ERC and EIC issue joint statement on strengthening collaboration
- ›The European Research Council and the European Innovation Council released a joint statement on 26 March 2025 about their current and future collaboration.
- ›The announcement is limited in detail and frames the move as an alignment of research excellence with market-facing innovation support.
- ›Implementation details remain unclear and will determine whether the collaboration reduces fragmentation or creates new overlaps between curiosity driven research and market-driven support.
- ›Observers should watch for follow-up documents outlining governance, funding arrangements, and practical cooperation mechanisms.
Joint statement by the European Research Council and the European Innovation Council
On 26 March 2025 the European Innovation Council and the European Research Council published a joint statement describing 'the current and future collaboration' between the two bodies. The release appeared on the European Innovation Council's news pages and was attributed to the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency. The original announcement contains only a brief public notice and does not include detailed implementation text.
What the announcement says and what it does not
The published item is short. It confirms that a joint statement exists and that it addresses both ongoing cooperation and plans for future collaboration between the ERC and the EIC. The text released by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency does not provide further public detail about specific programmes, funding reallocations, new joint calls, or legal changes. That means the public signal is clear while the operational detail remains to be published or negotiated.
Why a formal ERC–EIC collaboration matters
The European Research Council is the EU’s main funder of investigator-led frontier research. The European Innovation Council focuses on accelerating and scaling high risk, high potential innovations and on investment support through the EIC Fund. Bringing the two closer together could reduce friction along the pathway from breakthrough research to marketable products, ease knowledge transfer, and provide better pipelines for deep tech. However the value of a formal collaboration will depend on the practical arrangements that follow the statement: funding alignment, governance, conflict resolution, and safeguards for basic research independence.
How the collaboration could work in practice
The statement itself does not enumerate mechanisms. Based on how EU research and innovation programmes normally operate the following are plausible pathways for collaboration. These are presented as informed options rather than claims about what the joint statement contains.
Potential mechanisms include coordinated calls that link ERC-funded discovery projects to EIC transition or accelerator funding, formal referral pathways from ERC grantees to business coaching and EIC services, data sharing to identify promising technologies, joint events and expert panels to smooth technology transfer, and shared evaluators for bridging proposals. The EIC Fund's co-investment model could provide follow-on capital to innovations that emerge from ERC-supported teams if governance and conflict of interest rules are addressed.
| Institution | Primary focus | Typical instruments and outputs |
| European Research Council (ERC) | Frontier, curiosity driven scientific research | Investigator grants, proof of concept support oriented toward scientific excellence |
| European Innovation Council (EIC) | Market-oriented deep tech innovation and scaling | Grants, blended finance, equity investments via the EIC Fund, business acceleration services |
Key questions and governance risks
A headline level statement is a positive diplomatic step but it raises several questions. How will the two bodies protect the ERC's independence and the principle of curiosity driven research while enabling stronger translation pathways? Who will govern joint decisions about candidate projects for co-support and on what legal basis will funds be combined or coordinated? Will new joint evaluation criteria be created and if so how will the scientific and commercial priorities be balanced? Transparency around conflicts of interest and data sharing will be essential, especially where pre-commercial IP and early stage company valuations are at stake.
Another practical risk is duplication and administrative burden for applicants. Past attempts to stitch together research funding and innovation finance have sometimes created extra compliance steps for researchers and startups. The design challenge is to streamline referral and handover processes without imposing heavy new requirements on teams.
Context in the EU innovation ecosystem
The ERC and EIC operate inside the wider Horizon Europe framework and in an ecosystem that includes national funding agencies, regional innovation programmes, the EIC Fund and private investors. The EIC has been presented publicly as a major European deep tech investor. EIC communications in recent years have pointed to multi-billion euro support envelopes for startups and scaleups and to work programmes that open large funding opportunities for strategic technologies. A formal ERC–EIC collaboration would therefore be part of a broader effort to reduce gaps between research and market deployment in Europe.
What to watch next
Because the publicly available joint statement is brief, the next items to monitor are more detailed follow-ups. Watch for: the published full text of the joint statement if released, memoranda of understanding or service level agreements describing data sharing and referral mechanisms, any new joint calls in the Funding and Tenders portal, changes to evaluation or eligibility rules, and minutes of meetings or transparency register entries that provide operational detail. Also look for signals from national contact points and EIC ecosystem partners about how they will support any new pathways.
Practical implications for researchers and startups
Researchers should take the statement as a policy signal that better routes to commercialisation may be encouraged. But until concrete instruments are published they should not assume guaranteed access to investment or simplified processes. Startups and spinouts originating from ERC projects should monitor EIC calls and EISMEA communications and prepare to document both scientific novelty and market readiness if they intend to seek EIC support.
A cautious assessment
A formal announcement of cooperation between ERC and EIC is a welcome sign that Commission bodies are thinking about the whole innovation chain. However the long term impact will be determined by the technical design of cooperation, the legal and financial arrangements, and the safeguards that protect basic science. The risk remains that without careful design the collaboration could create new administrative complexity or shift incentives away from exploratory research toward short term commercial metrics.
For now the public record consists of a short joint statement dated 26 March 2025 issued by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency and attributed to both Councils. Stakeholders should press for the publication of the full text and implementation plans so that the community can assess whether the collaboration will deliver the promised benefits without eroding the distinct roles that both institutions play in Europe’s research and innovation system.