Record response to EIC Transition call exposes supply and demand gap for late-stage research grants

The European Innovation Council and the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency announced on 29 September 2025 that 611 proposals were submitted to the EIC Transition call that closed on 17 September. This is the largest number of submissions the Transition scheme has seen. Proposals list participants from 40 countries with the largest numbers of applicants coming from Italy, Germany, Spain and France. The sector breakdown shows that 51 percent of applicants are from the private sector, 27 percent from universities and 17 percent from research organisations.

EIC Transition aims to take research results beyond laboratory proof of principle and to prepare technologies for a real application and early market entry. The call is open and untargeted with no predefined thematic priorities so proposals can come from any field of science or technology. Grants of up to €2.5 million are available to validate and demonstrate technology in application-relevant environments and to develop a convincing business case. Small booster grants up to a fixed amount of €50,000 are also available for complementary activities.

What the EIC Transition supports and who may apply

The Transition scheme is designed to follow on from earlier research funding and is restricted to proposals that build on eligible project results. Eligible origins include EIC Pathfinder projects, Future and Emerging Technologies projects, European Research Council Proof of Concept projects and selected Horizon collaborative projects. The call specifically targets technologies that are at around experimental proof of concept or validated in the lab and that need further development to reach application-relevant demonstration levels and market readiness.

Selection process, timing and practical steps

The EIC Transition selection follows a multi-step evaluation. Proposals are submitted through the Commission’s Funding & Tenders Portal. Part B of the application, including sections 1 to 3 and the cover page identifying the upstream project, is limited to a maximum of 22 A4 pages. After remote evaluation by EIC expert evaluators, proposals that clear the first stage are invited to an interview with a panel of EIC Jury members. Interviews for the 17 September 2025 wave are scheduled between 1 and 5 December 2025. Applicants will be notified of evaluation outcomes in January 2026. Projects selected for funding are expected to start in May to June 2026.

Eligibility of the upstream research results

EIC Transition is explicitly a follow-on scheme. Proposals must be built on results that were generated by eligible upstream projects. Eligible kinds of upstream work include EIC Pathfinder, Horizon Europe or Horizon 2020 FET projects, ERC Proof of Concept projects, and in some cases Horizon collaborative research actions (Pillar II) and selected projects funded by the European Defence Fund when the Transition proposal focuses on civil applications. The Agency maintains a published list of eligible projects to guide applicants but final eligibility is verified during evaluation.

Context: budgets, competition and where Transition sits in the EIC portfolio

The Transition call sits alongside the EIC Pathfinder and EIC Accelerator. The EIC work programmes for recent years show the EIC as one of the largest deep tech public backers in Europe. The EIC Transition budget was around €98 million in the 2025 work programme and the EIC signalled an overall Transition envelope of roughly €100 million for 2026. That funding is spread across open calls and targeted instruments. With 611 proposals submitted to a single Transition deadline the level of demand outstrips available budgets by a wide margin.

To put the scale into perspective: if all awards were at the maximum of €2.5 million, a €100 million budget would fund about 40 projects. In practice awards vary in size and boosters are smaller. Nevertheless the simple arithmetic highlights the intensity of competition applicants face. High submission counts are a positive sign of interest from industry but also underline that many meritorious proposals will be left unfunded.

Practical next steps for applicants and critics

Proposals that pass the first evaluation stage will be invited for interviews between 1 and 5 December 2025. The European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency expects to inform all applicants of evaluation results in January 2026. Projects selected for funding are expected to begin work in May or June 2026. The next EIC Transition deadline and related dates will be announced in the EIC Work Programme 2026 to be published in November 2025.

Key facts at a glance

What this means for EU innovation policy and applicants

A record submission count is a headline-friendly indicator that European deep tech actors are actively engaging with the EIC. It also highlights a recurring structural tension in public innovation policy. Transition-style grants target the expensive, risky phase where technologies are proved in relevant environments and commercial pathways are developed. Those activities require significant funds and close investor engagement to scale. Public programmes can help de-risk these steps but the available public budgets are limited relative to demand.

For applicants, the message is pragmatic. The Transition call is competitive and emphasizes a clear line from prior, funded research results to credible, application-focused development plans. Proposals that quantify the technical maturity, map the path to an application environment and present a realistic business case are usually better positioned. Seal of Excellence awards and engagement with Business Acceleration Services are tools to improve alternative funding chances when EIC grants are not available.

Terminology and schemes explained

Bottom line

The large number of submissions to the EIC Transition call is a sign of strong appetite in Europe for support at the lab-to-market junction of deep tech. The scheme remains an important public lever to mature technologies and to bridge to private investment. At the same time the scale of demand emphasises that public funds alone will not cover the needs of all promising projects. For applicants, the EIC Transition remains an opportunity but one that requires a tight technology-to-market narrative and realistic planning for follow-on financing.