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European Innovation Council

Ivan Stefanic

Ivan Stefanic

Biography

EIC Programme Manager for food chain technologies, novel & sustainable food

Ivan Stefanic is a business development and technology transfer specialist with more than 30 years of international experience in research and business. Since 2013 he is EU IP Helpdesk Ambassador.

Ivan is the founding and executive director of TERA TEHNOPOLIS Ltd. established in 2002 - very efficient and well-reputed ‘one-stop for technology-based entrepreneurs in the region. Besides the strategic EU initiatives: EEN, Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, and EIT Food - TERA promotes the entrepreneurial spirit and European values.

Ivan's signature program - Be the Role ModelTM was the 2017 National winner in European Entrepreneurship Promotion Award in the category: “Promoting the Entrepreneurial spirit“ and in 2018 in the category: “Investing in Entrepreneurial skills“. In 2021 - Be the Role ModelTM received outstanding recognition - becoming the best practice @ EU Knowledge Valorisation Platform.

Ivan is also a Full Professor at the Faculty of Agrobiotechnical Sciences Osijek in the field of economics and entrepreneurship in agribusiness, and a Leader of the Research Group Agriculture and Resource Economics and Entrepreneurship. He obtained B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the University of Osijek and Pd.D. at the University of Zagreb. Ivan was a visiting scientist at Universität für Bodenkultur, Wien; North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, and the University of Reading, the UK.

He is passionate about gamification of learning experiences, mentoring students and young entrepreneurs, and enterprising university.

EIC Accelerator Challenge 2025

Biotechnology driven low emission food and feed production systems

EIC Pathfinder Challenge 2025

Biotech for Climate Resilient Crops and Plant-Based Biomanufacturing

 

 

Outreach activities

  1. 28 June 2024
    IPIFF Webinar: Investing in Europe’s Agri-Future – EU funding opportunities for the insect farming sector
    • Keynote speech on the support provided by the European Innovation Council to start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises producing novel foods
    • See the full programme here
  2. 14 May 2024
    PODIM 2024
    • Live Keynote presentation titled ‘Changing Europe – one challenge at a time’
    • Live Keynote presentation titled ‘Opportunities in providing resilient and sustainable food supply chains’
    • Panelist in ‘Upcoming FoodTech Revolution’ panel
    • Panelist in ‘Tech Transfer Meetup’ panel
    • More information and the full programme available here
  3. 13 May 2024
    3rd International Congress "Corporate Wellbeing" - Brussels
    • Live Keynote presentation titled ‘Changing Europe – one challenge at a time’
    • Moderating ‘Healthy nutrition’ panel
    • More information and the full programme available here
  4. 16 April 2024
    Online outreach event for Spanish NCPs on 2024 Accelerator Challenge
    • Presentation titled  ‘Food from precision fermentation and algae EIC Accelerator challenge 2024’
  5. 20 March 2024
    EIC Pathfinder Info Day
    • Presentation of the 2024 EIC Pathfinder Challenge 'Nature inspired alternatives for food packaging and films for agriculture'
    • The recording and slides of the session are available here
  6. 20 March 2024
    Presentation titled ‘Agrifood challenges in EIC’ at ANUGA 2024
    • Live presentation together with EEN SG Agrifood Sara Machiels
    • More information available here
  7. 19 March 2024
    EIC Summit - Beneficiaries' Day
    • Discussed on stage with Marco Pantaleo, Enric Claverol and invited EIC beneficiaries about the EIC proactive portfolio management and its impact
    • View the full programme here
  8. 4 March 2024
    Online outreach event for Swiss NCPs
    • Presentation titled ‘EIC Programmes and Programme Managers’ for Swiss NCPs
  9. 29 January 2024
    EIC Podcast series - Episode 9: Future of food and agriculture
    • Discussed with two EIC beneficiaries, Professor Rita Gross-Hardt (University of Bremen) and Matija Zulj (CEO, AGRIVI) about the future of food and agriculture and their experiences with scaling up their projects/businesses
    • Listen to the full episode here
  10. 16 January 2024
    EIC Accelerator Challenges Info Day
    • Presentation of the 2024 EIC Accelerator Challenge 'Food from precision fermentation and algae'
    • The slides and recording of the presentation are available here
  11. 11 January 2024
    Online outreach event for ULB, Brussels researchers
    • Presentation titled ‘EIC Programme management and challenges approach’ for ULB, Brussels researchers
  12. 18 October 2023
    NutrEvent 2023
    • Speaker in the plenary session 'Delivering personalised nutrition and health: How can personalisation be applied to different individuals and different businesses?'
    • More information available here
  13. 9 October 2023
    Anuga HORIZON Conference
    • Speaker in the session 'Feeding the Future: The Role of Technology in Creating a More Sustainable and Efficient Food System'
    • Presentation 'Backing visionary scientists & entrepreneurs in Food & Agritech'
    • More information available here
  14. 7 September 2023
    Venture building exploration workshop
    • Organised for the EIC projects in the agri-food sector with the support of T2M
    • More information available here
  15. 16 June 2023
    15th Jenner Glycobiology & Medicine Symposium
    • Presentation on the EIC Pathfinder Challenge Precision nutrition
    • See the full programme here
  16. 14 June 2023
    EIC TechTalk
    • Presentation on supporting biodiversity and soil health in an environmentally friendly and socially responsible way
    • Watch the talk here
  17. 13 June 2023
    EIC Info Day in Šibenik, Croatia
    • Presented the EIC Pathfinder and Challenge calls
    • More information available here
  18. 11 May 2023
    "Unlocking the Power of Robotics in Agri-Food" AgROBOfood Network Event
    • Speaker in the session 'Providing the EU framework: Policy to support agriculture robotics guidelines & funding opportunities'
    • More information available here
  19. 27 April 2023
    Webinar on Agri-food Open and Challenge calls
    • Organised by the EIC and UBT to present the 2023 EIC Pathfinder challenge 'Precision nutrition' and the 2023 EIC Accelerator Challenge 'Novel technologies for resilient agriculture'
    • More information available here
  20. 27 February 2023
    EIC Podcast series - Episode 5: Intellectual property know-how for agritech startups
    • Listen to the full episode here
  21. 9 February 2023
    Food for Sustainability webinar 'The past, present and future of sustainable proteins'
    • Presentation titled ‘How to finance and commercialize novel sustainable proteins?’ followed by Q&A session
    • Promotion of the Pathfinder challenge ‘Personalised nutrition’ and Accelerator challenge ‘Novel technologies for resilient agriculture’.
  22. 31 January 2023
    EIC Accelerator & Pathfinder Challenge Info Day
    • Presentation of EIC Accelerator Challenge on Novel technologies for resilient agriculture - information day
      • Full webinar available here
    • Presentation of EIC Pathfinder Challenge on Precision Nutrition
      • Full webinar available here
  23. 24 January 2023
    Webinar "Licensing as exit strategy for the EIC beneficiaries"
    • Organised by EIC Programme Managers Office, with the collaboration of Xana Belastegui (Partner at DnA Adivsory Services) and Thomas Bereuter (European Patent Office).
    • Watch full webinar here
  24. 2 - 7 December 2022
    World Leader Summit 2022 - Connect. Evolve. Innovate. Scaleup.
    • Presentation "EIC programmes - Backing visionary entrepreneurs" in the session session "Startup Investment"
    • The event site

     

  25. 17 - 18 October 2022
    IT Food Annual Event 2022
  26. 5 October 2022
    Patent Knowledge Week organized by the European Patent Office (EPO) (online)
  27. 26 September 2022
     Pitch perfect and Boost the European Bioeconomy 2022 organized by Bio Base Europe, Brussels (BE)
    • Presentation about EIC programmes 
    • Moderating Session 6: Start-ups & SMEs looking for investors offering finances.

    Check the agenda (PDF) 

  28. 22 - 27 September 2022
    EIC Challenges Workshop with Member States
  29. 4 - 5 July 2022
    EEN Agri-Food Sector Group 3rd Meeting 2022, Palermo (IT)
    • organised together with EEN thematic group A2F – Access to finance, D.01 and E.03 Units of EISMEA
    • the event page

    Presentations

    • EIC programmes - Backing visionary entrepreneurs in the Agrifood sector by EIC Progamme Manager Ivan Stefanic
    • Workshop for EEN Members & SMEs: European Innovation Council: Funding opportunities for innovative agrifood companies and application details on the open calls by EIC Programme Manger Ivan Stefanic & EIC Accelerator Project Advisor Michos Konstantinos
  30. 29 - 30 June 2022
    Skills for Enterprise Development (S4E) Launch event - Skilling up the Western Balkans agri-food sector: digitalising, greening
    • Organised by the European Training Foundation
    • Session New technologies and digitalisation in agri-food with facilitators: Jan Peter Ganter De Otero and Florian Kadletz (ETF)
    • Key speech Backing visionary entrepreneurs in the agri-food sector by Ivan Stefanic, EIC Programme Manager
    • the event page