JIC — South Moravian Innovation Centre: From Factory Closures to a Regional Spin-off Pipeline

JIC, the South Moravian Innovation Centre, was set up in Brno in 2003 by the City of Brno, the South Moravian Region and four local universities (Masaryk University, Brno University of Technology, Mendel University and the University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences) in response to a wave of factory closures affecting the region.

JIC's aim is to turn the region's university research base into growing companies, offering incubation space and coaching to early-stage firms and brokering collaboration between researchers and companies.

JIC operates three business incubators plus a creative hub and a gaming incubator, offering 7,000 m² of lab and office space with capacity for 60 companies at a time, and free coaching to firms under three years old with turnover below roughly EUR 400,000. Its Platinn advisory service specifically supports enrolled firms' growth.

An EU Regional Policy evaluation of the 2007–2013 funding period — a EUR 12.5 million project of which EUR 9.0 million came from the ERDF — found incubated companies employed almost 300 staff by 2012 (44% in R&D roles), generated EUR 21 million in turnover and launched 53 new products or services that year. The same evaluation found firms enrolled in the Platinn advisory service grew turnover nine times faster than comparable non-enrolled companies, and that JIC had brokered almost 360 researcher-company collaborations over its first decade. Alumni still operating today include Kiwi.com, Y Soft, Flowmon Networks and Safetica, and in 2024 the wider Brno region became the first Czech area named a European Entrepreneurial Region, with its Regional Innovation Index rising from 87.3 to 101 between 2016 and 2023.

JIC's strongest quantitative evidence — the jobs, turnover and 9x growth-differential figures — dates to the EU's 2012–2014 evaluation of the ERDF-funded phase; more recent sourcing documents continued operation and prestige recognitions but not updated job or turnover counts.