Leadership, mentorship and technology: one founder’s account

The European Innovation Council Women Leadership Programme aims to help female researchers and entrepreneurs build managerial skills and networks needed to scale deep tech ventures. In the programme’s eighth cohort one participant, Silvia Scaglione, research director at Italy’s National Research Council and founder and chief scientist of React4life, describes how the programme influenced her approach to leadership, partner engagement and negotiation. Her company is developing an organ on chip platform intended to make preclinical drug testing more human relevant and faster than traditional methods.

React4life and the case for human-relevant models

Silvia leads the company’s research strategy, regulatory alignment efforts, and partnerships with pharma and biotech. The ambition is to position React4life among organ on chip providers that can be used by pharmaceutical companies in discovery and safety testing. That ambition faces practical and institutional barriers. As Silvia puts it, one of the biggest challenges is resistance within pharma to move away from established animal models when regulatory pathways for new human-relevant tools are still evolving.

What the Women Leadership Programme offered her

The programme is targeted at advanced entrepreneurs and senior researchers. It blends personal mentoring, business coaching, training modules and networking events. Silvia, who took part in the eighth cohort, highlights three changes she attributes to the experience. First, structured mentorship helped her define concrete next steps. Second, training modules gave practical frameworks for negotiation and pitching. Third, expanded networks provided new industry perspectives and potential partners.

Networking and visibility across the EU innovation ecosystem

Networking is a stated core of the programme. Participants gain access to mentors, peer cohorts and events within the EIC and EIT communities. Silvia describes the cohort community as broad and diverse and says informal exchanges exposed shared challenges across sectors. She recommends the programme to peers seeking to improve leadership, negotiation and communication skills while expanding a professional network throughout Europe and beyond.

Where this fits in the EIC’s broader support for women innovators

The Women Leadership Programme is one component of the EIC’s Business Acceleration Services. The initiative forms part of the EIC strategic goals for 2021 to 2027 that include improving representation of women in deep tech and boosting Europe’s innovation capacity. The programme started as a pilot in 2021 and has supported several hundred women researchers and entrepreneurs. It runs alongside initiatives such as Women TechEU and the European Prize for Women Innovators.

Those numbers show significant activity and reach. They do not by themselves prove that cohort level training or networking directly caused long term commercial success. Measurable outcomes such as revenue growth, regulatory acceptance of new technologies and sustained market adoption take years and require independent evaluation. That caveat is particularly relevant for capital intensive and regulated fields such as biotech.

Technical and regulatory hurdles for organ on chip adoption

Organ on chip systems promise human relevant models but face three persistent obstacles to widespread adoption. First, regulatory frameworks are still catching up. Agencies and industry have to agree on validation pathways that will accept non animal tests for safety and efficacy decisions. Second, pharma companies are conservative buyers for preclinical tools. They require robust datasets, reproducibility and integration into existing pipelines. Third, scaling complex bioengineered devices for routine use involves supply chain, quality assurance and cost challenges that extend beyond the laboratory proof of concept.

Silvia and React4life are operating within that context. The Women Leadership Programme helped with negotiation readiness and partner communication. Those are necessary capabilities for interacting with potential pharma partners and with consortia that drive regulatory acceptance. They are not, however, a substitute for the longer term investments and multi stakeholder validation processes that determine whether organ on chip technologies become routine in drug development.

What to watch and how to engage

For founders considering the programme the practical trade offs are clear. The EIC Women Leadership Programme does not provide direct financial support to participants, though it can be paired with other EIC or EIT funding instruments. It requires time commitment including an in person kick off and a minimum attendance rate for online sessions in order to obtain a completion certificate. Founders should weigh the potential benefit of tailored mentorship and access to networks against the time cost.

The EIC also offers separate schemes, such as Women TechEU, which provides an individual grant of EUR 75,000 together with mentoring and access to coaching. Entrepreneurs in earlier stages or outside EIC or EIT awardee lists should look for other national or EU support streams, or consult the EIC Community Platform for open calls and partner services.

Conclusions and a cautious appraisal

The account from Silvia Scaglione illustrates the behavioural and managerial gains a founder can derive from structured mentoring and skills training. Those gains matter because technical quality alone does not guarantee partner acceptance or commercial traction. At the same time, the bigger picture for technologies such as organ on chip remains determined by evidence generation, standards, regulatory decisions and industry willingness to change entrenched test methods. Programs that build leadership and negotiation capacity are valuable building blocks. They are not a panacea for market and regulatory friction that require scientific validation and cross sector coordination over many years.

Further information and how to follow up

The EIC Women Leadership Programme runs cohorts and publishes open calls on the EIC Community Platform. The EIC Business Acceleration Services newsletter provides updates on open calls, events and success stories. For specific questions about the Women Leadership Programme the EIC suggests using the EIC Community contact page and selecting the programme category. For programme level FAQs and timelines, consult the EIC Women Leadership Programme pages on the EIC Community website.