European Innovation Fund

Background

Innovation is the foundational pillar of societal progress. As Matt Ridley notes in his 2020 book, How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom, innovation “is the reason most people today live lives of prosperity and wisdom compared to their ancestors, the overwhelming cause of the great enrichment of the past few centuries.”

In Europe, around two centuries ago, the freedom and willingness to test new ideas, inventions, or systems kick-started what Cato Institute distinguished scholar Diedre McCloskey dubbed the “great enrichment.” This led to global living standards soaring and our civilization achieving new heights of prosperity and dynamism.

Twenty-five years ago, in the Lisbon Agenda, European Parliament sought “to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.” Instead, over the last two decades, we have witnessed growing reliance on government to solve society’s most pressing issues, expansionist bureaucracies that make testing new ideas increasingly burdensome and expensive, and an ever-increasing malaise around the individual’s ability to improve the world. To change this status quo, there must be the freedom and willingness to test new ideas and to discover whether they can work.

Our Vision

Through this European Innovation Fund, we aim to reinvigorate and nurture the spirit of innovation, rooted in freedom, by supporting creators, innovators, and builders to test ideas that are challenging the status quo, developing market-based solutions to some of our most pressing challenges across Europe. We envision a Europe where individuals and organizations can test bold ideas, challenge entrenched systems, and establish new pathways for progress–one that champions classical liberal values such as individual freedom, personal responsibility, and the rule of law.

Call to Action

If you’re a creator, innovator, or builder with a transformative idea aiming to expand the sphere of individual freedom in Europe, we want to hear from you. In particular, we are looking for:

• Social innovators addressing pressing challenges through private sector efforts, 
• Intellectual entrepreneurs seeking to pilot new initiatives, 
• Emerging leaders with fresh perspectives on longstanding challenges and a transformative idea,
• Researchers and policy experts wanting to explore unconventional insights.

Some examples of projects might include (but are not limited to) developing a new educational model that challenges the state education monopoly in Europe, founding a new educational platform for freedom, developing new approaches to challenging the EU administrative state, or launching an incubator for founders and innovators to develop private sector solutions to our most challenging issues.

Together we can realize a more dynamic Europe that increases the sphere of individual action and responsibility for all. For more information and to apply, reach out to us at grants@risingtide.ch. 

Applications are due by July 11.