BE Discovery Ecosystems

Strong, collaborative networks are essential to advancing clean tech innovation. Our Ecosystem program prioritizes bridging gaps in the innovation pipeline through strategic partnerships and targeted support.

Our partnerships help create a dynamic ecosystem where transformative concepts are nurtured and developed into viable, impactful climate solutions that can drive the clean energy transition forward. By supporting universities, research institutions, accelerators, incubators, and more – we ensure that innovators have access to the support, expertise, and resources critical to succeed.

Strategic Initiative: University Climate Ventures

Universities and research institutions play a pivotal role by providing access to cutting-edge research, world-class talent, and specialized facilities that enable foundational scientific advancements. They often serve as hubs for groundbreaking ideas, fostering a culture of exploration and discovery. However, it can be hard to take ideas and technology out of a university or research institute and into a commercial setting.

Our program has sponsored and supported climate-tech entrepreneurship classes at universities around the world.

The classes are run by the home institution and focus on nurturing and growing each university’s climate tech company-building ecosystem. Students learn about “white space” opportunities in climate tech (high impact areas where there aren’t many startups today), and form multi-disciplinary teams to identify, assess, design, launch, and build a climate technology start up. Breakthrough supports classes with market insights, guest lectures and mentors from around the world.

We believe University Climate Venture courses can be game changers for getting breakthrough ideas and technologies from the lab to the market.

If you are interested in creating a University Climate Ventures course at your university, please reach out to [email protected].

BE Fellow Molly Yang, Co-Founder & CEO of Hgen, with other clean hydrogen entrepreneurs on a panel at the Cleantech Forum North America.

Case Study: Clean Tech Group

Breakthrough Energy works closely with the Cleantech Group to map out the future of global climate technology ecosystems. Together, we engage in deep dives by country, gaining critical insights into technologies around the world, and discovering areas with high potential impact at the discovery stage. In addition to our research work, we have partnered to support Cleantech Forum North America – an annual event that catalyzes opportunities for our teams, and brings together companies, industry experts, and researchers.

To learn more about this ecosystem partnership, read more on our newsroom: Innovation Takes Center Stage at the Cleantech Forum North America.

As we identify promising clean-energy solutions around the world, we believe it’s equally important to build the support scaffolding they need to succeed. That’s why we engage key regional stakeholders - such as research & academic institutions, accelerators, incubators, capital providers, and corporates - whose on-the-ground insights and networks are essential to helping these innovations take root and scale."