastructure. As anyone who has ever used or owned an electric vehicle can attest, the charging software can make or break the experience: clunky software becomes tedious to use, while an intuitive interface results in greater ease, convenience, and accessibility.

The software also plays an important role in power management, ensuring optimal and reliable power delivery, which has significant implications for the charger (e.g., fault detection), power grid (through things like load balancing across a network of chargers), and the vehicle being recharged (facilitating payment transactions, among other things).

Munich’s EcoG and Integrated EV Charging with the Grid

As Europe’s electricity transition accelerates, the continent’s SMEs are tackling a number of pressing challenges in terms of scaling electric vehicle use. Governments and energy companies, for example, worry about whether there will be enough capacity to meet peak power demands resulting from an exponential growth of EVs in the coming years, while drivers themselves can often suffer from range anxiety — or the fear of being unable to recharge their vehicle due to a lack of charging infrastructure on longer journeys. And then there is the issue of the amount of time it takes to charge and go, with many concerned about inordinate delays due to lengthy charging times.

Founded in 2017, Munich’s EcoG has established itself as a leading manufacturer of operating systems for the EV charging industry, and their EV integrated charging solutions are helping to make Europe’s e-mobility transition even greener. Driven by an overarching goal of creating sustainable, fast-charging EV infrastructure, the company offers solutions for EV charger manufacturers (e.g., charging station development, manufacturing, and maintenance), operators (e.g., a centralised EcoG IoT platform), and integrators (e.g., charging apps). In addition, EcoG continue to streamline the process of developing DC charging stations quickly and efficiently for charging station manufacturers.

The Future of Mobility Is Small, Green and Electrically Charged

For all of the benefits of EVs and the infrastructure to support them, the careful calibration of lithium-ion battery management systems coupled with the growing sophistication of EV charging infrastructure are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg, which, incidentally, continues to melt at an alarming rate. Obstacles to EV charging implementation still remain, and government support for electric vehicles and subsidies for charging infrastructure will need to be front and centre in policy discussions on electric vehicle adoption.

If Europe wants to realise the complete spectrum of environmental benefits from electrification, then it is absolutely crucial to foster a climate of innovation, one backed by financial instruments designed to support early-, mid-, and late-stage European small and medium-sized enterprises. For their part, European SMEs will continue to play a vital role in creating truly transformative green infrastructure for the current and future crop of electric vehicles.

Crucially, electric vehicles are only as energy efficient as the infrastructure used to charge them. Whilst advances to EV battery technology will continue to drive improvements vis-à-vis range, density, and longevity, the corresponding infrastructure, to say nothing of more eco-friendly business practices (e.g., sustainable fleet management), will need to be updated and optimised in order to harness the full potential of green technology, as we continue along our journey to achieving carbon-neutral transportation.

From online learning platforms to adaptive learning systems, edtech is transforming the way that teachers teach and students learn. As advances in technology continue apace, edtech will play a vital role in enhancing accessibility, engagement, and overall efficiency, shaping the future of education for generations.

What is the purpose of learning? Education means many things to many different people, and the only definitive answer to the question of its purpose seems to be an ambiguous one: it depends — on cultural and historical contexts, social and political factors, philosophical views, educational theories, individual preferences, and disciplines (STEM or the humanities, for example). Even linguistically, education is synonymous with a range of related notions — teaching, schooling, training, development, coaching, improvement, instruction — that differ in subtle ways.

In Classical Athens, for example, elementary education included the paidotribēs (athletics and fitness), the kitharistēs (music and lyric poetry), and the grammatistēs (reading, writing, and arithmetic), whereas mediaeval grammar schools combined Classical learning with a decidedly Christian dimension. Based on the ideas of Alexander von Humboldt, the eighteenth-century German notion of education (Bildung) emphasised lifelong self-development in contrast to skills training (Ausbildung).

Closer to our own time, education is no longer the privileged domain of the wealthy, no longer available only to (young) men, and no longer primarily associated with religion, but many challenges nevertheless remain in terms of aims, rationales, and accessibility, especially when we add the digital classroom and tech-enhanced learning into the mix. And yet, despite the challenges, education will continue to serve as a cornerstone for skilling and re-skilling, empowering individuals and societies to navigate the complexities of our rapidly changing world.

AI-powered learning in our post-COVID era, for example, underscores the complex intersection of education and technology, one that necessarily presents both challenges and opportunities for students, educators, and policymakers. In the following article, we’ll explore how emerging technologies, particularly the confluence of edtech and AI, are already re-shaping the future of learning, and, along the way, highlight a number of innovative European edtech startups taking the lead on the use of technology to enhance and support education.

What Is Edtech?

Whilst the answer to the question of what constitutes edtech (educational technology) might seem to be a self-evident one (i.e., the use of technology within an educational context), the matter is rather more nuanced. Generally speaking, edtech refers to an approach to teaching and learning that is defined by hybridity, which is to say the combination of educational theory (or theories) and technological innovation. In keeping with this hybridity, edtech can also be applied to traditional classrooms, online learning environments or a combination of the two.

Many of edtech’s hallmarks are immediately obvious to us. Hardware devices such as computers, tablets, and whiteboards, along with the various types of software programmes that run on these devices, have become commonplace in classrooms and other learning environments. As we know, promoting digital literacy among the young is vital to their ability to use, understand, and critically evaluate information and communication technologies.

Whether in primary school classes or university-level courses, online learning platforms also proliferate, offering flexible options for delivering courses and content over the internet. Technology is also being used to tailor content to students and their individual learning needs. With adaptive learning systems, educators can deliver individualised learning paths that cater to each student. And learning analytics can be employed by teachers and administrators to analyse and monitor student engagement and performance, lending a data-driven hand to the classroom context.

The incorporation of technology into pedagogical practice also readies students for the world of digital content, which has come to define so many aspects of our lives (you are, after all, reading this online). From e-books and online articles to videos and other multimedia sources, today’s students must be prepared to navigate today’s interactive content landscape, often in collaboration with their peers, making collaborative online tools and platforms yet another component of edtech.

European Edtech’s Bold Vision for the Future

The European Commission’s Digital Education Action Plan (2021–2027) establishes “a policy initiative that sets out a common vision of high-quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in Europe, and aims to support the adaptation of the education and training systems of Member States to the digital age.” Among the initiative’s many goals are fostering the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem and enhancing digital skills and competences for the digital transformation.

According to EU Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Mariya Gabriel,

“Europe was one of the fastest growing regions on the global Edtech scene [in 2021]. It was the year in which the first so-called Edtech unicorn emerged, a private company with a valuation exceeding $1bn. And by mid-2022, the total investment has reached more than $7.5bn. Edtech demands technical know-how but also creativity. And I am very proud that Europe is willing to lead in this field.”

As Commissioner Gabriel notes, increased public-private collaboration along with funding programmes will be necessary in order to ensure that these transformative developments continue apace.

Embracing Innovation: The Role of Edtech in Education

As with medtech, agritech, fintech, and the various other portmanteaus that end in “tech,” edtech shows significant disruptive promise when it comes to transforming the landscape of education. Consider Greece’s Classter, a cloud-based platform that allows for the streamlining of administrative tasks, student assessment, general data management, scheduling, and operations — tasks that can be handled more efficiently with the aid of artificial intelligence.

Machine learning, on the other hand, is adept at analysing large datasets to identify patterns and draw conclusions, which can then be used to create adaptive learning platforms, tailoring the learning experience to individual student needs. Tallinn-based 99Math aims to increase maths fluency among children through interactive games that motivate rather put off students from what has traditionally been seen as a difficult subject.

Taking it one step further is virtual reality (VR), which creates immersive digital environments that simulate real-world experiences. Students can be transported, for example, to virtual field trips or historical events, providing an experiential layer of learning virtually impossible (no pun intended) within a traditional classroom or learning environment.

And then there are corporate organisations that are deploying edtech to enhance employee engagement, improve a range of skills and competencies, foster an institutional culture of continuous learning, and increase performance and productivity. Gone are the days of tedious training courses (well, almost), having been gradually replaced by interactive (video) games (read: gamification) that promote soft skills, compliance, and wellness. Founded in 2008, Spain’s Gamelearn is one such example, providing online corporate training courses using simulators and video games.

Edtech and the Digital Divide

However, there is a tendency among some to view edtech as a panacea for the many issues facing contemporary education, a questionable assumption that crucially overlooks the deeply human process and social experience at the heart of the preservation and transmission of knowledge and skills. Teacher-student interaction is necessarily reduced when student-screen interaction is increased. There are, after all, only so many classroom hours in any given day. Adaptive learning systems are remarkably good, but teachers are better.

Technology should not be seen as a replacement of human-centric education, but rather as a supplement to it. At the grade school level, the socialisation of children takes place primarily within an educational setting in which they develop friendships, learn about themselves and the world, and build empathy, which is precisely why in-person learning is elemental to elementary education. Once students reach university, seminars allow them to probe issues and ideas in the spirit of open, tolerant enquiry amongst a community of their peers.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, though, primary, secondary, and tertiary educators found themselves on the other side of the digital divide as they rushed to adapt in-person teaching methodologies to the online environment. Teachers in general can often find it challenging to integrate emerging technologies within a traditional educational setting. And then there are also the obvious disparities among students in terms of access to the latest devices or even internet connectivity (an especially acute problem in underprivileged communities and developing countries).

Everything Old Is New Again: The “Newness” of Edtech

Whilst there is a tendency to think of edtech as a novel, revolutionary approach to education, the use of technology (understood broadly) within an educational context (or for educational purposes) has been commonplace for centuries. The abacus is a prime example, although anyone with a shorter memory span, particularly those over the age of forty who read history of art at university, might well remember overhead slide projectors.

The “newness” of contemporary edtech, then, is less about the distinctiveness of combining technology and education and more about the distinctive features of today’s technology (e.g., virtual, augmented and mixed reality, automation, machine learning) and the ways it is being used to transform how teachers teach, students learn, and school administrators administer (to say nothing of how we understand what education is or ought to be).

As Dr. Sarah Grant of Imperial College London has written,

“The goal of using this technology is to facilitate the development of precision education, allowing us to make better-informed, evidence-based decisions regarding school strategy, recruitment, resourcing and educational design. In turn, this means we can provide students with a more precise and tailored learning journey based on their individual skill sets and personal objectives, as well as develop sophisticated impact measurement tools.”

This seems a sensible approach — viewing emerging technology as complementary rather than incompatible with more traditional forms of classroom-based, teacher-student interaction.

(Not So) Final Thoughts on Edtech and Learning

So are we any closer to answering the initial question posed at the beginning of this post, namely, what is the purpose of education?

Perhaps not, but maybe an openness to uncertainty is precisely the point of learning, something the wisest person in Athens understood intuitively centuries ago.

What we can say with a degree of certainty, though, is that the European Commission in conjunction with a wide range of inventive European SMEs and committed teaching professionals will continue to foster skills in education as part of a broader vision to promote economic growth, social inclusion, and innovation across the European Union for generations to come.