EIC launches Women Leadership Programme to boost women in deep tech, but systemic gaps remain
- ›The European Innovation Council launched the Women Leadership Programme on 3 June 2021 to offer mentoring, skills training and networking to women in EIC-supported projects.
- ›The pilot will accept women from EIC-funded projects and companies and will provide tailored coaching to 50 participants, with mentors already recruited from a pool of nearly 500 applicants.
- ›The EIC pilot Advisory Board published a statement calling for immediate action on gender and diversity and highlighted large structural imbalances across research, entrepreneurship and venture capital.
- ›EIC statistics cited progress but also clear gaps, for example women-led companies in EIC Accelerator rose from 8% to 29% while women make up 50% of jury members and 42% of business coaches.
- ›The Board recommends concrete actions across research leadership, entrepreneurship selection, investment allocation and data collection, but implementation and scale will determine impact.
EIC Women Leadership Programme aims to improve representation of women in deep tech
On 3 June 2021 the European Innovation Council announced the launch of the EIC Women Leadership Programme, a targeted mentoring and skills development initiative for women entrepreneurs and researchers involved in projects supported by the EIC. The move accompanies a broader call from the EIC pilot Advisory Board for systemic action on gender and diversity across the innovation chain. The programme is framed as part of the EIC's Business Acceleration Services and will initially invite applications only from beneficiaries of existing EIC funding instruments.
What the Women Leadership Programme offers
| Feature | Detail | Notes |
| Launch date | 3 June 2021 | Press announcement and EIC site |
| Pilot cohort size | 50 women | Tailored training, personal mentors and coaches |
| Mentor pool | About 500 candidates | From a March 2021 call |
| Application deadline (pilot) | 2 July 2021 | Open only to EIC beneficiaries |
| Eligible projects | EIC Accelerator, EIC Pathfinder and EIC Pilot projects | Future extension to WomenTechEU |
Context: why the EIC and Advisory Board see this as necessary
The EIC and its pilot Advisory Board frame the Women Leadership Programme as a response to persistent underrepresentation of women across the deep tech innovation chain. The Board underlined that improving female representation is not only a matter of fairness but also of competitiveness, arguing that Europe cannot afford to leave talent untapped as it competes internationally for strategic technologies.
Selected statistics and trends cited by the EIC and its Advisory Board
The Advisory Board and EIC materials draw attention to several alarming indicators across research, entrepreneurship and investment. Within the EIC pilot the agency points to measurable improvements while also recognising much wider systemic gaps that require action beyond a single programme.
| Indicator | EIC / Board figure | Source or purpose |
| Women-led companies awarded EIC Accelerator funding | From 8% to 29% | Increase during EIC pilot stage after prioritising women-led companies for interview pitches |
| Share of jury members recommending EIC funding who are women | 50% | EIC jury composition for interview pitches |
| Share of business coaches who are women | 42% | EIC Business Acceleration Services |
| Women as senior management in deep tech start-ups | Less than 20% | Advisory Board statement on systemic imbalance |
| CTO positions in deep tech | Reported stagnation at 1% | Advisory Board highlighted this as a weak point in technical leadership |
| VC capital to men-only teams in 2020 | 91% of capital; 85% of rounds | Advisory Board cited European VC data for 2020 |
| VC leadership in Central and Eastern Europe | 19% of VCs led by women or mixed teams | Regional breakdown cited by the Advisory Board |
| VC partner positions in Nordic countries held by women | 11% | Advisory Board regional data |
Advisory Board recommendations and proposed actions
The EIC pilot Advisory Board published a Statement on Gender and Diversity on 1 June 2021 that identified concrete measures across the innovation lifecycle. The Board framed these recommendations as targeted, deliverable steps to increase the pipeline of women leaders and to change the incentives and selection mechanisms that currently bias outcomes.
Eligibility, deadlines and next steps
The pilot was open for applications from women participating in EIC-funded projects. Eligible beneficiaries included start-ups and SMEs awarded EIC Accelerator funding, research teams supported through EIC Pathfinder and projects awarded under the EIC Pilot. Applications for the pilot phase were scheduled to close on 2 July 2021. The EIC indicated that the programme will be extended in a second stage to projects selected under the WomenTechEU scheme.
Assessment and implications
The Women Leadership Programme is a pragmatic, targeted intervention inside the EIC's existing Business Acceleration Services. The small cohort size and the emphasis on mentoring reflect a common approach to leadership development. The pilot benefits from a ready mentor pool which suggests reasonable capacity for high quality coaching during the first phase. However the programme by itself cannot address structural barriers such as gender imbalance in venture capital decision making, bias in technical leadership pipelines and regional variations in fund management diversity.
Key risks and open questions include the limited scale of the pilot relative to the size of the problem, the quality and matching process for mentors, whether the initiative will be sustained and funded at scale, and how outcomes will be measured. The Advisory Board's broader set of recommendations points to systemic levers that will be necessary for durable change. Those levers include changes to fund of funds allocation policies, standardised diversity data collection, and more ambitious targets across research leadership and fund management.
Why it matters for EU innovation policy
From an EU policy perspective the initiative aligns with wider Horizon Europe priorities on widening participation and gender equality. If implemented with transparency, rigorous monitoring and coupling to funding decisions, this kind of programme can help increase the visibility and investment readiness of women-led deep tech teams. That said, the EIC and other EU actors will need to combine targeted capacity building with policy levers that affect where capital flows and who makes investment decisions if they hope to change outcomes at scale.
Practical takeaways
For women in EIC-funded projects interested in applying, the immediate step in 2021 was to apply by the stated deadline and to consider requesting a business coach if eligible. For investors, fund managers and policymakers the Board's recommendations signal an expectation that financial actors will be asked to play a more active role in diversifying leadership at fund and portfolio level. For the wider innovation ecosystem the test will be whether the pilot expands and whether the EIC and its partners attach measurable targets, transparent data collection and resources to the Board's proposals.
Stakeholders should watch for follow up on the WomenTechEU roll out and for any commitments from the EIC Fund, EIF and EIB on prioritising investments that increase diversity in fund management. Public statements are a necessary first step. The harder question is whether these produce measurable changes in capital allocation and leadership pipelines over the medium term.