Key points
- Respect everyone, whatever their background, and keep disagreements about ideas, never about people.
- No harassment, discrimination or bullying, in person or online.
- Be honest: real numbers, real customers, your own work.
- Pull your weight in your team and agree roles and ownership early.
- Speak up. Tell any EIA staff member or write to info@inacademy.eu. Nobody is punished for reporting in good faith.
Who this applies to
Everyone who takes part in an EIA program: students, faculty, mentors, speakers, investors, partners, volunteers and EIA staff.
It applies on site at the host university, in online sessions, at EIA social events and excursions, and in program chats, workspaces and social media groups. It also applies to how you treat the customers, experts and investors you contact as part of the course.
Respect and inclusion
Our cohorts bring together people of many nationalities, languages, faiths and beliefs. Everyone should be able to do their best work here.
- Treat everyone with courtesy, including people whose views you disagree with.
- Challenge ideas, not people. Feedback on a pitch is about the pitch.
- Make room for others in discussions. Many participants work in their second or third language.
- Respect people's names, pronouns, privacy and personal boundaries.
What is never acceptable
- Discrimination or abuse based on nationality, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or belief, disability, age, appearance or any similar characteristic.
- Harassment of any kind, including sexual harassment, unwanted physical contact, unwelcome comments, stalking, and continuing contact after someone has asked you to stop.
- Bullying, intimidation, threats or violence.
- Photographing, filming or recording someone, or sharing images of them, without their consent.
- Offensive content in presentations, chats or materials.
- Retaliating against anyone who reports a concern or helps with a report.
Honest work
Entrepreneurship is taught here by doing the real thing, so the numbers have to be real too.
- Report results you can evidence. A number nobody can evidence counts as zero, and revenue in EIA Ventures is checked against bank records.
- Present your own team's work. Credit other people's ideas, data, code and images when you use them.
- AI tools are welcome and encouraged. You remain responsible for everything you submit, present or send to a customer.
- Do not copy another team's idea or materials, or use what they shared in confidence.
Contacting customers, experts and investors
You will talk to real buyers during the course. They give students time because they trust students to be straight with them. Keep that trust.
- Say who you are: a student building a startup at the European Innovation Academy.
- Never make claims about your product, results, partners or funding that you cannot back up, and never make health, safety or financial claims you are not allowed to make.
- Take payments only for things you will deliver, and keep any promise you make to a paying customer.
- Respect a no. Do not spam, and follow the rules of the platforms and the data protection law that apply to your messages.
Teamwork
- Show up, on time, for your team and your sessions, and do your share of the work.
- Agree roles, decision-making and ownership early, and write them down. Revisit them if things change.
- Raise problems with your team first and with a mentor or staff member if that does not work.
- If you need to leave a team, do it openly and agree what happens to the work you did together.
Mentors, speakers, investors and staff
People in a position of trust hold themselves to a higher standard.
- Give advice in the participants' interest, not your own.
- Disclose any personal investment in, or business relationship with, a team you mentor or assess, as EIA policy requires.
- Never pressure a team into giving equity, payment, data or rights in exchange for help, introductions or a better score.
- Keep relationships with participants professional.
Venues, events and the cities we visit
- Follow the house rules of the host university and look after its rooms, equipment and neighbours.
- Follow local law, including the law on alcohol. Illegal drugs are not tolerated at any EIA activity.
- At social events, look out for each other and make sure everyone gets home safely.
- Follow the instructions of EIA staff and venue staff, especially on safety. See the Safety Protocol.
Privacy and confidentiality
- Respect the personal information of other participants. Do not share their contact details, data or private messages outside the program without their agreement.
- Official photographers record EIA events. If you do not want to appear in photos or video, tell a staff member.
- How EIA handles personal data is set out in the Privacy Policy.
How to report a concern
In an emergency, call 112
In Portugal, Italy and Switzerland call 112. In the UK call 999 or 112. Then tell EIA staff.
- Talk to any EIA staff member on site or in your online session, or write to info@inacademy.eu.
- You can report something that happened to you or something you saw. You do not need proof to raise a concern.
- Reports are handled discreetly and shared only with the people who need to act on them.
- If you came with your university, you can also go to your faculty lead.
What happens after a report
EIA listens to the people involved and decides on a fair response that matches how serious the behaviour was. Depending on the case, this can be:
- a conversation and an agreed change in behaviour;
- a formal warning;
- removal from a session, a team, an event or a role;
- removal from the program, without a right to further participation;
- for university cohorts, informing the home university.
Where the law may have been broken, or someone is at risk, EIA may involve the police or other authorities.
Updates
We review this code before each cohort. The date at the top shows the latest version. Suggestions are welcome at info@inacademy.eu.