As the first European initiative to fully integrate the Research, Training and Innovation elements of the knowledge triangle, EIT brings together human and material resources around private investments. The objective is to turn this into a model that will contribute to the modernisation of European higher education and research establishments. The EIT draws on the Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC) that consist of integrated partnerships involving players in higher education, research and enterprise, guided by excellence, around common themes. They are selected according to competitive, transparency and excellence criteria.

The KIC InnoEnergy (Knowledge Innovation Community in the field of innovative energies) is one of the first three KICs selected. Its objective is to transform the results of higher education and research activities in the field of Sustainable Energy into commercially viable innovations.

This is a major challenge for INSA Lyon since the project could integrate many Master's and doctoral students as well as researchers. This KIC has 6 Collocation Centres based in Spain, Poland, Sweden, Benelux, Germany, and France. The latter, named "Alps Valley", is organised around Grenoble and groups together 6 partners alongside INSA Lyon: CEA, Grenoble INP, Grenoble Ecole de Management, CNRS, Schneider Electric and AREVA.