European Innovation Council (EIC)

This is the EU's flagship innovation programme with a budget of EUR 10 billion (in 2021 prices) for the period 2021-2027. It was established under the Horizon Europe Programme to identify, develop and scale-up breakthrough technologies and innovations.

There are three funding opportunities within this programme: EIC pathfinder, EIC Transition and EIC Accelerator. For each financial year, "challenges" in line with the EU's Strategies relevant for each funding opportunity are announced. For example for the 2023 work programme, challenges that could fund projects related to the Mission Objectives are: clean and efficient cooling (EIC Pathfinder), environmental intelligence (EIC Transition), and energy storage (EIC Accelerator).

EIC Accelerator supports start-ups and SMEs that:

• have an innovative, game changing product, service or business model that could create new markets or disrupt existing ones in Europe and even worldwide,
• have the ambition and commitment to scale up,
• are looking for substantial funding, but the risks involved are too high for private investors alone to invest.

EIC Pathfinder supports collaborative research and development of emerging breakthrough technologies.

EIC Transition funds innovation activities going beyond the experimental proof of principle in laboratory. 

EIC Accelerator applicants from EU Member States and countries associated to the Horizon Europe programme who are:

• Single start-up or SME (including spin-outs) 
• Small mid-caps (fewer than 499 employees)  in need of rapid scale up of the TRL 9 activity. Mid-caps can apply for investment only.
• Natural persons or legal entities willing to set up an SMEs or a mid-cap.

Applicants from third countries may relocate their company in order to become eligible. This must be done before submitting the full application. Applicants from the United Kingdom can apply for the "grant only" scheme.

Applicants may submit only one application to the EIC Accelerator. Additional applications can be submitted after receiving the results of the original submission.

Applications from startups and SMEs with female CEOs are particularly welcome.

EIC Pathfinder: Applicants must be a consortium including as beneficiaries, at least three legal entities, independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:

• at least one legal entity established in a Member State; and
• at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.

The legal entities may for example be universities, research organisations, SMEs, start-ups, industrial partners or natural persons.

EIC Transition: Single applicants (SMEs, spin-offs, start-ups, research organisations, universities) or small consortia (max 5 partners). Applications are restricted to results generated by the following projects:

• EIC Pathfinder projects and FET Flagships calls
• European Research Council Proof of Concept projects
• European Defence Fund (EDF), including the Preparatory Action on Defence Research, research projects, but only for proposals which are exclusively focused on civil applications (including dual use).

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View and apply for open calls at the Funding and Tenders Portal: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/o…

https://eic.ec.europa.eu/eic-funding-opportunities_en

National Contact Points: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/s…