EIC Transition: 19 projects awarded to push frontier research toward market readiness

Brussels, July 24th 2023

Summary

›The European Innovation Council selected 19 projects from 180 eligible submissions for EIC Transition funding.
›The winners will share a total EU contribution of EUR 46.76 million, with individual grants up to EUR 2.5 million.
›14 projects were funded under open calls and 5 under two targeted challenge areas; no projects were selected for the environmental intelligence challenge.
›Selected projects include NextMRI for portable MRI and Nano4Rare for a nanomedicine candidate for Fabry disease.
›Selected teams gain access to EIC Business Acceleration Services and a fast-track route to the EIC Accelerator for scaling.

EIC Transition awards 19 projects to bridge lab breakthroughs and market readiness

On 24 July 2023 the European Innovation Council announced the results of its April 2023 EIC Transition cut-off. Nineteen proposals were selected from a pool of 180 eligible submissions. The Commission says the chosen projects will receive, in total, €46.76 million of EU financial contribution. Each project may receive up to €2.5 million to validate and demonstrate technologies in application relevant environments and to prepare market entry.

What was funded and how the call was structured

The April 2023 Transition call included an open strand that accepted proposals from any technological area and three targeted challenge strands that focused funding on specific technology gaps. The call continued the EIC Transition objective of maturing ideas coming out of EIC Pathfinder, FET or ERC Proof of Concept projects. For this cut-off 14 projects were selected under the open strand. Three projects were selected under the chip-scale optical frequency combs challenge and two under the Full scale micro-nano-bio devices for medical and medical research applications challenge. No projects were selected for the environmental intelligence challenge in this cut-off. The Commission indicated that the environmental intelligence budget would remain available at the next cut-off.

Category	Number of selected projects	Notes
Open funding	14	Projects from any scientific field
Chip-scale optical frequency combs challenge	3	Targeted funding to advance comb technologies for photonics
Full scale micro-nano-bio devices for medical and research applications challenge	2	Targeted funding for micro-nano-bio medical devices
Environmental intelligence challenge	0	No projects selected at this cut-off; budget carried forward

Selected projects at a glance

The 19 selected projects come from 18 EU Member States and Horizon Europe associated countries. The list below reflects the project acronyms, titles, coordinating organisations, country, planned duration and the recommended budget amounts reported in the selection documents.

Acronym	Project title	Coordinating organisation	Country	Duration (months)	Recommended budget
CombTools	Chip-Scale Optical Frequency Combs for Communications and Sensing: A Toolkit for System Integration	Karlsruher Institut fuer Technologie	DE	36	2,523,585.00 EUR
UNICO	Universal frequency-comb platform for datacenter communications	INNOLUME GmbH	DE	30	2,500,000.00 EUR
DREIMS	Drug-eluting electrical implant to repair the spinal cord	Fundacion Hospital Nacional de Paraplejicos	ES	36	2,494,542.50 EUR
FORESEE	Novel microsensing platform for remote patient monitoring	Universidad Pompeu Fabra	ES	36	2,499,051.25 EUR
GphT-BCI	Graphene Transistors for High-Density Brain-Computer Interfaces	INBRAIN Neuroelectronics SL	ES	36	2,495,000.00 EUR
Nano4Rare	Preclinical development of a nanomedicine candidate for Fabry rare disease treatment to enter clinical phase	Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas	ES	24	2,498,563.75 EUR
NextMRI	Truly portable MRI for extremity and brain imaging anywhere and everywhere	Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas	ES	36	2,494,415.00 EUR
SCALLOP	Scalable Hardware for Large-Scale Quantum Computing	Semiqon Technologies oy	FI	30	2,500,000.00 EUR
FORTE	Frequency-agile lasers for photonic sensing	Thales	FR	30	1,966,218.75 EUR
MCSquare	Developing Multi-Core Silicon-Based Quantum Processors	Siquance	FR	30	2,440,870.00 EUR
NanoSCAN	Revolutionizing Spatial Biology with a cutting-scale Multi-Scale Imaging platform	Abbelight	FR	36	2,489,162.50 EUR
AirInMotion	Accelerating Energy-Efficient Atmospheric Carbon Capture Technologies	The Provost, Fellows, Foundation Scholars & the Other Members of Board, of the College of the Holy & Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin	IE	36	2,494,251.25 EUR
M-Engine	Microcomb Photonic Engine	X-CELEPRINT Limited	IE	36	2,499,746.25 EUR
FUTURE	Femtosecond laser writing for photonic quantum processors	Faro Quantum Technologies S.r.l.	IT	24	2,495,968.75 EUR
BE FAST	Bacterial Eavesdropping for Fast Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing	SoundCell B.V.	NL	36	2,499,143.75 EUR
PACT4EYE	Innovative Photoactivated Ruthenium Chemotherapy to treat eye cancer	Universiteit Leiden	NL	36	2,500,000.00 EUR
cassaFLOW	Cascades for Stereoselective Synthesis of Amino Acids	Technische Universiteit Delft	NL	36	2,378,694.25 EUR
FabouLACE	Dispersion force masked-based helium atom lithography	Lace Lithography AS	NO	36	2,499,397.00 EUR
SmartSat	Revolutionizing Spacecraft Thermal Control with Dynamic Graphene Radiators	Smartir Limited	UK	24	2,500,000.00 EUR

Two illustrative projects and their ambitions

NextMRI:NextMRI builds on earlier EU-funded Histo-MRI and PR Scanner projects that demonstrated in vivo images captured with a light, small-footprint, low-field extremity MRI outside hospital settings. The earlier work included imaging at a patient’s home and in open-air settings powered by a gasoline generator. The Transition project aims to extend the technology to brain as well as extremity imaging, strengthen diagnostic capability with machine learning, improve portability and usability, reduce production costs, conduct clinical trials to gather medical evidence and establish a sustainable business case for broad deployment in clinics, home and hospice care, rural areas and other point-of-care settings. The ambition is to improve access to MRI for populations with limited current access. This plan faces a challenging path. Low-field MRI must demonstrate diagnostic equivalence or acceptable trade-offs with established high-field systems. Clinical validation, regulatory approvals, reimbursement pathways and manufacturing at scale are all necessary steps before widespread deployment.

Nano4Rare:Nano4Rare is advancing a patent-protected nanoencapsulation platform and a lead candidate named nanoGLA for treating Fabry disease, a lysosomal storage disorder. nanoGLA has orphan designation by the European Medicines Agency and the European Commission. The project will use GMP-grade batches produced under the earlier Phoenix project to complete preclinical studies required to apply for regulatory approval to enter clinical trials. A second objective is to spin out a company to commercialize nanoGLA and the underlying nanoencapsulation platform for other rare diseases. The usual translational risks apply. Preclinical success does not guarantee clinical safety or efficacy and orphan designations simplify regulatory pathways but do not eliminate the need for robust clinical data, manufacturing scale-up at GMP quality and clear commercial and reimbursement strategies for rare-disease therapies.

Understanding EIC Transition and related instruments

EIC Transition purpose:EIC Transition provides follow-up grants to technologies previously supported by EIC Pathfinder, its predecessor FET, or by ERC Proof of Concept projects. The funding supports maturation steps needed to validate technology in application relevant environments and to build a business case.

Relation to EIC Pathfinder, FET and ERC PoC:Pathfinder and FET fund early, high-risk research at low technology readiness levels. ERC Proof of Concept supports early translation of ERC-funded research. Transition is intended to pick up those promising results and push them towards market and application validation, typically addressing TRL steps beyond proof-of-principle.

Grants, support and follow-up options:Each selected Transition project can receive up to €2.5 million. Projects also gain access to EIC Business Acceleration Services such as coaching, mentoring and partnering events. Projects are eligible for a fast-track scheme to apply to the EIC Accelerator, which provides support for commercialisation and scale-up including equity and blended finance via the EIC Fund.

Practical considerations and risks the projects will face

EIC Transition funding is valuable for closing the so-called valley of death between promising lab results and market-ready products. That said, several recurring hurdles remain and may limit eventual impact. These include the need for rigorous clinical evidence for medical technologies and therapies, complex regulatory pathways in healthcare and other safety-critical sectors, scale-up of manufacturing processes at affordable cost, supply chain resilience, securing private follow-on investment, intellectual property management, and establishing reimbursement or customer procurement models. Challenge-targeted strands can concentrate resources on strategic gaps but may also narrow the applicant pool. For projects claiming transformational societal impact, independent verification through clinical trials, field tests or third-party validation will be essential to substantiate those claims.

Geographic spread and ecosystem support

The selected projects involve organisations from across Europe and associated countries, illustrating the EIC’s role in mobilising a continent-wide deep-tech ecosystem. Beneficiaries will be able to draw on services from National Contact Points, Enterprise Europe Network members and EIC Business Acceleration Services. The Commission highlights access to coaching, mentoring and investor networks as part of the package to improve commercial prospects. Applicants can also use the Seal of Excellence route to seek alternative national or regional funding where relevant.

Next steps and how to engage

The selected Transition projects were expected to start in autumn 2023. The EIC runs multiple cut-offs and the next cut-off referenced in the announcement was 27 September 2023. Applicants interested in Transition funding should review the EIC Work Programme and the Funding and Tenders Portal for current dates, eligibility rules and guidance. Teams coming from EIC Pathfinder, FET or ERC PoC projects are the intended beneficiaries, but the EIC has expanded some challenge strands to accept follow-up proposals from other Horizon projects where explicitly allowed.

How the EIC uses targeted challenge strands

Targeted challenges are used to steer investment toward strategic technologies where Europe has capability gaps or where faster deployment could address policy priorities. In this cut-off the chip-scale optical frequency combs and micro-nano-bio devices challenges produced funded projects. Environmental intelligence attracted submissions but produced no fundable project at this cut-off, suggesting either a higher bar for demonstration, weaker proposals or misalignment between available budgets and market-readiness of proposed solutions.

Final appraisal

The EIC Transition awards provide concrete support to advance high-risk, deep-tech research toward applications. The mix of projects chosen spans health, photonics, quantum computing, spatial biology and climate technologies. Funding and acceleration services are necessary steps and help reduce translational risk. However, public grants are only part of the journey. For real market impact, successful teams will need to secure private investment, complete regulatory milestones, demonstrate cost-effective manufacturing and show clear adoption paths in crowded or conservative markets. Observers should track these projects through their clinical studies, pilots, partner signings and follow-on investment to judge whether the EIC Transition funding translated into scaled innovations.

Further information

For applicants and stakeholders the EIC publishes lists of selected projects, work programmes and application timelines on the Funding and Tenders Portal and the EIC website. The EIC also offers national contact points and Business Acceleration Services to support applicants during proposal preparation and project execution.