EISMEA launches EIC Corporate Partnership Programme 3.0 tender

The European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency opened a tender in September 2023 for the next phase of the European Innovation Council Corporate Partnership Programme. The new procurement, labelled Corporate Partnership Programme 3.0, asks for a contractor to design and deliver services that connect EIC-funded startups and scaleups with large corporations across Europe. The stated aim is to accelerate commercial partnerships, pilots and investment that help high potential companies scale.

What the programme has done so far

EIC corporate partnership activity began in 2017. Between October 2017 and July 2023 the programme ran 69 initiatives that brought together EIC awardees and corporate partners. According to the agency, those initiatives involved roughly 1 200 EIC-funded companies and some 2 500 senior representatives from more than 100 corporate partners. The list of named corporate participants cited on EIC pages includes ABB, Airbus, BMW, CaixaBank, Commerzbank, Enel, Ferrovial, L'Oreal, Medtronic, Neste, Novo Nordisk, Roche, Saint-Gobain, Shell Ventures, Siemens Energy, Solvay and Telefónica.

What Corporate Partnership Programme 3.0 will do

The tender brief asks for a contractor to continue and expand the previous work. Core tasks include organising matchmaking and pitching events that pair EIC awardees and large companies, supporting ventures that work under a venture client model, structuring pilots and trials with corporates across sectors and helping scale-ups access customers and investors. The brief explicitly mentions support for innovative approaches such as corporate client capitalisation models and introduces incentives tied to successful business deals for the first time.

Procurement and practical details

Why this matters for the EU innovation ecosystem

Corporate-startup linkages are widely seen within the European innovation ecosystem as a critical route to scale. Large companies provide distribution channels, procurement budgets, technical expertise and, in some instances, follow-on investment. For deep tech and industrial innovations, corporate pilots can be the decisive step that converts laboratory prototypes into repeatable, revenue generating deployments. The EIC programme sits at the intersection of public funding, private capital and corporate demand and aims to act as a broker between them.

Measured impact and the limits of available claims

EIC communications say the Corporate Partnership Programme has generated significant business impact including hundreds of follow-ups and business deals. This sort of result is plausible given the number of events run. However measuring the true economic value of corporate matchmaking is difficult. Reported follow-ups may include exploratory conversations and not all reported deals are always independently verified. Counting outcomes across multiple events and years can also double count the same company or transaction. A robust assessment requires clear definitions, public metrics and independent evaluation.

Risks and governance questions

The introduction of incentives tied to successful business deals is intended to reward demonstrable impact. The approach has merit but also requires careful guardrails. Incentives can create perverse effects if they encourage prioritising short term deals over longer term technology development, or if they motivate gaming of metrics. There are also legal and public procurement constraints to consider when public funds are used to catalyse commercial relationships between public beneficiaries and private corporates. Transparency on criteria, third party verification of outcomes and compliant contracting will be essential to reduce the risk of conflicts of interest and to ensure value for public money.

How to apply and further information

The tender application process used the EU e-tendering portal. The tender documents set out detailed specifications and Section 1 contains the services description. The call gave a clear application deadline of 23 October 2023 at 10:00 CEST. Interested bidders were required to submit proposals electronically through the portal. For contractors and ecosystem actors, the opportunity represented a multi million euro contract to coordinate European corporate-startup engagement for the EIC.

What to watch next

Observers should track the identity of the winning contractor, the detailed implementation plan, and the operational rules for the new deal incentives. Independent impact evaluation and transparent outcome metrics will be essential if the next phase is to demonstrate whether corporate matchmaking can be cost effective at scale. The broader context is the EIC's expanding remit under Horizon Europe and the parallel development of tools such as the EIC Fund which aim to combine grants with equity to push European deep tech firms toward scale.

Finally the programme reflects an enduring policy choice. European innovation policy is moving from pure grant support to demand side measures and blended finance models that connect startups with customers and investors. These approaches can accelerate commercialisation when well designed. They also require stricter measurement, transparent governance and continued scrutiny to make sure public funds produce durable market outcomes.