EIC advisory board urges systemwide action to fix Europe’s gender gap in deep tech

Europe’s next generation of research and innovation leaders is not being fully tapped because women remain underrepresented at every step of the innovation chain. That is the central finding of a statement published by the European Innovation Council pilot Advisory Board on 3 June 2021. The Board frames the issue not as an exercise in fairness alone, but as a strategic imperative for European competitiveness in high‑stakes technology areas.

Scale and shape of the problem

The Advisory Board synthesises evidence from EIC pilot data and independent analyses to show steep drop offs in female participation as careers advance, and wide funding disparities. The problem is systemic. It spans academic research teams, leadership roles in deep tech start‑ups, and the composition and decision making of venture capital funds and limited partners.

Taken together the numbers point to three linked failures. First, women drop out or are excluded at key career junctions in research and entrepreneurial leadership. Second, the composition of investors and investment teams tilts funding toward predominantly male founder teams. Third, the data that could track and fix these failures are incomplete and fragmented, especially at the level of venture capital and limited partners.

What the EIC has done and where progress is limited

The EIC pilot stage has introduced policies that produced measurable shifts. The EIC prioritised women‑led companies for interview pitches in 2020, a move the Advisory Board links to the rise in female CEO representation among EIC funded start‑ups from 8 percent to 29 percent. The EIC also ensured that 50 percent of jury members on Accelerator interview panels are women, and women make up 42 percent of business coaches. New programmes announced around the same period include WomenTechEU and the EIC Women Leadership Programme which aim to provide mentoring, coaching and targeted funding to female deep tech founders.

Those steps demonstrate that targeted process changes can increase participation without reducing quality. The Advisory Board nonetheless warns that the pace of change is too slow and uneven. The biggest gaps remain at the level of venture capital funds and fund investors where women are severely underrepresented and where shifts in portfolio composition are needed to change systemic funding patterns.

Advisory Board recommendations: five priority areas

The Board proposes specific, actionable targets and policy directions. Their recommendations are practical but ambitious. They call for the EIC and the broader European innovation ecosystem to move beyond pilot gestures to a coordinated strategy that uses the EIC's convening power, its programmes and the EIC Fund to accelerate change.

A) Research leadership

Target equal gender balance among leaders of research work packages in EIC Pathfinder projects. Leading a work package is career critical for researchers and often the point where female participation drops significantly. The Board recommends establishing a data baseline from 2021 and then setting a path to parity.

B) Entrepreneurship pipeline and selection

Increase the share of women‑led companies invited to EIC jury pitches above 40 percent. Broaden the definition of women‑led to include leading executive roles such as CTO, CSO and COO, not only the CEO. Extend prioritisation practices used in the Accelerator to EIC Transition funding. The Board also recommends deeper collaboration with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology to expand entrepreneurship training for women and to grow the pipeline of female deep tech founders.

C) Investment partnerships and funds

The EIC Fund should prioritise partnerships with women‑led funds and funds with diverse management teams. The Board urges funds of funds to shift allocation strategies to back venture funds with diverse management teams across Europe. It calls for coordinated, system level change involving the European Investment Fund, the European Investment Bank and other major public funders to move assets toward more diverse fund managers.

D) Broader diversity beyond gender

Further work is needed to measure and promote other aspects of diversity such as ethnicity, socioeconomic background and age. The Board recommends introducing an innovation diversity prize as an initial incentive to recognise projects and teams that combine strong technical quality with broader diversity.

E) Better data and transparency

Collect, harmonise and share diversity data across the innovation ecosystem. The Board highlights the shortage of comparable, accessible data in venture capital and calls for baseline metrics to monitor progress. Improved data is presented as the necessary precondition for targeted interventions and accountability.

Context from independent analyses

The Advisory Board statement sits alongside multiple private and public studies that corroborate its central claims and add regional nuance. The State of European Tech 2020 report documented that in 2020 the lion's share of capital went to male‑only founding teams. Unconventional Ventures focus on the Nordic region documents large funding gaps but also reports that female founded companies in the Nordics outperform on revenue to funding ratios by about 45 percent. The CEE Report finds even starker regional imbalances, with only 1 percent of VC capital in Central and Eastern Europe going to all‑women founded companies in 2020, while reporting that women‑founded companies in the region can outperform male‑founded peers by large margins when measured by revenue to funding ratios.

Taken together these studies support two linked claims. First, current allocation of capital is inefficient from a talent and economic perspective. Second, changing who writes the checks matters, because investor composition influences portfolio makeup and outcomes.

Practical challenges and implementation notes

The Board recommends bold actions, but mechanics matter. Several practical challenges deserve attention before policy mandates are scaled widely. Data collection at the level of venture and limited partners is uneven. Fund of funds that allocate public capital will need to balance additional criteria against financial mandates. Appointment of coaches, jury members and evaluators requires robust processes to preserve quality while improving gender balance. There is also a risk that poorly designed quotas or prioritisation rules could produce tokenism rather than durable change.

To be effective, measures should be measurable and timebound. The Advisory Board suggests setting baselines and tracking progress from 2021 onwards for specific targets such as the share of women leading work packages in Pathfinder projects and the share of women‑led teams invited to Accelerator pitches.

Risks, tradeoffs and what success looks like

The Board frames gender balance as a competitiveness strategy. Yet success requires careful design to avoid unintended consequences. Possible risks include superficial compliance with targets, or shifts in attention away from other dimensions of diversity that also affect innovation performance. The Board therefore calls for coordinated, systemwide changes that combine incentives, transparent metrics and active monitoring rather than one off initiatives.

Concrete indicators of success would include reliable baseline data across research projects and venture capital, measurable increases in women in leadership roles at research and start‑up levels, an increase in assets managed by diverse fund managers, and no decline in selection quality for EIC supported projects.

Conclusion and next steps

The EIC pilot Advisory Board sends a clear message. Europe cannot afford to leave a large share of talent on the sidelines as it competes in strategic deep tech areas. The EIC has already shown that targeted process changes can increase participation without weakening quality. The Board asks the EIC, the EIC Fund, the EIF, the EIB and public funders to scale those steps rapidly, implement data systems to measure progress, and align incentives across the ecosystem including funds of funds and limited partners. The goal is not merely representation for its own sake. It is a pragmatic strategy to deepen Europe’s talent base and improve the odds of leading the next wave of strategic technologies.

The statement was authored by the EIC pilot Advisory Board and published on 3 June 2021. Members include academics, entrepreneurs and investors such as Mark Ferguson, Hermann Hauser, Kerstin Bock, Laura González‑Estéfani, and others who advised the EIC during its pilot phase.

Further reading and sources

The Advisory Board statement draws on EIC pilot monitoring and references several independent reports and initiatives. Relevant documents include the EIC pilot Advisory Board statement (3 June 2021), State of European Tech 2020, Unconventional Ventures Nordic Startup Funding report, the CEE Report 2021, and EIC programme announcements such as WomenTechEU and the EIC Women Leadership Programme.