European Commission Decision C(2021) 1510 of 17 March 2021

European Innovation Council (EIC) Work Programme 2021

European Innovation Council (EIC) established by the European Commission, under the Horizon Europe programme (2021-27).

DISCLAIMER

The launching of the calls for proposals contained in this Work Programme is conditional upon the final adoption without significant modifications by the legislative authority of the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing Horizon Europe – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, laying down its rules for participation and dissemination (COM(2018)0435 –C8-0252/2018 – 2018/0224(COD)) and of the Decision of the Council on establishing the specific programme implementing Horizon Europe -the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (COM(2018)0436 –C8-0253/2018 –2018/0225(COD)), as well as to the final adoption without significant modifications by the European Commission of this Work Programme.

Who should read this document

The EIC aims at identifying and supporting breakthrough technologies and game-changing innovations with the potential to scale up internationally and become market leaders. It supports all stages of innovation from R&D on the scientific underpinnings of breakthrough technologies, to validation and demonstration of breakthrough technologies and innovations to meet real world needs, to the development and scaling up of start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This document is the annual work programme for the European Innovation Council (EIC) funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. It is the legal document which sets out how the EIC will allocate its funding for the corresponding year. It is prepared following the advice of the EIC pilot Advisory Board and adopted by the European Commission.

Financial support is provided through three main instruments: the ‘Pathfinder’ for advanced research on breakthrough / game-changing technologies; ‘Transition’ for transforming research results into innovation opportunities; and the ‘Accelerator’ for individual companies to develop and scale up breakthrough innovations with high risk and high impact. All EIC funded projects and companies, as well as selected applicants, have access to a range of EIC Business Acceleration Services providing access to leading expertise, corporates, investors and ecosystem actors. The EIC also provides additional activities such as prizes.

Potential applicants

Potential applicants, and those interested in the EIC in general, can find more information, including the background to the EIC mission, organisation and practical guidance, on the EIC website: European Innovation Council (EIC) website.

Potential applicants who wish to apply for EIC funding will need to apply through the EIC website ( European Innovation Council (EIC) website) and the EU Funding & Tender Opportunities portal ( EU Funding & Tenders portal). This contains all the information necessary as well as details of the relevant National Contact Point who can provide information and personalised support in native language.

Introduction

Key features of the EIC work programme

This is the first work programme for the European Innovation Council (EIC). It builds on the experience of the EIC pilot under Horizon 2020 and on the advice from the EIC pilot Advisory Board. In accordance with the Horizon Europe legislation, this work programme implements the following key features.

Integrated, agile support across the full innovation spectrum from early stage research to start-up and scale-up

The funding and support is organised into three main funding schemes: the EIC Pathfinder for advanced research to develop the scientific basis to underpin breakthrough technologies; the EIC Transition to validate technologies and develop business plans for specific applications; and the EIC Accelerator to support companies (SMEs, start-ups, spin-outs and in exceptional cases small mid-caps) to bring their innovations to market and scale up. In each case, the direct financial support to innovators is augmented with access to a range of Business Acceleration Services.

Linkages between these funding schemes will be maximised through proactive management (see below) and new approaches, such as additional grants to ongoing Pathfinder projects (Section II.1), a Marketplace to connect preliminary and final research results with entrepreneurs and investors (Section V), and the Fast Track scheme from Pathfinder and Transition to enter the Accelerator (Annex 4).

This work programme has been prepared in coordination with the Horizon Europe strategic plan 1 and work programme, and in particular the part on European Innovation Ecosystems, with the aim of integrating the direct support to innovators through the EIC with improvements to the overall European ecosystem. The EIC will also link with other components of Horizon Europe, including the European Research Council (ERC), the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and its Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs), and with other Union funding programmes, such as InvestEU.

A balance between open funding and challenge driven funding

The majority of funding 2 will be awarded through open calls with no predefined thematic priorities (‘Open Funding’), and these are presented in Section II. Funding is designed to enable support for any technologies and innovations that cut across different scientific, technological, sectoral and application fields or represent novel combinations.

The challenge driven approach is presented in Section III (‘EIC Strategic Challenges’) and provides funding to address specific technological and innovation breakthroughs. These challenges take into account EU priorities for transitioning to a green, digital and healthy society, as well as the overall strategic planning for Horizon Europe, and the inputs of stakeholders, experts and the EIC pilot Advisory Board.

Projects must comply with the ‘do no significant harm’ principle 3 of the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy 4. This means in particular that EIC funding will not be awarded to projects that contravene the objectives of the Green Deal 5, including any proposal dedicated to increase the efficiency of fossil fuels and related technologies for example. Where relevant, projects must also comply with the principles of trustworthiness for Artificial Intelligence as set out in Annex 2.

Tailored approach to proposals evaluation

The EIC approach to the evaluation of proposals is tailored to the objectives of each of the EIC funding schemes. In particular for higher technology, business and market readiness levels closer to market funding, greater emphasis is put on face to face interviews with applicants and a simplified binary scoring (GO/ NO GO) .

For the EIC Pathfinder, which supports science-towards-technology breakthrough research, the evaluation follows a peer review method where proposals are evaluated, scored and ranked by experts based on weighted criteria and thresholds (see Section II.1 below).

For the EIC Transition, which funds innovation activities that go beyond the experimental proof of principle, proposals will first be evaluated remotely, scored and ranked based on criteria and thresholds. For the top ranked applicants which are invited to the face to face interview, the jury will decide based on a binary scoring (GO/NO GO, see Section II.2 below).

For the EIC Accelerator, which supports high risk/high gain innovations to go to the market and scale up, proposals will be evaluated remotely and at face to face interviews based on a binary scoring (GO/NO GO) - see Section II.3 below.

Active project and portfolio management by EIC Programme Managers

Support awarded by the EIC, and in particular in Pathfinder, is more than a one-off funding of a research project. By covering the full innovation cycle, whenever possible EIC intends to push results to higher Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). Whilst Pathfinder beneficiaries will bear no obligation regarding the development of innovation as part of their project, the EIC will encourage and stimulate further maturation of preliminary findings and results by providing guidance but also additional and continuous support including financial.

Moreover, EIC takes an active approach of project and programme management to develop business and technology-based visions. It is assisted by EIC Programme Managers 7, whose task is to identify, develop and implement such visions and to nurture potential market-creating innovation out of EIC funded projects and activities. Active management applies to Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator projects and consists of the following:

Policy of open access and Intellectual Property Rights

For Pathfinder provisions will be applied to ensure open access to scientific publications and promote the uptake of research results (see Annex 2 on open science).

Moreover, the EIC aims to stimulate the cross-fertilisation and exploitation of results from EIC supported projects. Therefore, Pathfinder and Transition projects may be requested by EIC Programme Managers to actively share information about results (including preliminary findings), within their portfolio and with other relevant EIC projects and parties, as detailed in Annex 7. The goal is to stimulate and nurture potential innovation out of Pathfinder or Transition results and explore pathways to further development. This exchange of information between beneficiaries will be without prejudice to their own legitimate interests to exploit the results or findings. To ensure full confidentiality, such sharing will be subject to non-disclosure obligations regarding confidential results, with beneficiaries retaining the right on a case by case basis to fully disclose or not their intellectual property.

Without prejudice to ownership of results (including preliminary findings) by Pathfinder and Transition result owners, their inventors will be entrusted with appropriate access for the purpose of further development and exploitation and be eligible to additional financial support and services offered by EIC, as further detailed in Annex 7.

Table 1. Summary of main calls in 2021 8

Specific objectives

The overall objective of the EIC is to identify, develop and deploy high risk innovations of all kind with a particular focus on breakthrough, market-creating and deep-tech innovations. It aims to support the rapid scale up of innovative technologies and companies (mainly start-ups and SMEs) at EU and international level along the pathway from ideas to market. In this context the EIC is also an initiative contributing to EU technology sovereignty.

Following the recommendations of the EIC pilot Advisory Board, the EIC support aims to achieve a number of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Those that relate to the work programme include:

To progress towards the last of these KPIs a number of specific actions are implemented through this work programme. For improving gender balance and promoting women innovators:

For improving balance across geographical regions and in particular the ‘widening’ countries 10 defined in Horizon Europe:

Outlook for 2022 and future years

The EIC has been set up as an agile organisation and the activities are expected to evolve and develop in each annual work programme based on advice from the EIC Board, experience from implementation, and the dynamics of the world of innovation.

The main provisions of the Open Funding calls (Section II) are expected to remain relatively stable to provide a significant level of predictability for applicants, while incorporating necessary improvements. In the current work programme, applicants to the EIC Accelerator may only request equity for the investment component. In future years, the investment component may also include reimbursable advance, loan guarantees and other forms of financial instruments. The Transition call is relatively novel and as such may be subject to more important changes including a broadening of the eligibility criteria.

The topics identified for the challenge-driven calls (Section III) will evolve, with new topics identified in subsequent annual EIC Work Programmes, with the possibility of some topics identified in this Work Programme to be complemented with additional funding. Throughout the year, the EIC will organise various discussions and events to help identify the most promising emerging topics for the challenges, and EIC Programme Managers are expected to play a central role in this process.

A number of instruments have not been introduced in this work programme as further preparatory work is needed to design and implement them. This includes Inducement Prizes, further actions to support procurements of innovation, and the EIC Fellowship scheme.

The EIC will aim to develop partnerships with other EU and national initiatives that support disruptive technologies and breakthrough innovation. Where relevant, financial support may be provided through EIC work programmes, for example for partner organisations to proactively seek out and support innovators to apply for EIC funding, or provide follow up support and services. In particular, such support may be foreseen for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology and its Knowledge and Innovation Communities 11, and to the Enterprise Europe Network 12.

Glossary

The EIC Board oversees the strategy and implementation of EIC activities and provides advice on EIC work programmes. It comprises 15-20 leading innovators and innovative researchers, including a President, and is appointed by the European Commission. The EIC Board 13 is due to be established in early 2021 following an open call for expressions of interest. The EIC Board members are subject to strict rules concerning conflicts of interest and confidentiality.

The EIC Fund decides on and manages the investment component of EIC Accelerator blended finance awarded to companies. Within the mandate given by the Commission following the evaluation process, investment decisions 14 (and their related conditions and management) are taken by the EIC Fund’s Board of Directors following recommendations by the Investment Committee which comprises seasoned external practitioners and investors. This process is guided by the EIC Fund’s Investment Guidelines 15 which includes objectives to crowd in other investors as investments are de-risked. No investment decision can be taken without the agreement of the Commission representatives at the EIC Fund’s Board of Directors who are guaranteeing the achievement of the political objectives of the EIC Accelerator scheme.

The EIC Forum is a platform bringing different innovation drivers and levels of governance closer together to discuss openly and informally relevant policy issues 16. The policy recommendations and activities of the EIC Forum will aim at supporting and complementing initiatives undertaken in Horizon Europe.

The EIC funded projects and companies are the consortia, institutions and/or companies named in an EIC grant agreement or EIC contract to receive EIC funding (from either Pathfinder, Transition or Accelerator programmes). In the grant agreements and contracts, the companies or the applicants’ legal entity (including but not limited to research and technology organisations) are called ‘beneficiaries’. The Horizon Europe model grant agreements and contracts are available also on the EIC website.

EIC Programme Managers

EIC Programme Managers are officials appointed by the granting authority (e.g. Commission, EIC and SME Executive Agency) to manage one or more EIC Portfolios. They are working in close relation with EIC Project officers. They are high level experts in their field that are appointed to work in the EIC for a limited duration to develop visions for breakthrough technologies and innovations, and to proactively manage portfolios of projects to achieve these breakthroughs. The EIC Programme Managers are subject to strict rules concerning conflicts of interest and confidentiality.

EIC Project officers

EIC Project officers are officials appointed by the granting authority to manage an action.

EIC Juries

EIC Juries are panels of independent investors, entrepreneurs and other external experts, carefully selected by the EIC, who conduct face to face interviews with applicants to the EIC Transition and EIC Accelerator calls as a critical part of the selection process. Face to face interviews may take place in either a physical or virtual setting. In cases specified in the call texts (Sections II.2 and II.3), EIC Programme Managers and representatives of the EIC Fund may participate in some juries.

EIC expert evaluators

EIC expert evaluators are external independent experts in their field who assess applications for funding against the criteria defined in the work programme. The EIC expert evaluators are selected from the Funding & Tender Opportunities portal Expert Database.

EIC expert monitors

EIC expert monitors are external independent experts in their field who assist the EIC in the monitoring of projects.

EIC evaluation committees

EIC evaluation committees are panels of EIC expert evaluators who evaluate proposals and rank those that have passed the applicable thresholds. In cases specified in the call texts, EIC Programme Managers may participate in some evaluation committees as specified in the call texts.

EIC Business acceleration services

EIC Business acceleration services are tailor-made services, notably for EIC Community members, aiming at commercialisation of EIC innovations and scaling up of EIC companies through access to coaches, mentors, expertise and training, access to global partners (leading corporates, investors, procurers, distributors, clients) and access to innovation ecosystem and peers, as described more in detail in Section V.

EIC business coaches are independent external experts with entrepreneurial and fundraising background who provide business development insights and improvement guidance to EIC funded projects and companies, and applicants. They are part of the Business Acceleration Services.

The EIC and SME Executive Agency (EISMEA) is an executive agency entrusted by the European Commission with implementation of all Horizon Europe EIC activities and funding.

EIC Community

EIC Community designates EIC beneficiaries and third parties interested to partake or contribute to EIC activities.

EIC Community platform

EIC Community platform is a platform available to all EIC funded projects and companies, facilitating links to Business Acceleration Services as well as enabling discussions and exchanges.

The EIC Market Place is a trusted IT interface (platform) between the EIC Community and the granting authority for exchange of information and data on the action, in relation notably to Portfolio activities, in order to cross-fertilise activities and stimulate and nurture potential innovation out of these findings. It will also provide for co-creating new ideas and activities, including but not exclusively for the purpose of applying for additional Pathfinder, Transition or Accelerator support. It may also be used by the granting authority to interact with stakeholders at large on such issues as raising awareness and consultation on portfolio objectives, in support of the implementation of EIC Business acceleration services, and to contribute to the dissemination of EIC actions results.

EIC Portfolio

EIC Portfolio is a set of actions presenting thematic similarities (Thematic Portfolio) or contributing to the same Pathfinder Challenge (Challenge Portfolio).

National Contact Points (NCPs)

National Contact Points (NCPs) are appointed by Member States and Associated Countries to provide guidance, practical information and assistance to applicants on all aspects of participation in Horizon Europe.

The Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) is a network of business intermediary organisations (chambers of commerce, technology poles, innovation support organisations, universities and research institutes, regional development organisations) that help Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) innovate and grow internationally.

Deep tech

Deep tech is technology that is based on cutting-edge scientific advances and discoveries and is characterised by the need to stay at the technological forefront by constant interaction with new ideas and results from the lab. Deep tech is distinct from ‘high tech’ which tends to refer only to R&D intensity.

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs)

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) provide a guide to the stage of development. TRLs are used in the work programme for guidance, but do not preclude support for non-technological innovations. A strong degree of importance will also be given to market readiness and business readiness, as described in the evaluation criteria of the call texts. The following definitions of TRLs apply, recognising that there are important differences between technological fields:

TRL1 - basic principles observed. TRL2 - technology concept formulated. TRL3 - experimental proof of concept. TRL4 - technology validated in lab.

TRL5 - technology validated in relevant environment. TRL6 - technology demonstrated in relevant environment. TRL7 - system prototype demonstration in operational environment.

TRL8 - system complete and qualified. TRL9 - actual system proven in operational environment.

Seal of Excellence: is a certification awarded to individual SMEs that apply for EIC Transition or EIC Accelerator funding and are assessed to meet the relevant funding criteria. In the case of the EIC Accelerator, Seals of Excellence may be awarded if the applicant is an SME (including start-up), the proposal has passed the applicable thresholds for the first two award criteria (excellence and impact) but does not demonstrate sufficient level of risk or the need for Union support under the third award criterion, and if the activity would be eligible under an innovation action. The Seal of Excellence provides access to Business Acceleration Services and facilitates funding from other sources 17. It is only awarded to those applicants who give consent to sharing the data about their application with other eligible funding bodies. The grant component of projects awarded a Seal of Excellence is exempted under the General Block Exemption Regulation from State Aid notification requirements under the same funding rates as those applicable to the EIC. The investment component of projects awarded a Seal of Excellence may be supported by other funders, including public funders as long as this does not constitute a State Aid.

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs)

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) is a category of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. It consists of enterprises that employ fewer than 250 persons and have either an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million, or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million. A full definition is provided in Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC. Under the EIC, this definition includes start-ups.

Small mid-cap

Small mid-cap means an enterprise employing up to 499 employees 18.

These definitions are complemented by specific definitions regarding provisions concerning management, portfolios and intellectual property for Pathfinder and Transition actions detailed under Annex 7.

Open Funding

This funding has no predefined thematic priorities and is open to proposals in any field of science, technology or application.

EIC Pathfinder Open

If the answer to each one of these questions is ‘yes’, then EIC Pathfinder Open may be the right call for you.

Why should you apply

You should apply if you are looking for support from EIC Pathfinder Open to realise an ambitious vision for radically new technology, with potential to create new markets and/or to address global challenges. EIC Pathfinder Open supports early stage development of such future technologies (e.g. various activities at low Technology Readiness Levels 1-4), based on high-risk/high-gain science-towards-technology breakthrough research (including ‘deep-tech’). This research must provide the foundations of the technology you are envisioning.

EIC Pathfinder Open may support your work, especially if it is highly risky: you may set out to try things that will not work; you may be faced with questions that nobody knows the answer to yet; you may realise that there are many aspects of the problem that you do not master. On the contrary, if the path you want to follow is incremental by nature or known, EIC Pathfinder Open will not support you.

Before applying to this call you should verify that your proposal meets all the following essential characteristics (‘Gatekeepers’):

EIC Pathfinder Open involves interdisciplinary research and development. By bringing diverse areas of research together, often with different perspectives, terminologies and methodologies, within individual projects and within a portfolio of projects, really new things can be generated and entirely new areas of research can be opened up. It is up to you to compose the team that you need, that you can learn from, and that you can move forward with.

The expected outcome of your project is the proof of principle that the main ideas of the envisioned future technology are feasible, thus validating its scientific and technological basis. Project results should include top-level scientific publications in open access. While your vision is expected to be worthwhile because of its potential for future impact, for instance to create new markets, improve our lives, or address global challenges, these are not expected to be addressed or achieved in the course of your Pathfinder Open project. However, you are expected to take the necessary measures to allow future uptake to take place, for instance through an adequate formal protection 19 of the generated Intellectual Property (IP).

In addition, you are encouraged to involve and empower in your team key actors that have the potential to become future leaders in their field such as excellent early-career researchers or promising high-tech SMEs, including start-ups. Your project should reinforce their mind-set for targeted research and development aimed at high-impact applied results. This will strengthen Europe’s capacity for exploiting the scientific discoveries made in Europe throughout the steps to market success or for solving global challenges.

Can you apply

This call is open for collaborative research. Your proposal must be submitted by the coordinator, on behalf of a consortium that includes at least three independent legal entities, each one established in a different Member State or Associated Country and with at least one of them established in a Member State. The legal entities may for example be universities, research organisations, SMEs, start-ups, industrial partners or natural persons. The eligibility of associated countries and third countries is detailed in Annex 3.

Your proposal will only be evaluated if it is admissible and eligible. The standard admissibility and eligibility conditions are detailed in Annex 2.

What support will you receive if your proposal is funded

The total indicative budget for this call is EUR 168 million.

You will receive a grant for a Research and Innovation Action to cover the eligible costs, necessary for the implementation of your project. For this call, the EIC considers proposals with a requested EU contribution of up to EUR 3 million as appropriate. Nonetheless, this does not preclude you to request larger amounts, if properly justified. The funding rate of this grant will be 100% of the eligible costs.

Projects funded through EIC Pathfinder (including grants resulting from certain EIC pilot Pathfinder, FET-Open and FET-Proactive calls) 20 are eligible: to receive additional grants with fixed amounts of up to EUR 50 000 to undertake complementary activities to explore potential pathways to commercialisation or for portfolio activities (see Annex 6); and to submit an Accelerator proposal via the Fast Track scheme (see Annex 4). In addition to funding, successful applicants will receive free access to a wide range of Business Acceleration Services (see Section V).

How do you apply; how long does it take

The call deadline for submitting your proposal is 19 May 2021 at 17h00 Brussels local time 21. You must submit your application via the EU Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal before the given deadline.

Sections 1 to 3 of the part B of your proposal, corresponding respectively to the evaluation criteria Excellence, Impact, and Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation, must consist of a maximum of 17 A4 pages.

How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded

Your proposal will be first evaluated and scored remotely by EIC expert evaluators with respect to the evaluation criteria. The remote score for each evaluation criterion will be the median of the evaluators’ scores. The overall remote score will be the weighted sum of the three median scores from the three evaluation criteria.

A rebuttal procedure after the remote phase will provide you with the opportunity to reply within seven calendar days with a strict page limit (maximum two A4 pages) to the evaluators’ comments. Your replies cannot be used to alter or add to the content of the proposals, but must strictly focus on responding to potential misunderstandings or errors by the evaluators. Your replies will be made available to the evaluation committee.

The evaluation committee, which will be composed of external independent experts different than those who evaluated the proposals remotely, will decide on the final score on the basis of the remote score and the outcome of its consensus discussions, taking into consideration the comments from the rebuttal procedure, if any. These discussions will focus on controversial proposals that have a realistic chance of getting funded. Expert evaluators who evaluated and scored the proposals remotely may be invited to the consensus discussions, in particular for controversial proposals.

The Evaluation Summary Report will comprise the final score, a collation of the comments from individual reports, or extracts from them, a comment that summarises the assessment by the evaluation committee (potentially taking into account the applicants’ reply received via the rebuttal) as well as any additional comments, possibly including advice not to resubmit the proposal.

For proposals with the same score, priority will be based on the following factors, in order: higher score under the criterion Excellence; higher score under the criterion Impact; number of applicants that are SMEs; gender balance among the personnel named in the proposal who will be primarily responsible for carrying out the activities; number of Member States and Associated Countries represented in the consortium; other factors related to the objectives of the call to be determined by the evaluation committee.

EIC Transition Open 22

If the answer to each one of these questions is ‘yes’, then EIC Transition may be the right call for you.

Why should you apply

EIC Transition funds innovation activities that go beyond the experimental proof of principle in laboratory. It supports both the maturation and validation of your novel technology in the lab and in relevant application environments (by making use of prototyping, formulation, models, user testing or other validation tests) as well as the development of a business case and business model towards the innovation’s future commercialisation.

Your proposed activities must include further technology development on the results achieved in a previous project and follow user-centric methodologies to increase chances of the innovation’s future success in the market. EIC Transition projects should address, in a balanced way, both technology and market/business dimensions, possibly including iterative learning processes based on early customer or user feedback.

These activities should include, subject to the level of maturity of the technology, a suitable mix of research, technology development and validation activities to increase the maturity of the technology beyond proof of principle to viable demonstrators of the technology in the intended field of application (i.e. up to Technology Readiness Level 5 to 6). The activities must in all cases address market readiness towards commercialisation and deployment (market research, business case, prospects for growth, intellectual property protection, competitor analysis etc.) and other relevant aspects of regulation, certification and standardisation, aimed at getting both the technology and the business idea investment-ready.

EIC Transition aims at maturing both your technology and business idea thus increasing its technology and market readiness. The expected outcomes of your EIC Transition Challenge project are a) a technology that is demonstrated to be effective for its intended application and b) a business model and business plan for its development to market. It is also expected that the intellectual property generated by your Transition project is formally protected in an adequate way.

EIC Transition can support a number of different pathways beyond fundamental research, from technology development and product design to business modelling and commercialisation strategy to reach the market. Some non-exhaustive illustrative examples could be the following pathways:

At the end of your Transition project, you should be ready for the next stage, which can be to apply for EIC Accelerator (if you are a SME, including start-ups or spin-offs), to seek other investors or sources of funding, to enter licensing or collaboration agreements with third parties, or other routes to market deployment. In case your project is not led by an SME or commercial partner, the formation and spin out of a new company can be included as part of the activities.

You will be expected to describe the intended pathway and route to market in your application, and to specify milestones during the implementation of your project to assess progress along your pathway.

Can you apply

Your proposal must build on results (demonstrated proof of principle) achieved within an eligible project. As Transition funding is a new scheme, for 2021 it is restricted to applications based on results generated by the following eligible projects: EIC Pathfinder projects (including projects funded under EIC pilot Pathfinder, Horizon 2020 FET-Open, FET-Proactive) and FET Flagships calls (including ERANET calls under the FET work programme) ; and European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept projects.

If you are applying on the basis of an eligible project for which the grant is still active, you may apply if the project has been active for at least 12 months (i.e. the start date of the grant is more than 12 months before the date of the Transition call deadline). If you are applying on the basis of an eligible project which has already been completed, you may apply within 24 months of the completion of the project (i.e. the end date of the grant for the eligible project is less than 24 months from the date of the Transition call deadline).

You do not need to be a participant, Principal Investigator or result owner of the previous projects; new participants are welcome and encouraged to apply. However, you must demonstrate that you are the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) owner or holder, or have the necessary rights to commercialise the IPR of the linked Pathfinder, FET or ERC Proof of Concept project results to be further developed. You therefore must specify in your application the result and relevant IP to be developed, and include written evidence from the relevant owner(s) of the result(s), which confirms the existence of the necessary agreements with you, including on IPR.

You can apply for EIC Transition either as: a single legal entity established in a Member State or an Associated Country (‘mono-beneficiary’) if you are an SME or a research performing organisation; or a small consortium of minimum two and maximum five independent legal entities (‘multi-beneficiary’) that may for example include universities, research organisations, SMEs or larger companies, user/customer organisations or potential end users. Consortia of two must have independent legal entities from two different Member States or Associated Countries. Consortia of three or above follow standard rules 25.

Your proposal will only be evaluated if it is admissible and eligible (see Annex 2 as well as Annex 3 for eligibility of third country applicants).

What support will you receive if your proposal is funded

The total indicative budget for this call is EUR 59.6 million.

If successful, you will receive a grant for a Research and Innovation Action to cover the eligible costs, necessary for the implementation of your project. For this call, the EIC considers proposals with a requested EU contribution of up to EUR 2.5 million as appropriate. Nonetheless, this does not preclude you to request larger amounts, if properly justified. The funding rate of this grant will be 100% of the eligible costs.

The projects funded through EIC Transition are eligible: to receive additional grants with fixed amounts of up to EUR 50 000 to undertake portfolio activities (see Annex 6); and to submit an Accelerator proposal via the Fast Track scheme (see Annex 4). In addition to funding, projects will receive free access to a wide range of Business Acceleration Services and matchmaking events (see Section V).

How do you apply; how long does it take

The call deadline for submitting your proposal is 22 September 2021 at 17h00 Brussels local time 26. You must submit your application via the European Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal before the given deadline. Sections 1 to 3 of part B of your proposal must consist of a maximum of 25 A4 pages.

Your application will be evaluated first by EIC expert evaluators. You will be informed about the result of this evaluation, including feedback on your proposal, within 9 weeks after the call deadline. If your proposal successfully passes this first evaluation phase, you will be invited for a face to face interview, which will be organised approximately 13 weeks after the call deadline. You will be informed about the result of the interview within 4 weeks from the start of the interviews.

In a first step, at least three EIC expert evaluators will evaluate and score your proposal against each evaluation criterion. Starting with the highest scoring proposal and in descending order, a pool of the best ranked applications requesting an aggregated financial support equal to at least the double of the budget available 27, or until all proposals that passed the evaluation criteria thresholds have been accounted for, will be invited to the next step.

The second step is a face to face interview with an EIC jury. At the interview your proposal may be represented by a maximum of five persons. Only individuals mentioned in the proposal and involved in the future project implementation can represent your proposal at the interview. Representation by other persons is not allowed.

The jury will be composed of a maximum of six members, which may include an EIC programme manager with expertise in your area or managing one of the portfolios your project could be allocated to. The jury will recommend your application for funding or not (‘GO’ or ‘NO GO’) and will not provide a separate scoring against the criteria.

You will receive as feedback of the evaluation an Evaluation Summary Report from the first evaluation step. If you have been invited for an interview, you will also receive feedback from the jury. If your application is from an individual SME and meets all evaluation criteria at the first step but is not selected for funding, it may be awarded a Seal of Excellence.

EIC Accelerator Open

If your answers to the above questions are ‘yes’, then the EIC Accelerator may be the right programme for you.

Why should you apply

The EIC Accelerator supports companies (principally start-ups and SMEs) to scale up high impact innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones. The EIC Accelerator provides a unique combination of funding from EUR 0.5 to EUR 17.5 million and Business Acceleration Services (see Chapter 4).

The EIC Accelerator focuses in particular on innovations building on scientific discovery or technological breakthroughs (‘deep tech’) and where significant funding is needed over a long timeframe before returns can be generated (‘patient capital’). Such innovations often struggle to attract financing because the risks and time period involved are too high. Funding and support from the EIC Accelerator is designed to enable such innovators to attract the full investment amounts needed for scale up in a shorter timeframe.

The EIC Accelerator is open to innovations in any field of technology or application. However, innovations that harm the environment or social welfare or that are designed primarily for military applications will not be supported.

The EIC Accelerator supports the later stages of technology development as well as scale up. The technology component of your innovation must therefore have been tested and validated in a laboratory or other relevant environment (e.g. at least Technology Readiness Level 5/6 or higher). The EIC Accelerator looks to support companies where the EIC support will act as a catalyst to crowd in other investors necessary for the scale up of the innovation.

Can you apply

In order to apply you must meet one of the following eligibility conditions: a single company classified as a SME and established within a Member State or an Associated Country (see Annex 3); a single company classified as a ‘Small mid-cap’ (up to 500 employees) established in a Member State or an Associated Country, but your application can only be for rapid scale up purposes (e.g. Technology Readiness Level 9) and only for the investment component; or one or more natural persons (including individual entrepreneurs) or legal entities, which are either from a Member State or an Associated Country 28 intending to establish an SME or small mid-cap by the time of signing the Accelerator contract, intending to invest in an SME or small mid-cap in a Member State or an Associated Country and who may submit a proposal on behalf of that SME or small mid-cap, or from a non-associated third country intending to establish or relocate an SME to a Member State or an Associated Country by the time of submitting a full application.

There are limitations on the number of times you can submit an application described in the section on resubmission limits below. If you are currently a participant in an eligible project funded by Horizon Europe or Horizon 2020 then you may be able to apply through your existing project under the Fast Track scheme (see Annex 4). Applicants may also be able to apply if they have a project financed by an eligible programme managed by a Member State or an Associated Country under the pilot Plug-in scheme (Annex 5).

What support will you receive if your proposal is funded

The total indicative budget for this call is EUR 592.5 million, of which EUR 143.05 million will be funded through Next Generation EU as this call contributes to the objectives to rebuild a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.

The EIC Accelerator provides blended finance (Innovation and Market Deployment Action) which is composed of: an investment component usually in the form of direct equity or quasi-equity such as convertible loans 29 30 31; and a grant component to reimburse eligible costs incurred for innovation activities (at least TRL 5/6 to 8). The grant component should normally not exceed EUR 2.5 million but may be for a higher amount in exceptional and well justified cases 32. Applicants can choose to request the investment component only and are not required to request a grant component.

You may request a grant component only or grant first if you have not previously received EIC Accelerator grant-only support. When you apply for grant-only or grant-first support, you will have to include a milestone for the EIC to assess deployment perspectives and capabilities. Grant-first companies are eligible for a follow on equity component subject to a milestone assessment attesting that the innovation activities are well under way and that the innovation has the potential for deployment.

All successful applications will receive, in addition to funding, free access to a wide range of Business Acceleration Services (see Section V). The Accelerator model contract for the grant component and examples for the investment component can be found on the EIC website.

How do you apply; how long does it take

The application process consists of: short applications which may be submitted at any time and which will be evaluated remotely by EIC expert evaluators on a first come, first served basis; if successful, you will be invited to prepare a full application, where you will have access to support through the EIC artificial intelligence-based IT platform and from EIC business coaches; full applications will first be assessed remotely by EIC expert evaluators; if successful, you will be invited to a face to face interview with an EIC jury as the final step in the selection process; and if selected for funding, you will be invited to negotiate an initial contract for the grant component and to start the due diligence for the investment component.

You may submit a short application at any time via the European Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal that will direct you to the EIC artificial intelligence based IT platform. Within approximately 4 weeks, you will receive the evaluation result of your short application specifying whether or not your application met the award criteria and can therefore proceed to a full application.

If your short application is successful then you will be entitled to receive support to prepare a full application which can be submitted to one of the cut-off dates within the next 12 months. The cut-off dates for 2021 are: 9 June 2021 at 17h00 Brussels local time and 6 October 2021 at 17h00 Brussels local time 33. Applicants will be invited to select an EIC business coach out of a dedicated database and will receive 3 days of remote coaching 34.

Once you submit your full application, it will be assessed remotely against award criteria by EIC expert evaluators. If successful, you will be invited to attend a face to face interview with an EIC jury. All companies receiving a GO from the remote evaluation stage will be invited to the face to face interviews. In case the number of companies to invite exceeds the capacities of the initially planned interview sessions, prioritisation will apply.

If you are selected for funding, you will be invited to negotiate and then sign an initial contract that will initially provide for the grant component. In parallel, if your application included an investment component, the EIC Fund will start the negotiation process to structure the potential investment agreement (compliance checks 35, due diligence, syndication of potential co-investors, tranches of investment and related objectives and milestones, etc.).

As an outcome of the due diligence process, following a proposal made by the EIC Fund, the Commission may reject the investment, notably due to the results of the due diligence, compliance checks, existence of irregularities, in cases of misrepresentation by the applicant or in the case of a manifest error in its assessment. Should the outcome conclude that the innovation or your company is not yet mature for equity investment, the EIC Fund Board of Directors may recommend that you start with the grant component first, and that the investment component will be subject to reaching defined milestones via an amendment.

How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded

Short applications will be evaluated by four EIC experts as soon as they are submitted. If at least two evaluators give a GO for all the criteria, then your short application will be successful and you will be invited to prepare a full application. If more than two evaluators give a NO GO for at least one of the evaluation criteria, then your application is considered unsuccessful.

Full applications will be assessed following the cut-off dates listed above by three EIC expert evaluators. If all three evaluators give a GO for all the criteria, then your full application will be successful and you will be invited to a face to face interview with an EIC jury. If one or more evaluators give a NO GO under any of the criteria then you will not be invited to the interview, but you will be eligible to resubmit an improved application.

Jury members, based on your interview and their overall assessment, will recommend your proposal for funding (GO) or not (NO GO). If the proposal receives a GO and is recommended for funding, the jury may recommend lowering the grant amount if activities above TRL 8 are detected. Should the jury find the level of risk to be lower than initially identified by the applicant, the jury may recommend another combination of components, including substitution of the grant component by a reimbursable advance 36.

If your proposal receives a NO GO and is not recommended for funding, the jury will recommend whether your proposal has the potential to be a GO if specific targeted improvements are made; whether your proposal fully meets the excellence and impact criteria but has not fully demonstrated the need for Union support, in which case your proposal may be awarded a Seal of Excellence 37; or whether your proposal should be rejected as it does not meet the criteria for reasons which were not identified at the remote evaluation stage.

Table 5. Limitations on resubmission of applications to the EIC Accelerator

Evaluation of full applications: Full applications will be assessed following the cut-off dates listed above. This will start with a remote evaluation where your full application will be sent to three EIC expert evaluators, who will be matched against the area of technology and application of your innovation and who will assess your application more in depth against the criteria set out below. They will have access to analyses (for example on related scientific publications and patents, market trends and perspectives, etc.) generated by the EIC artificial intelligence-based IT platform

Each evaluator will assess whether your full application meets each of the criteria and give a GO or NO GO.

At the face to face interviews, the EIC jury will have prior access to your short and full application and the evaluation results. Jury members will also have access to analyses (for example on financial metrics) generated by the EIC artificial intelligence-based IT platform and in certain cases the independent assessment of a specialised expert in the field of science or technology. Such analyses will be made available to applicants after the decision.

Jury members, based on your interview and their overall assessment, will recommend your proposal for funding (GO) or not (NO GO).

If the proposal receives a GO and is recommended for funding, the jury may recommend lowering the grant amount if activities above TRL 8 are detected. Should the jury find the level of risk to be lower than initially identified by the applicant, the jury may recommend another combination of components, including substitution of the grant component by a reimbursable advance. 36

The jury is not expected to propose a different amount of investment than initially requested by the applicant, except in duly justified cases. Applicants are reminded that the amounts awarded by the Commission are subject to negotiation, including due diligence by the EIC Fund.

However, the jury may also make recommendations to be taken into account when negotiating the grant or investment component, including for example on the milestones and the valuation, and on proposed coaching activities.

If your proposal receives a NO GO and is not recommended for funding, the jury will recommend whether:

The budget will be allocated approximately equally between the cut-offs. In case the amount allocated to GO applicants is less than the budget available for that cut-off, or additional budget becomes available as a result of the contract agreements with beneficiaries, then the remaining available budget will be allocated to the subsequent cut-off.

In case the amount allocated to GO applicants is above the budget available, then a number of applicants corresponding to the unavailable budget will be awarded funding using the available budget of the subsequent cut-off. Such applicants will be identified using the ordering set out above for the invitation to interviews.

Applications will be assessed according to the following evaluation criteria (Table 3). The jury may focus the interview on any element of your proposal based on the remote evaluation result and its own assessment.

Table 5. Limitations on resubmission of applications to the EIC Accelerator

The following limitations on resubmission apply to the EIC Accelerator in 2021 (both Open and Challenge based calls):

EIC Strategic challenges

This funding targets strategic priorities and complements the calls for open funding.

EIC Pathfinder Challenges

EIC Pathfinder Challenges aim to build on new, cutting-edge directions in science and technology to disrupt a field and a market or create new opportunities by realising innovative technological solutions grounded in high-risk/high-gain research and development.

With each specific challenge call, the EIC will establish a portfolio of projects that explore different perspectives, competing approaches or complementary aspects of the Challenge. The complexity and high-risk nature of this research will require multi-disciplinary collaborations.

A dedicated EIC Programme Manager, who establishes a need-driven plan and actively steers the portfolio towards the goals of each Challenge, oversees a specific EIC Pathfinder Challenge. Projects in a Challenge portfolio are expected to interact and exchange, remaining flexible and reactive in the light of developments within the portfolio or in the relevant global scientific or industrial community.

This section refers to common criteria for all Pathfinder Challenges. Please refer to the description below of each Challenge for specific information, particular requirements and budget.

Why should you apply

If you have an ambitious idea to realise the vision of a specific Pathfinder Challenge then this call may be for you. EIC is particularly interested in your ideas for new deep-tech: technology that becomes possible thanks to cutting-edge science in an area of the specific challenge. We are seeking new technological solutions at an early stage of development that are new and disrupt the standard practice up to this point.

You should apply if you have a potential project that would contribute to the specific objectives of the respective Challenge. Specifically, your project must aim to deliver, by its end, the specific outcomes defined in the respective challenge chapter.

With projects funded under one Pathfinder Challenge, the EIC aims to build a portfolio of coherent projects in the respective area with a medium to long-term business goal and a technology-based strategic plan under the supervision of the EIC Programme Manager.

In general, the starting point of a proposal answering to a Pathfinder Challenge is around TRL 2-4 but TRL levels may not apply easily to all the fields. Your project, if funded, will be requested to participate in relevant portfolio activities (see Annex 6 for examples of portfolio activities).

Therefore, it must plan for portfolio activities to be carried out with the other projects of the portfolio and the EIC Programme Manager. Project outcomes must also include top-level scientific publications as well as an adequate formal protection of the generated intellectual property (IP).

Before you decide to apply, you are strongly encouraged to read the respective Pathfinder Challenge guide that will be published when the call opens on the EIC website and the European Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal. This Challenge Guide will provide you with more information about the specific objectives of the challenge and relevant references.

Can you apply

In order to apply, your proposal must meet the general as well as possible specific eligibility requirements for a specific Challenge. Please check for particular elements (e.g. specific application focus or technology) in the respective challenge chapter below.

The Pathfinder Challenges support collaborative research and innovation from consortia or applications from single legal entities (unless stated otherwise in the specific challenge chapter). In case of a consortium your proposal must be submitted by the coordinator on behalf of the consortium that includes at least two independent legal entities.

The legal entities may for example be universities, research organisations, SMEs, start-ups, natural persons. In the case of monobeneficiary projects, mid-caps and larger companies will not be permitted.

Your proposal will only be evaluated if it is admissible and eligible. The standard admissibility and eligibility conditions are detailed in Annex 2 and the eligibility of applicants from third countries in Annex 3.

What support will you receive if your proposal is funded

The total indicative budget for this call is EUR 132 million which is expected to be allocated in approximately equal shares across the challenges. You will receive a grant for a Research and Innovation Action to cover the eligible costs, necessary for the implementation of your project, including the portfolio activities.

For this call, the EIC considers proposals with an EU contribution of up to EUR 4 million as appropriate. Nonetheless, this does not preclude you to request larger amounts, if properly justified or stated otherwise in the specific Challenge. The funding rate of this grant will be 100% of the eligible costs.

In addition to funding, projects will receive free access to a wide range of Business Acceleration Services (see Section V).

How do you apply; how long does it take

The call deadline for submitting your proposal is 27 October 2021 at 17h00 Brussels local time. You must submit your proposal via the European Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal.

Sections 1 to 3 of the part B of your proposal, corresponding respectively to the evaluation criteria Excellence, Impact, and Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation, must consist of a maximum of 25 A4 pages. See Annex 2 for further details.

You will be informed about the outcome of the evaluation 5 months after call deadline (indicative), and your grant agreement will be signed by 8 months after call deadline (indicative).

How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded

After the submission of your proposal it will be evaluated in two steps: a remote evaluation by EIC expert evaluators will assess each application separately against the defined evaluation criteria; and an EIC evaluation committee will consider all proposals passing the first step together in order to assess the best portfolio of projects to achieve the specific objectives of the Challenge.

The evaluation committee will be composed of EIC expert evaluators and EIC Programme Managers. For the first step, your proposal will be evaluated by EIC expert evaluators on each of the following evaluation criteria (Error! Reference source not found.).

The score for each evaluation criterion will be the average of the individual evaluators’ scores. The overall proposal score will be calculated as the weighted sum of the average scores from the evaluation criteria.

All proposals that meet the thresholds defined in the evaluation criteria will be considered in the second step. As a second step, the evaluation committee will establish a list of proposals to be funded, based on the evaluation scores from the first step, as decided by the committee, and on each proposal’s contribution to the setting up of a consistent portfolio of projects.

Your proposal should therefore specify which objectives, or aspects of objectives, it addresses taking into account the technical specifications in the Challenge Guide (e.g. potential applications, range and expected outcomes of the projects, and the associated risks for achieving them, TRLs of the different tools and technologies proposed).

Portfolio considerations will be detailed in the Pathfinder Challenge Guide, as it is topic and domain specific. As a general principle, in order to balance out the portfolio, a categorisation of the proposals will be used and the proposals will be allocated to different components or categories.

Examples of possible categories are: building blocks or subsystems, technical areas and/or competing technologies, risk level, size, budget. A suitable portfolio of proposals to be funded will be selected by the evaluation committee from the highest scoring ones for each category or component and proposed for funding.

The evaluation committee may also propose adjustments to the proposals in as far as needed for the consistency of the portfolio approach. These adjustments will be in conformity with the conditions for participation and comply with the principle of equal treatment.

As a feedback, all applicants will receive a collation of the comments from the individual reports or excerpts from them. Applicants of proposals above threshold assessed further by the evaluation committee will also receive summary comments of the committee’s assessment.

What happens after a project is evaluated and retained for funding

The coordinator of the proposal will receive a letter announcing the proposal has been retained for funding and the next steps regarding grant agreement signature. Grant Agreement preparation and signature is expected to be finished within three months but shorter timelines may be specified.

The Project Officer and eventually the EIC Programme Manager will contact you and support during the grant signature process. You will be expected to collaborate with the other projects from portfolio and sign an agreement in principle before the project start.

During the execution of the project you will interact continuously with the Project Officer assigned to your project and the EIC Programme Manager, assigned to the portfolio of your project, who will oversee all the portfolio projects.

EIC Pathfinder Challenge – Awareness Inside

Awareness and consciousness have been high on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) research agenda for decades. Progress has been difficult because it has been hard to agree on exactly what it means to be aware.

Most researchers would agree though that we do not have any truly aware artificial system yet, that awareness is much more than sensorial sophistication and that it is much more than any Artificial Intelligence as we know it. But, what is it then that a user would expect from a service or device that has ‘awareness inside’?

Most scientific and philosophical accounts of awareness are based on a human subject perspective and at an individual level. They address the question of what it means for an individual human subject to be aware of, for example the environment, time or oneself and how one can assess awareness in this context.

The concept is also relevant to emerging technologies as it has been argued, for instance, that humans will not accept robots (or chatbots, or decision support systems) as trustable partners if they cannot ascribe some form of awareness and true understanding to them.

For technologies, awareness principles would allow a step-up in engineering complex systems, making them more resilient, self-developing and human-centric. Ultimately, awareness serves the coherent and purposeful behaviour, learning, adaptation and self-development of intelligent systems over longer periods of time.

Specific conditions for this challenge

This Challenge is only open to proposals for collaborative projects with at least 3 partners following the standard eligibility conditions. Proposals are required to comply with the Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence principles (see Annex 2).

Related reference: Gendered Innovations 2 news (European Commission)

EIC Pathfinder Challenge – Tools to measure and stimulate activity in brain tissue

Medical devices to measure and stimulate brain activity are emerging as tremendously powerful therapeutic tools that could revolutionise the treatment of brain diseases. Anomalous neuronal electrical signals are present in a wide range of disorders including Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, chronic pain, mood disorders, Parkinson’s, ischemic cognitive decline, sensory disorders, cerebrovascular events, aging related neurodegeneration, and traumatic brain injury.

Unfortunately, existing devices to restore normal patterns of brain activity by stimulation have serious limitations. Invasiveness, limited miniaturisation, poor resolution, and limited spatial coverage hamper the therapeutic effect or render these solutions unattractive for clinicians and patients.

State-of-the-art microelectronics and microfabrication are conducive to novel neuro-devices with high levels of miniaturisation, ultra-low power consumption, multi-site sensor/stimulator arrays and wireless architectures, leading to lower risk, shorter recovery times and better patient acceptance.

Progress can also be achieved by the discovery of new physical principles for activity monitoring and activity modulation, exploring ultrasound, light, mechanical stimulation, local release of neuroactive compounds, or ionising radiation.

Proposals submitted to this call should tackle at least one of the following two challenges: a full device with unique features; or new or nascent physical principles or methodologies that could be the basis for future brain sensing and/or stimulation technologies, with clear and quantifiable advantages.

Specific conditions for this challenge

Proposals targeting a full device are strongly encouraged to establish a plausible work plan to realise by the end of the project at least: (1) a working prototype device or instrument and (2) pre-clinical data with proof of therapeutic action.

Proposals targeting the discovery of a new mechanism for monitoring and/or stimulation are advised to de-risk the work plan by exploring multiple strategies in parallel, merging competing strategies into a single proposal for cost efficiencies and increased likelihood of success.

All proposals must fully justify the clinical need for the targeted development, and structure the work plan accordingly, towards credible future transition to market. Proposals need to consider the cost-benefit of the targeted technology and demonstrate that the outcome will be acceptable by clinicians and patients. The gender dimension in research content should be taken into account, where relevant.

EIC Pathfinder Challenge – Emerging Technologies in Cell and Gene therapy

Cell and gene therapy (CGT) continue to evolve in their use for treating human diseases and are expected to increasingly shape medical treatment and diagnosis as we approach the era of precision medicine. With this Pathfinder Challenge, the EIC aims at reinforcing critical components of the European cell and gene therapy community.

Proposers are invited to submit disease-specific or non-disease-specific proposals, focused on emerging technologies or technological solutions aimed to overcome the current cell and gene therapy challenges in the areas listed below, without being restricted only to these areas.

Specific conditions for this challenge

Your proposal must focus on emerging technologies or breakthrough concept-based technological solutions that go far beyond the current state-of-the-art, aimed to overcome cell and gene therapy challenges at the preclinical, clinical or bio-manufacturing level. Your project must aim to deliver, by its end, at least one of the specific outcomes defined for this challenge. The gender dimension in research content should be taken into account, where relevant.

EIC Pathfinder Challenge – Novel routes to green hydrogen production

The development of efficient, sustainable and flexible energy systems is a key challenge for Europe’s energy decarbonisation and a cornerstone of Europe’s 2050 climate-neutrality goal, set out in the European Green Deal. To achieve such a viable energy system, particular support should be given to solutions aimed at increasing lifetime and decreasing the cost of the overall system.

Hydrogen (H2) has the potential to contribute to these objectives. Currently H2 is largely produced from fossil fuels (grey H2) or blue H2 with carbon capture, or green H2 entirely based on renewable electricity. Green H2 via water electrolysis still has higher costs and uses critical raw materials.

This Challenge aims at developing novel processes and technologies to produce green H2 at different scales and capturing cross-sectoral coupling and system integration opportunities, entirely based on renewable sources and non-toxic, non-critical raw materials.

Specific conditions for this challenge

Your proposal should develop a proof of concept or lab-scale validated innovative green H2 production technology by biological, chemical or physical routes without the deployment of fossil fuels, potentially including the use of salt or wastewater, air moisture, biomass or recycled by-products, or the co-production of decarbonised chemicals.

Projects with multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approaches are particularly welcome. Projects are strongly encouraged to consider recovery and recycling of by-products and wastes and the use of abundant natural resources, include full life cycle analysis, and ensure the safe and sustainable use of non-critical raw materials.

Reference links: European Green Deal priorities, A hydrogen strategy for a climate-neutral Europe (PDF), EU critical raw materials information, 2030 climate and energy framework

EIC Pathfinder Challenge – Engineered Living Materials

Engineered living materials (ELMs) are composed, either entirely or partly, of living cells. By being alive, ELMs represent a fundamental change in materials’ production and performance, enabling new or improved functionalities with decreased costs and environmental impact.

This Challenge aims to support the development of new technologies and platforms enabling the controlled production of made-on-demand living materials with multiple predictable dynamic functionalities, shapes and scales, and to build a community of researchers and innovators in ELMs.

Projects are expected to develop technologies for the production of a minimum of two different living materials (with different applications, a 10× scale difference, and different cellular composition).

Specific conditions for this challenge

Your proposal must plan to validate the technologies by producing at least two different living materials as per the definition in this call, and they must not be derivatives of each other.

Alternatively, if a synthetic cell is used, it must have, prior to the start of the project, a demonstrated ability via a peer-reviewed scientific publication of cellular reproduction via cell division and adaptation to environmental cues. Your proposal must define an integrative approach to assess needs, implications and limits, including ethical and regulatory requirements.

EIC Transition Challenges

EIC Transition Challenges aim to leverage outstanding results of an ongoing or recently finished project in the specific domain of the Challenge and push forward groundbreaking innovations with a clear perspective towards market uptake for specific applications.

For each Transition Challenge, the EIC aims to establish a portfolio of projects that explore different, competing perspectives or address complementary aspects of the Challenge. A dedicated EIC Programme Manager oversees each Transition Challenge and actively steers the portfolio towards the Challenge goals.

Why should you apply

EIC Transition Challenges fund activities to mature a technology beyond the experimental proof of principle in the laboratory and to develop the business case for market uptake for a specific application or set of applications that address the objectives of the Challenge.

The expected outcomes of your project are a technology demonstrated to be effective for its intended application, together with a business model and business plan for its development to market.

Can you apply

Your proposal must build on results (demonstrated proof of principle) achieved within an eligible project. For 2021 it is restricted to applications based on results generated by eligible EIC Pathfinder and FET Flagships projects and ERC Proof of Concept projects.

You can apply either as a single legal entity established in a Member State or an Associated Country (if you are an SME or a research performing organisation) or as a small consortium of minimum two and maximum five independent legal entities.

Your proposal will only be evaluated if it is admissible and eligible (see Annex 2 as well as Annex 3 for eligibility of third country applicants).

What support will you receive if your proposal is funded

The total indicative budget for this call is EUR 40.5 million, funded through Next Generation EU. If successful, you will receive a grant for a Research and Innovation Action at a 100% funding rate. Proposals with a requested EU contribution of up to EUR 2.5 million are considered appropriate, though larger amounts may be justified.

In addition to funding, projects will receive free access to a wide range of Business Acceleration Services (see Section V).

How do you apply; how long does it take

The call deadline for submitting your proposal is 22 September 2021 at 17h00 Brussels local time. You must submit your application via the European Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal before the given deadline.

Sections 1 to 3 of part B of your proposal must consist of a maximum of 25 A4 pages. In a first step, at least three expert evaluators will evaluate and score your proposal against each evaluation criterion. The second step is a face to face interview with an EIC jury.

The call will open on 15 April 2021. The Director-General responsible for the call may decide to open the call up to one month prior to or after the envisaged date(s) of opening, and may delay the deadline(s) by up to two months.

EIC Transition Challenge – Medical Technology and Devices: from Lab to Patient

Transitioning from a proof-of-concept result to a level of technological maturity appropriate for clinical evaluation poses significant technical, financial, business and operational challenges to innovators in the field. Thorough safety and efficacy validation in a clinical setting is necessary to advance towards regulatory compliance and motivate private-sector involvement.

Specific conditions for this challenge

The starting point should be a preliminary prototype (TRL 3-4), and the endpoint should be a fully functional version suitable for clinical validation (TRL 5-6), supported by a sound, implementable exploitation strategy. The gender dimension in research content should be taken into account, where relevant.

For this Challenge, proposals with up to EUR 2.5 million and up to 3 years are considered appropriate, though larger amounts or different durations may be justified.

EIC Transition Challenge – Energy harvesting and storage technologies

Innovative technologies for efficient, low cost, sustainable, compact and flexible energy harvesting, conversion and storage are crucial to reach the Green Deal targets of decarbonised energy systems while achieving the transition to secure and affordable energy.

The proposals are expected to develop energy storage technologies or combined energy harvesting/storage technologies ready for investment and business development, capturing specific systems integration opportunities.

Specific conditions for this challenge

Activities will aim to have impact on sustainability, using non-critical and non-toxic raw materials and ensuring circular approaches and/or a high degree of recyclability, and on financial and business aspects with a detailed exploitation plan and identification of regulatory hurdles.

Expected results are prototypes or demonstrators operating in relevant environment conditions combined with a sound business plan and business model. Budgets above EUR 2.5 million may be accepted if duly justified.

EIC Accelerator Challenges

The EIC Accelerator Challenges support companies (principally start-ups and SMEs) to scale up high impact innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones in identified areas of strategic relevance. Innovations that harm the environment or social welfare or that are designed primarily for military applications will not be supported.

What support will you receive if your proposal is funded

The total indicative budget for this call is EUR 494.76 to 496.76 million, of which EUR 247.38 to 248.38 million will be funded through Next Generation EU. Support may be provided in the form of blended finance (grant up to EUR 2.5 million and investment component between EUR 0.5 and EUR 15 million) or grant only/grant first support as set out in the Accelerator Open call.

If successful you will receive free access to a wide range of Business Acceleration Services (Section V).

How do you apply; how long does it take

You are invited to submit your full application to the following deadlines: 9 June 2021 at 17h00 Brussels local time, or 6 October 2021 at 17h00 Brussels local time.

The call will open on 18 March 2021. The Director-General responsible for the call may decide to open the call up to one month prior to or after the envisaged date(s) of opening, and may delay the deadline(s) by up to two months.

EIC Accelerator Challenge – Strategic Digital and Health Technologies

As set out in the Economic Recovery and Resilience Facility, strategic technologies are taking on a new importance in terms of technological sovereignty. Europe needs to preserve its capacity to act autonomously by building value chains for strategically important technologies in Europe. 51

Strategic technologies underpin the shift to a greener economy, modernise Europe’s industrial base and drive the development of new knowledge-based industries. They are a key element of European industrial policy and contribute towards meeting pressing societal challenges. 52

Why should you apply

Applicants must contribute to enhance Europe’s leadership and strategic autonomy in key technologies as well as to build competences and access to such technologies in Europe. Your proposal must clearly describe the contribution your project makes to increasing Europe’s leadership in one or more of the strategic technologies below.

Digital technologies: devices, methods, systems as well as working principles, processes and standards which apply to the ICT technology industry such as advanced high performance computing, edge computing, quantum technologies, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud infrastructure technologies and technologies for the Internet of Things.

Healthcare technologies: AI-driven tools for early diagnosis; point-of-care diagnostics; novel approaches in cell and gene therapy; development of novel biomarkers; bioprocessing 4.0; healthcare intelligence services; and e-health solutions for healthcare systems, medical practice and Intensive Care Units.

Activities supported could include product/service development, trials, optimisation, prototyping, validation, demonstration and testing in real world conditions and market replication. Essential actions for the innovation project can be subcontracted.

You must base your proposal on a strategic business plan and specify the project’s success criteria and milestones as well as expected outcomes. You must pay particular attention to IP protection, licensing and ownership, and present convincing evidence or measures to ensure the possibility of commercial uptake (freedom to operate). Moreover, you must address relevant regulatory and standardisation issues.

Including technologies provided by EU space infrastructure (Galileo, Copernicus, etc.).

Can you apply

You must meet the same eligibility conditions as set out in the EIC Accelerator call (Section II.3) as well as the standard admissibility and eligibility conditions as detailed in Annex 2 to this Work Programme. This challenge specifically concentrates on the strategic technologies defined above.

How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded

The evaluation process is the same as for proposals submitted to the Accelerator Open call, including as regards limitations on resubmission. If interview capacity is exceeded, prioritisation will invite first those carried over from previous sessions or specifically invited to resubmit, then ensure at least 40% addressing priority areas for digital and 40% for health, then gender balance (female CEOs), then submission date/time.

All of the evaluation criteria established for the EIC Accelerator Open call will apply. In addition, applications will be evaluated against an additional criterion for ‘Impact’ (Table 5).

Related links: Recovery and Resilience Facility overview, A New Industrial Strategy for Europe (COM/2020/102)

EIC Accelerator Challenge – Green Deal innovations for the Economic Recovery

This EIC Accelerator challenge will fund transformative green innovations, which contribute to the goals enshrined in the European Green Deal strategy and the Recovery Plan for Europe. It will focus on disruptive and breakthrough innovations by SMEs (including midcaps) and start-ups.

This challenge will contribute to the European Green Deal goals by nurturing and supporting the scale up of next generation low-carbon technologies and supporting European companies willing to become global technology leaders able to transform the world.

Why should you apply

Your project must support the Green Deal implementation by significantly contributing to at least one of the following sustainability goals:

Within the Green Deal goals, specific priority is given to projects relating to key innovations for the green economic transition as identified in the Recovery Plan for Europe. 54 55 At least 50% of the companies invited to the interview phase must have submitted proposals relating to one of the following areas:

Renewable energy, including renewable hydrogen and energy storage

Breakthrough innovations to further develop renewable energy sources, green hydrogen or decarbonised fuels production and/or storage at different scales and for different applications, including solutions that address the whole supply chain to limit the use of critical raw materials.

Deep renovation of buildings

Breakthrough innovations that accelerate the growth of the deep renovation market to increase the energy and environmental performance of buildings, including building-embedded energy generation and storage and innovative business models.

Low carbon industries

Breakthrough innovations contributing to the decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries, including electrification, circularity and industrial symbiosis, carbon capture storage and utilisation, or digitisation of industrial processes.

Batteries and other energy storage systems

Breakthrough innovations across the strategic battery value chain, from critical raw materials to recycling, and other storage systems (chemical and physical) for stationary and transport applications.

You must base your proposal on a strategic business plan and specify the project’s success criteria and expected outcomes. You must pay particular attention to IPR strategy and ensure the possibility of commercial uptake (freedom to operate), and address regulatory and standardisation issues.

Proposals must describe the project’s contribution to at least one Green Deal goal using quantitative impact assessments where possible. Proposals must not cause significant harm to any of the EU taxonomy environmental goals as explained in Section II.3 of the EIC Accelerator Open.

Can you apply

You must meet the same eligibility conditions as set out in the EIC Accelerator call (Section II.3) and the standard admissibility and eligibility conditions as detailed in Annex 2 to this Work Programme. This Challenge focuses on innovations fuelling the transition towards a climate-neutral and circular economy while supporting EU competitiveness and leadership in green technologies.

How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded

The evaluation process is the same as for proposals submitted to the Accelerator Open call. If interview capacity is exceeded, prioritisation will invite carried-over or invited resubmissions first, then ensure at least 50% address the priority areas described above, then gender balance (female CEOs), then submission date/time.

All of the evaluation criteria established for the EIC Accelerator Open call (Section II.3, Table 4) will apply. In addition, applications will be evaluated against an additional criterion for ‘Impact’ (Table 6).

Related references: Commission Staff Working Document on identifying Europe's recovery needs, SWD (2020) 98 final, page 17; Guidance to Member States on their national Recovery and Resilience Plans, SWD (2020) 205 final, pages 18–19.

EIC Accelerator Challenge – Strategic Digital and Health Technologies

If so, the Strategic Technologies topic of the EIC Accelerator may support your endeavours.

As set out in the Economic Recovery and Resilience Facility 51, strategic technologies are taking on a new importance in terms of technological sovereignty. Europe needs to preserve its capacity to act autonomously by building value chains for strategically important technologies in Europe, and to avoid situations where it is dependent on other regions for access to such technologies.

Furthermore, strategic technologies present enormous growth potential for Europe. They allow European industries to retain competitiveness and capitalise on new markets as well as determine Europe’s position in the global market. They underpin the shift to a greener economy, are instrumental in modernising Europe’s industrial base and drive the development of entirely new knowledge-based industries. Their importance makes them a key element of European industrial policy 52 and they are increasingly contributing towards meeting today’s most pressing societal challenges.

With this EIC Accelerator challenge, the EIC seeks to support start-ups and SMEs (including small mid-caps) that are developing strategic technologies or innovations based on these technologies, in order to be ahead of the evolution of these technologies and capture the competitive advantages they can yield, accelerating their deployment and adoption within value chains.

This challenge targets high-risk, high-potential SMEs (including start-ups and spin-outs) as well as small mid-caps from any sector provided that they are potential leaders in the technologies identified in this challenge.

Why should you apply

Applicants must contribute to enhance Europe’s leadership and strategic autonomy in key technologies as well as to build competences and access to such technologies in Europe.

You should apply if you believe that your company has the potential to be a global leader in developing strategic technologies in one of the following areas:

Digital technologies: devices, methods, systems as well as working principles, processes and standards 53 which apply to the ICT technology industry such as advanced high performance computing, edge computing, quantum technologies, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, block-chain, cloud infrastructure technologies and technologies for the Internet of Things.

Healthcare technologies: AI-driven tools for early diagnosis; point-of-care diagnostics; novel approaches in cell and gene therapy, in particular for cancer; development of novel biomarkers for clinical prognosis, patient stratification or monitoring purposes across a wide spectrum of disorders; bioprocessing 4.0 (digitalisation across stages of biodevelopment in biotech/biopharma industry); healthcare intelligence services; and e-health (including mobile health) solutions for healthcare systems, medical practice and Intensive Care Units.

Your proposal must clearly describe the contribution that your project makes towards increasing Europe’s leadership in one or more of the above mentioned strategic technologies.

Activities supported could include, for instance, product/service development, trials, optimisation, prototyping, validation, demonstration and testing in real world conditions and market replication. Essential actions for the innovation project can be subcontracted.

You must base your proposal on a strategic business plan and specify the project’s success criteria and milestones as well as expected outcomes.

You must pay particular attention to IP protection, licencing and ownership, and you must present convincing evidence or measures to ensure the possibility of commercial uptake ('freedom to operate'). Moreover, you must address relevant regulatory and standardisation issues.

Can you apply

In order to apply you must meet the same eligibility conditions as set out in the EIC Accelerator call (Section II.3) above as well as the standard admissibility and eligibility conditions as detailed in Annex 2 to this Work Programme.

This challenge specifically concentrates on the strategic technologies defined above.

How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded

The evaluation process is the same as for proposals submitted to the Accelerator Open call, including as regards the limitations on resubmission (Section II.3).

All companies receiving a GO from the remote evaluation stage will be invited to the face to face interviews. In case the number of companies to invite exceeds the capacities of the initially planned interview sessions, a first batch of companies will be invited according to the following prioritisation. The remaining batch of companies to interview will be invited to a further set of interviews to be organised before the interviews of the next cut-off date.

All of the evaluation criteria established for the EIC Accelerator Open call (Table 4) will apply. In addition, applications will be evaluated against an additional criterion for ‘Impact’ (Table 7):

EIC Accelerator Challenge – Green Deal innovations for the Economic Recovery

If so, the Green Deal topic of the EIC Accelerator may support your endeavours.

In December 2019, the Commission launched its European Green Deal strategy, setting very ambitious goals for making Europe a climate neutral and circular economy by 2050 and consequently calling for massive public and private investments in transformative green technologies. Furthermore, in September 2020 the Commission released its Communication ‘Stepping up Europe’s 2030 climate ambition’, proposing to increase the EU’s climate targets to an economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction of at least 55% by 2030 (as compared to 1990 levels). In December 2020, the European Council endorsed this objective.

The Recovery Plan for Europe, launched in May 2020, addressed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and insisted on the European Green Deal’s objectives as key to ensuring the EU’s recovery and resilience from the crisis. The Recovery Plan further underlined the need for decarbonising energy-intensive industries, boosting renewable energy production, making transport smarter and more sustainable, increasing energy efficiency in buildings and protecting and restoring biodiversity and natural ecosystems, inter alia, all while boosting resilience and economic competitiveness.

This EIC Accelerator challenge will fund transformative green innovations, which contribute to the goals enshrined in the European Green Deal strategy and the Recovery Plan for Europe. This call will complement and be coordinated with activities supported by other relevant pan-European public-private and public-public partnerships for circular bio-based solutions, green hydrogen, batteries or low-carbon industries.

In particular it will focus on disruptive and breakthrough innovations by SMEs (including mid-caps) and start-ups. This will also contribute to the implementation of various EU-wide initiatives, including the New Industrial Strategy for Europe regarding the decarbonisation and modernisation of energy-intensive industries, the Renovation Wave for more energy-efficient buildings, the Biodiversity Strategy, the Farm to Fork Strategy or the new Circular Economy Action Plan.

This EIC Accelerator challenge will contribute to the European Green Deal goals by nurturing and supporting the scale up of next generation low-carbon technologies and supporting European companies willing to become global technology leaders able to transform the world. Game changing, breakthrough technologies combined with innovative business models, will be a key feature.

Why should you apply

Your project must support the Green Deal implementation by significantly contributing to at least one of the following sustainability goals:

Within the Green Deal goals, specific priority is given to projects relating to key innovations for the green economic transition as identified in the Recovery Plan for Europe 54 55. In that particular regard, at least 50% of the companies selected for the interview phase must have submitted proposals relating to one of the following areas:

Renewable energy, including renewable Hydrogen and energy storage

Breakthrough innovations to further develop renewable energy sources, green hydrogen or decarbonised fuels production and/or storage at different scales, from centralised to on demand, as well as for different applications ranging from stationary to transport, including solutions that address the whole supply chain to limit the use of critical raw materials, to contribute to the goal of a carbon-neutral economy.

Deep Renovation of buildings

Breakthrough innovations that accelerate the growth of the deep renovation market to increase the energetic and environmental performance of residential, commercial and public buildings, also bundling energy supply and/or demand through innovative technologies and operating strategies, proposing building-embedded energy generation and storage solutions and financial schemes or business models.

Low carbon industries

Breakthrough innovations contributing to the de-carbonisation of energy-intensive industries, including solutions on electrification, circularity and industrial symbiosis industrial processes, the use of carbon capture storage and utilisation technologies or the digitisation of industrial processes.

Batteries and other energy storage systems

Breakthrough innovations related to the various segments of the strategic battery value chain, from critical raw materials to recycling, and comprising other energy storage systems such as chemical as well as physical storage technologies (including ultracapacitors), for use on stationary as well as transport applications.

You must base your proposal on a strategic business plan and specify the project’s success criteria and expected outcomes. You must pay particular attention to IPR strategy, and you must present convincing evidence or measures to ensure the possibility of commercial uptake (often known as 'freedom to operate'). Moreover, you must address regulatory and standardisation issues.

Proposals must describe the project’s contribution to the implementation of at least one of these Green Deal goals, using where possible quantitative impact assessments. Furthermore, apart from substantially contributing to one or more of the above listed objectives, proposals must not cause significant harm to any of the EU taxonomy environmental goals as explained in Section II.3 of the EIC Accelerator Open above.

Can you apply

In order to apply you must meet the same eligibility conditions as set out in the EIC Accelerator call (Section II.3) above as well as the standard admissibility and eligibility conditions as detailed in Annex 2 to this Work Programme.

The EIC Accelerator supports the development of business concepts into market-ready innovations (new or breakthrough technologies, products, processes, services and business models) and their rollout. This Green Deal Challenge specifically focuses on those innovations that fuel the societal transition towards a climate-neutral and circular economy while supporting EU’s competitiveness and leadership in green technologies and the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

The Challenge targets high-risk, high-potential small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (including start-ups) from any sector provided that their proposal contributes to Green Deal goals (as explained above).

How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded

The evaluation process is same as for proposals submitted to the Accelerator Open call (Section II.3).

All companies receiving a GO from the remote evaluation stage will be invited to the face to face interviews. In case the number of companies to invite exceeds the capacities of the initially planned interview sessions, a first batch of companies will be invited according to the following prioritisation. The remaining batch of companies to interview will be invited to a further set of interviews to be organised before the interviews of the next cut-off date.

All of the evaluation criteria established for the EIC Accelerator Open call (Section II.3, Table 4) will apply. In addition, applications will be evaluated against an additional criterion for ‘Impact’ (Table 8):

EIC Prizes

EU Prize for Women Innovators

Objectives and scope

The opportunities created by novel technologies and disruptive innovations promise to deliver the fair and sustainable recovery Europe needs. But Europe risks missing out on these opportunities if half its population is overlooked as a source of innovation and creative talent.

The EU Prize for Women Innovators celebrates the women entrepreneurs behind game-changing innovations. In doing so, the EU seeks to raise awareness of the need for more female innovators, and create role models for women and girls everywhere.

The EU Prize for Women Innovators is awarded to the most talented women entrepreneurs from across the EU and countries associated to Horizon Europe, who have founded a successful company and brought innovation to market. The prize is launched and managed by the European Innovation Council and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Executive Agency, and the winners are chosen by an independent expert jury.

In the ‘Women Innovators’ main category, three prizes of EUR 100 000 each are awarded to the women who, in the opinion of the jury, have excelled in all award criteria and stood out amongst the other applicants. In the second category, one prize of EUR 50 000 is awarded to a promising ‘Rising Innovator’ aged 30 or younger. 56

Eligibility criteria

In addition to the above, those applying for the Rising Innovator category must be aged 30 or younger. There is no age limit to apply for the main category, though applicants eligible for both prize categories can only apply to one.

Award criteria

The prize is awarded to the applicants who in the opinion of the jury best address the following criteria:

The jury will review and score all eligible applications, and invite the shortlisted applicants to a hearing in front of the jury members to defend their application. This hearing may take place remotely.

Further details on the evaluation and award criteria, as well as promotional activities, will be specified in the rules for this contest published at the launch of the yearly contest. For the common ‘Rules of Contest for Prizes’ please see the Funding and Tenders Portal.

Expected results

The prize will boost public awareness of the potential, importance and contribution of women to the innovation ecosystem and create strong role models, inspiring other women to become innovators themselves.

Type of Action

Recognition Prize

Indicative Timetable

Indicative Budget for 2021 Edition

The European Capital of Innovation Awards (iCapital)

Cities are faced with most severe societal and sustainability challenges, but also have the means to develop and apply effective innovative solutions. They are the place where ideas, people, public and private actors meet and engage among themselves to improve the quality of citizens’ lives.

They are the natural playground where breakthrough innovation flourishes and nourishes. They provide ground to experiment new technologies and products in a real environment, their interaction with people and their added value.

Objectives and Scope

The traditional city innovation ecosystem is opening up to new models of innovation engaging citizens. An increasing number of cities are acting as test beds for innovation and run citizen-driven initiatives to find solutions for their relevant societal challenges.

The public domain is particularly challenged with finding effective ways to ensure the mainstreaming of these practices into the ordinary urban development process. Successful practices are crucial to enhance the city's capacity to attract new resources, funds and talents to stimulate the growth of breakthrough innovations.

Moreover, collaboration and strengthening synergies among innovation ecosystems boost cities’ development and resilience to tackle urban challenges. For this reason, the European Capital of Innovation Awards will recognize the cities’ role as catalysers of the local innovation ecosystem and will stimulate new activities aimed at boosting game-changing innovation.

Categories

In 2021, the European Capital of Innovation Awards will feature two categories. The first one, the European Capital of Innovation category, would include cities which have a population of minimum 250 000 inhabitants and, based on the below cumulative criteria, would reward the winner with EUR 1 million and two runners up with EUR 100 000 each one.

The second and newest category, the European Rising Innovative City category, would include towns and cities which have a population of 50 000 and up to 249 999 inhabitants; and, based on the below cumulative criteria, would reward the winner with EUR 500 000 and two runners up with EUR 50 000 each one.

Each application must contain a specific endorsement to apply signed by the city Mayor (or the equivalent highest political representative).

Eligibility criteria

Award criteria

For this yearly competition, six prizes will be awarded after closure of the contest to the applicants who, in the opinion of the jury, best address the following cumulative criteria:

The jury will review and score eligible applications, and invite the shortlisted applicants to a hearing in front of the jury members to defend their application. This hearing may take place remotely.

Further details on the evaluation and award criteria, as well as promotional activities will be specified in the rules for this contest published at the launch of the yearly contest. For the common rules of contest for prizes, please see the Funding and Tenders Portal.

Expected results

A European prize to the most innovative cities’ ecosystems. The award will raise the profile of the cities that have developed and implemented innovative policies; established frameworks that boost breakthrough innovation; enhanced the city attractiveness towards investors, industry, enterprises and talents; helped to open up connections and strengthen links with other cities; promoted the replication of best practices in the innovation field; enhanced citizens' involvement in the decision-making process; and supported cities’ resilience.

Type of Action: Recognition Prize

Indicative budget: the following 2021 budget will be allocated as follows

Indicative timetable of contest(s)

The European Innovation Procurement Awards

Objectives and scope

Public and private procurement represent an untapped potential to stimulate the demand for innovation. The public and private sectors could offer new opportunities for suppliers, and provide better, more efficient services.

Therefore, innovation procurement would boost transforming research into innovative solutions targeted at societal needs, and support innovative companies to commercialise their ideas. The European Innovation Procurement Awards aim to recognise public and private buyers across Europe in their efforts to promote innovation procurement and the innovative ways the solutions are procured.

It also aims to emphasise the importance of close buyer–supplier cooperation in bringing the innovative solutions to market. These awards complement other EIC initiatives aimed at supporting and fostering innovation procurement in the European Union.

Categories

In 2021, the European Innovation Procurement Awards will feature the following three categories:

Each category would reward the winner with EUR 75 000 and one runner-up with EUR 25 000.

Eligibility criteria

Award criteria

The prize will be awarded after closure of the yearly contest, to the applicants who, in the opinion of the jury, best address the following cumulative criteria:

The jury will review and score eligible applications, and invite the shortlisted applicants to a hearing in front of the jury members to defend their application. This hearing may take place remotely.

Further details on the evaluation and award criteria, as well as promotional activities, will be specified in the rules for this contest published at the launch of the yearly contest. For the common rules of contest for prizes, please see the Funding and Tenders Portal.

Indicative timetable of contest(s)

Type of Action: Recognition prize

Indicative budget: the following 2021 budget will be allocated as follows

The European Social Innovation Competition

The European Social Innovation Competition aims at stimulating social innovation's potential to provide solutions to societal challenges and foster sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe. It will directly support ideas best illustrating this rationale.

It will engage citizens, businesses (including start-ups) in a large range of sectors, as well as universities, business and engineering schools, thereby creating new connections, sources of sustainable growth and meaningful job opportunities.

The competition is looking for early stage ideas that tackle these needs in a range of different ways, from innovative solutions that identify skills needs and gaps to skills development approaches, including but not limited to training. Applicants are invited to submit their proposals independently of their degree of maturity, including concept or early stage ideas, as well as those that have begun the prototyping stage.

Eligibility criteria

Award criteria

For this yearly competition, 3 prizes will be awarded after closure of the contest to the applicants who, in the opinion of the jury, best address the following cumulative criteria:

The jury will review and score eligible applications and shortlist a maximum of 30 applicants. During a period of four months, these 30 semi-finalists will be supported with business acceleration services (i.e. training, mentoring and coaching) in order to develop their ideas towards reaching implementation and market stages.

Afterwards, once the supporting services period is finished, the 30 semi-finalists will be invited to submit a development plan of their original proposal. On its basis, the jury will select 10 finalists and propose 3 winners, rewarding them with EUR 50 000 each.

The competition provides other benefits for semi-finalists and finalists, such as visibility for the ideas and networking opportunities, namely through the Alumni network.

Expected results

The Competition aims at raising awareness about social innovation across a wide audience, sparking the creation of new socially innovative ideas, creating a network of like-minded practitioners and supporting semi-finalists to transform early stage ideas into structured businesses.

Indicative timetable of the competition

Type of Action: Inducement Prize

Indicative budget

Eligibility criteria

Award criteria

For this yearly competition, one prize will be awarded after closure of the contest to the applicant who, in the opinion of the jury, best addresses the following cumulative criteria:

The jury will review and score eligible applications. Semi-finalists of the 2020 edition will be invited to submit an impact report with their application to show the progress of their idea awarded in the European Social Innovation Competition 2020.

On the basis of the impact reports received, the jury will propose the winner of the impact prize, rewarded with EUR 50 000. The Competition provides other benefits for applicants to the impact prize, such as webinars and networking opportunities.

Expected results

The Competition aims at raising awareness about social innovation across a wide audience, sparking the creation of new socially innovative ideas, creating a network of like-minded practitioners and supporting semi-finalists to transform early stage ideas into structured businesses.

Indicative timetable of the competition

Type of Action: Recognition Prize

Indicative budget

EIC Community and Business Acceleration Services

EIC Business Acceleration Services global offer

Why these activities

The EIC support goes far beyond funding and it aims at supporting the emergence of and accelerating EIC innovations and growth of top deep tech companies. In order to further leverage EIC investments, as an EIC funded researcher, innovator or entrepreneur you will be provided with access to a range of tailor-made EIC Business Acceleration Services (BAS) at any stage of development of your activities and of the EIC research and innovation cycle.

The EIC uses its pan-European reach to connect you with partners from all around Europe, across borders and will also contribute to further develop the innovation ecosystem in Europe.

Who can benefit and what services are offered

All the EIC beneficiaries (from the EIC Accelerator, EIC Transition, EIC Pathfinder and Women TechEU 58 programmes) have access to BAS. Some of the services will also be made available to EIC Accelerator applicants (invited to prepare a full application), to companies receiving the Seal of Excellence 59 as well as to innovators and companies coming from other European or national initiatives that have entered into a specific agreement with the EIC.

The services described above are available through the EIC Community platform or provided through the EIC Fund or partner organisations. The EIC BAS are structured around three main pillars:

Business coaching focuses on providing tailor-made insights on business development shortcomings and guidance to improve performance. Coaching topics cover the entire entrepreneurial and innovation endeavour from challenging the value proposition and business model, IP management, improving strategy and investor business case, building the team and leadership, to international expansion.

Mentoring aims to develop fit-for-purpose business and leadership skills such as resilience, tenacity and strategic insight of the individual founders and CEOs. The impact is especially high when mentors share their own experience with business innovation and fundraising.

Coaching and Mentoring are delivered by qualified, experienced business coaches, entrepreneurs, investors. Specific mentoring will be provided for companies receiving EIC blended finance in coordination with the management of the equity component by the EIC Fund.

As part of the proactive portfolio management by Programme Managers, access to specific expertise, trainings, incubation or acceleration will be provided to meet individual needs of the EIC funded projects and companies and their innovations.

Access to specific expertise and training or acceleration services will mainly be provided through a pool of certified innovation ecosystem actors and service providers. Regarding business coaching, EIC Accelerator applicants invited to submit a full application, Seal of Excellence companies and all EIC funded projects and companies will receive 3 coaching days.

EIC funded SMEs will be offered specific support when expanding to new markets within Europe and abroad in the form of participation in global business trade fairs, visiting major European innovation hubs and specific soft landing programmes.

The EIC with support of the EIC Fund will facilitate collaboration with (co-)investors for the EIC Community. The service will be supported through a dedicated matching platform for both investments and tailor-made services including mentoring, strategic advice, curated presentation to investors’ networks as well as investment readiness preparation and pitching sessions.

The most mature and promising EIC funded companies will be able to benefit from curated services, tailor-made to their needs connecting them to top level corporates and investors, supporting them to raise further funding or succeed in an Initial Public Offering.

The EIC Community relies on the EIC Community platform: an exclusive, virtual meeting place, where EIC funded projects and companies can connect with their peers and leverage potential business partnerships complemented by Community activities.

A new tool will be the development of an EIC Marketplace (see Section VI.4) that will collect and organise information on preliminary findings and results generated by EIC projects and proactively make this information, together with supporting services and expertise, available to potential partners, investors and entrepreneurs.

To further strengthen the BAS’ scope and provide even more tailored services EIC also seeks partnerships with ecosystem partners bringing in specific experience, specific expertise or access to specific networks in certain innovation areas.

Overall, a specific focus will be given to support promising green innovations as well as EIC funded SMEs reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Women innovators, including those supported under the Women TechEU programme will be offered a targeted leadership and development programme including coaching.

Budget and implementation

The described activities are implemented through multiannual contracts, some of them initiated under Horizon 2020. The 2021 budget includes the following activities:

EUR 10 million for remote coaching 60 to be implemented through expert contracts signed with experts providing advice to EIC Accelerator applicants invited to submit a full application, Seal of Excellence companies, Women TechEU companies and all EIC funded projects and companies, including women innovators supported with specific BAS leadership actions.

EUR 4.1 million for investor mentoring to be implemented by the EIC Fund. EUR 2 million for soft landing and scale up support for EIC funded companies outside Europe to be implemented by the EIC Fund.

EUR 6.5 million for other BAS for the duration of 2-4 years through public procurements to be launched in the third quarter of 2021. The actions will focus on: Access to expertise and trainings, and Support through ecosystem partners.

Other Actions

Communication, outreach, events

The success of the EIC lies in attracting highly innovative and diverse companies and researchers that can generate fast and high growth, as well as co-investors and global corporates that can further maximise the impact of EIC support.

The objective of this action is to prepare and implement the communication and outreach activities for the EIC as well as a continuous campaign to strengthen the reputation of the EIC towards stakeholders, potential applicants, policymakers, and the broader innovation ecosystem.

This action covers the design of the strategy, the development and maintenance of the EIC website and other information channels and the generation of relevant content and materials. In addition, it allows for EIC participation in key events, including the EU Research and Innovation Days, a dedicated annual EIC Event, stakeholder events to contribute to future EIC work programmes, as well as other outreach and stakeholder engagement actions including expert training events.

Type of action: Public Procurement action. Indicative timetable: 2021. Indicative budget: EUR 1 500 000.

Honoraria and expenses of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Board

As highly qualified, specialised, independent advisors appointed following an open and transparent procedure, the members of the EIC Board will be remunerated for the services they offer. Remuneration is justified on the grounds of members’ personal commitment and their work providing high level strategic advice to the Commission and bringing prestige and visibility to the EIC.

Remuneration will be proportionate to the specific tasks to be assigned to EIC Board members and it will closely mirror compensation schemes for other EU, international or national entities of similar nature. Remuneration will take the form of honoraria for their effective participation at the Board’s plenary meetings and will be accompanied by a compensation for travel and other expenses (‘per diem’).

Type of action: Expert contracts. Indicative budget: EUR 500 000 from the 2021 budget.

Foresight and analysis of emerging technologies and innovation trends

In order to stay on the cutting edge and to make informed choices regarding priority areas, the EIC needs to possess strong capacity for detecting early signals of emerging trends in technology and innovation, and for positioning its portfolio with regard to the current context.

Type of action: Scientific and technical services by the Joint Research Centre. Indicative timetable: Second quarter of 2021. Indicative budget: EUR 0.2 million from the 2021 budget.

Type of action: Public Procurement. Indicative timetable: Second quarter of 2021. Indicative budget: EUR 0.8 million from the 2021 budget.

EIC Data management and Information systems

The objective of this action is to provide the IT development and maintenance resources for the EIC Data Management and Information systems built to collect, consolidate, curate and contextualise key data and information coming from internal and third party sources, including using Artificial Intelligence.

Expected results: dynamic, flexible and reactive management of EIC activities, based on high quality and real time strategic and operational insights. These information systems combined with existing Commission corporate platforms should also become key to the efficient and effective delivery of services and data to EIC funded projects and companies and stakeholders, including EIC Market Place.

Subject to the positive experience of this pilot, the EIC will acquire similar services for the period 2022-2027, enlarged to all other EIC instruments and activities and extended to include additional services in relation to portfolios and projects management and support to the EIC Fund.

Further synergies with national and regional programmes will be sought so as to share some of these services (i.e. orientation, diagnostic, EIC Market Place) with interested innovation agencies to overall enhance support to innovation across the Union.

The EIC Market Place

Among these additional Artificial intelligence-based services, the EIC will acquire services for an ‘EIC Market Place’ to foster the further exploitation of preliminary findings and results generated under EIC projects. Best efforts will be made by the EIC to ensure secured protection of these preliminary findings and results.

The aim is to make sure that no opportunity gets lost for creating added-value for European companies and citizens, based on results from EIC support. The starting point for the EIC Market Place is hence to make information about preliminary findings and results available at any stage of their generation, findable by—though not necessarily disclosed to—any potentially interested party, and to incentivise and support further transactions.

The EIC Market Place will offer a trusted platform for EIC companies and project partners to share information on their preliminary findings and results, whether or not protected, in view of maximising their potential use, stimulating cross-fertilisation or serendipity effects within the EIC Community.

AI-based detection functionalities and co-creation tools will stimulate cross-fertilization and innovation out of the results. Access to information on unprotected preliminary findings and results will be limited to EIC beneficiaries, inventors and vetted investors bound by non-disclosure obligations, complemented by a more broadly open module for dissemination of protected results and publications.

Supporting services will allow EIC Programme Managers to proactively manage their portfolios and liaise with EIC companies and project partners. Links with other tools available at European level, like the Horizon Results Platform, and with similar platforms at national or institutional levels should be considered.

The above developments will follow, as much as possible, the principles of open source code and open data standards ensuring that both the tools and data generated can be reused by other institutions, Member States, Associated Countries and relevant third parties.

Type of action: Public procurement action, including through use of existing IT framework contracts. Indicative budget and timetable: AI-based tool, including the EIC Market Place: EUR 8 million from 2021 budget. EIC Data and IT integration: EUR 2 million from 2021 budget.

External expertise for monitoring, ethics and policy advice

The EIC uses external independent experts for ethics review, for the monitoring of ongoing projects 62 and to receive policy advice on the optimal achievement of the EIC objectives, as well as the implementation and proactive management of EIC activities including for support to BAS activities and the EIC Programme Managers.

The EIC also reimburses the costs of applicants invited to attend face to face interviews during the evaluation of their proposals. Type of action: Expert contracts. Indicative budget: EUR 4.6 million from the 2021 budget.

Capacity-building and transnational cooperation for National Contact Points (NCPs)

Expected outcomes

Scope

The consortium should have a good representation of experienced and less experienced NCPs. Proposals should address the diversity of the EIC-EIE stakeholders (researchers, innovators, SMEs, start-ups, investors) and support schemes.

Proposals should enhance synergies across different parts of Horizon Europe, for instance with the ERC and the EIT, as well as with InvestEU and Structural Fund programmes. Proposals should pay particular attention and facilitate collaboration with the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) and European Innovation Ecosystem stakeholders.

The proposal should cover the whole duration of Horizon Europe.

Eligibility and evaluation criteria

Applicants must be Horizon Europe national support structures (e.g. NCP) responsible for the European Innovation Council (EIC) and European Innovation Ecosystems and officially nominated to the Commission, from a Member State or an Associated Country or any third country associated to Horizon Europe.

Only in case and as long as Horizon Europe structures would not yet be officially nominated, national support structures responsible for the European Innovation Council (EIC) and European Innovation Ecosystems nominated for Horizon 2020 would be eligible.

The granting authority can fund a maximum of one project. Type of action: Coordination and support action (CSA). Deadline for applications: 18/05/2021. 63 Indicative budget: EUR 4 million from the 2021 budget. The duration of the action is 7 years. For general award criteria check Annex 2.

Co-Creation with Public and Private Buyers of Innovations

Government expenditure on works, goods and services represents around 14% of EU GDP, accounting for roughly annually EUR 1.9 trillion. This represents an untapped potential to stimulate the demand of innovative solutions, notably for innovative small businesses.

The public but also private sector could grasp this opportunity to offer new opportunities making use of new technologies or solutions, notably for innovation suppliers such as EIC funded projects and companies. Moreover, innovation procurement allows providing better and more efficient public services to face societal challenges such as climate change, pandemic crisis or sustainable management of natural resources.

Another objective of this topic call is to foster the aggregation of the demand at European level and pull the European market – not only to push the technology – in order to give the possibility for innovative technologies to find potential first and large buyers.

Scope

The general idea is to support public 64 and private 65 procurers of innovation to better define their innovation and procurement needs and to better engage with the suppliers of innovative solutions, notably with the EIC community of very innovative companies.

For this purpose the beneficiaries selected under this call topic must provide financial support to these procurers for each of the actions described below.

This call topic will fund structured pilots between buyers of innovations and innovative EIC SMEs, in accordance with public procurement rules, where applicable. The EIC support will cover partially the costs of procurers for the needs assessment, market engagement/consultation, co-development of solutions/pilots and drafting of terms of reference.

Private procurers (large corporates) will have access only to Actions 1 and 2, while public procurers shall have access to all 4 Actions. English will be the communication language with EIC, EIC companies and the European Commission in addition to the language used by the public authority to conduct the public procurement procedure.

The action should be implemented by a consortium of minimum two partners from two Member States or Associated Countries (with at least one partner from a Member State).

Expected Impacts

Actions implemented should benefit primarily EIC funded projects and companies – Pathfinder, Transition activities and Accelerator. The action will include financial support to third parties 67 to allow public and private procurers from at least 15 Member States and Associated Countries to benefit.

Applicants must allocate at least 75% of the total proposed budget to financial support to third parties. Type of action: Coordination and Support Action (CSA). Deadline for applications: 30/09/2021. 68 Indicative budget: the Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU in the order of EUR 2 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately.

Expert group on design of EIC Market Place and ‘Tech to Market’ activities

Deployment of the EIC Market Place (see section VI.4) will be taken forward through a staged approach, where purpose and scope are adjusted as experience and buy-in accumulate. The EIC is seeking advice to design and put such a Market Place into practice.

The EIC seeks advice on ways to support a broad spectrum of protection forms of intellectual assets; support a wide range of asset types; provide different levels of information and disclosure; establish useful valuation categorisations; enable modalities and incentives for sharing results; and trace the use of building blocks, for instance, through a blockchain mechanism.

In addition, and building on the recommendations of the report by the EIC Pilot Expert group on strengthening the EIC management 69, this Expert Group will also advise on ‘tech to market’ activities and their implementation, in particular regarding the combination of Transition activities, EIC Market Place, Business Acceleration Services and the proactive role of EIC Programme Managers.

This Expert group will serve as a ‘sounding board’ for EIC Programme Managers, allowing them to exchange and test new ideas and their implementation features with experienced programme managers from different funding agencies and bodies. A special allowance of EUR 450/day will be paid to the experts appointed in their personal capacity who act independently and in the public interest.

Type of action: Expert contracts. Indicative budget: EUR 100 000 from the 2021 budget.

Support to the EIC Accelerator by the Enterprise Europe Network

Rationale

The aim of the EIC is to support innovation and scale up of companies in Europe. In the EIC pilot the number of funded projects led by women innovators and from widening countries was moderate and there is a need to support these groups of potential applicants further upstream to utilize their full potential.

Applicants that receive a Seal of Excellence (SoE) from the EIC Accelerator often struggle to find the relevant alternative funding from other sources and therefore access to finance service should be provided to these entities to enable faster implementation of their projects.

Scope

Support to innovative companies in a) widening countries 70 and b) women-led innovative companies across the whole EU and HE 3rd pillar Associated Countries 71 aiming at preparing high quality EIC Accelerator proposals.

The support should take the form of a 3–5 day (on average) service package of 1-to-1 advice to strengthen the business case of potential applicants through reinforcement of their business, innovation and partnering strategies. It should focus on strengthening the company’s case in each part of the EIC application and refer companies to relevant EEN services or partners.

Support to EIC Accelerator SoE holders to obtain funding from private and/or public sources, including identification of relevant alternative funding sources, advisory support for the application process, pitching capacity building, and follow-up of success in raising alternative funding.

Exchange of best practice within the EEN and access to additional expertise and private sector actors for the benefit of EENs in widening countries and ACs to the 3rd Pillar.

Consortium – Coordination office

Proposals should be submitted by a consortium of maximum 5 EEN members’ host organisations with adequate EU geographic representation and experience directly related to the scope (including widening countries). The consortium should act as a ‘Coordination office’ responsible for organising and coordinating all activities and fair allocation of implementation across regions.

Reporting on indicators, supported companies’ profiles and success stories through an IT tool should be ensured; data should be collected to enable aggregated descriptive statistics per region to understand the profile of companies being supported across Member States and Associated Countries. 72

Only prospective members of the Enterprise Europe Network that received an invitation to start grant agreement preparation for EEN 2022–2025 under the Single Market Programme may apply. Following successful evaluation, a grant will only be awarded to EEN members which have signed a grant agreement for the ‘new’ Enterprise Europe Network starting in 2022. 73

Type of Action: Coordination and support actions. Deadline for applications: 09/11/2021. 74 Indicative budget: EUR 7.3 million for a Coordination and Support Action with a duration of 3 years (2022–2024). For general award criteria check Annex 2.

Expert group on design of EIC Market Place and ‘Tech to Market’ activities

Deployment of the EIC Market Place (see section VI.4) will be taken forward through a staged approach, where purpose and scope are adjusted as experience and buy-in accumulate. The EIC is seeking advice to design and put such a Market Place into practice.

The EIC seeks advice on the different ways in which the aims of the EIC Market Place could be achieved, taking into account the following:

In addition, and building on the recommendations of the report by the EIC Pilot Expert Group on strengthening the EIC management, 69 which dealt essentially with the newly created function of EIC Programme Managers, this Expert Group will also and more globally advise on ‘tech to market’ activities and their implementation, in particular regarding the combination of Transition activities, EIC Market Place, Business Acceleration Services and the proactive role of EIC Programme Managers.

This Expert Group will serve as a ‘sounding board’ for EIC Programme Managers, allowing them to exchange and test new ideas and their implementation features with experienced Programme Managers coming from different funding agencies and bodies, and backgrounds. The overall objective is to step by step develop a stronger EIC portfolio management policy.

A special allowance of EUR 450/day will be paid to the experts appointed in their personal capacity who act independently and in the public interest. This amount is considered to be proportionate to the specific tasks to be assigned to the experts, including the number of meetings to be attended and possible preparatory work.

Type of action: Expert contracts

Indicative budget: EUR 100 000 from the 2021 budget

Group of experts on the implementation of the EIC plug-in pilot

This action will support the operation and the implementation of the pilot Plug-in scheme for the EIC Accelerator (see Annex 5 Pilot Plug-in scheme to apply for the EIC Accelerator).

These experts will assess the programmes and related evaluation processes submitted by Members States and Associated Countries on an annual basis, and will certify the programmes suitable for the pilot plug-in scheme. The terms of reference will be co-created and co-designed with the Member States and Associated Countries.

A special allowance of EUR 450/day will be paid to the experts appointed in their personal capacity who act independently and in the public interest. This amount is considered to be proportionate to the specific tasks to be assigned to the experts, including the number of meetings to be attended and possible preparatory work.

Type of action: Expert contracts

Indicative budget: EUR 100 000 from the 2021 budget

Support to the EIC Accelerator by the Enterprise Europe Network

Rationale

The aim of the EIC is to support innovation and scale-up of companies in Europe. Until now in the EIC pilot the number of funded projects led by women innovators and from widening countries was rather moderate and there is a need to support these groups of potential applicants further upstream to utilize their full potential.

Moreover, applicants that receive a Seal of Excellence (SoE) from the EIC Accelerator often struggle to find the relevant alternative funding from other sources and therefore access to finance service should be provided to these entities to enable faster implementation of their projects. To provide the above support and in line with Horizon Europe regulation, EIC is seeking synergies with EU partners and programmes such as the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) to deliver the below actions.

Scope

The support under Action 1 should take the form of a 3-5 day (on average) service package of 1-to-1 advice to strengthen the business case of potential applicants through reinforcement of their business, innovation and partnering strategies (e.g. research institutes, investors, clients, business partners). It should focus on strengthening the company’s case in each part of the EIC application.

The objective is to increase the number of quality proposals and filter out companies not suitable for the EIC. Companies’ needs (e.g. partnering, business support, etc.) should be analysed and then be referred to relevant EEN business support services or other partners (incl. cross-border). EEN should reach out to private sector partners (e.g. innovation agencies, start-up associations, incubators, Business Angels associations etc.) and beneficiaries of the ‘Women TechEU’ call under the EIE WP to look for relevant innovative SMEs to assist with this 1-to-1 service.

Under Action 2, the support should take the form of a 3-5 day (on average) service package of 1-to-1 advice, including:

Under Action 3, the objective is to bring EENs in widening countries on a par with more advanced EENs to deliver an adequate service under Action 1 and 2 and enhance their collaboration with public and private stakeholders (e.g.: innovation agencies, start-up associations, incubators, Business Angels associations, investors).

This action should be delivered by the Coordination Office (see below) and includes but is not limited to:

Consortium – Coordination office

In order to implement this action the proposals should be submitted by a consortium of maximum 5 EEN member host organisations with adequate EU geographic representation, fairly distributed budget and well-founded regional knowledge and experience directly related to the scope of the above actions (including widening countries). The consortium should act as a ‘Coordination office’ responsible for:

The EU estimates that between 5% and 10% of the total budget of the CSA would allow for optimal coordination and project management of the activities of the Coordination Office. Satisfaction surveys should be carried out for each action and SMEs’ satisfaction rate should be at least 80%.

All above actions need to be carried out in complementarity and avoiding duplication of efforts with other EC actions and programmes, e.g. EIC, NCPs, EIT KICs, different parts of EEN, and therefore EEN needs to work in close co-operation with them.

Expected Impact

A broader talent pool will apply to the EIC and will therefore ultimately improve the innovation capacity of the Member States and Associated Countries’ 3rd pillar and enhance the European innovation ecosystem. This will be achieved through:

Eligible entities

Only prospective members of the Enterprise Europe Network, gathered in consortium for the ‘Coordination Office’ on behalf of the regional and national EEN consortia that received a letter inviting them to start grant agreement preparation for EEN 2022-2025 call under the Single Market Programme may apply to this call.

Following the successful evaluation of proposals, a grant for this coordination and support action will only be awarded to the members of the Enterprise Europe Network which have signed a grant agreement for the ‘new’ Enterprise Europe Network which will start operating in 2022. 73

Type of Action: Coordination and support actions

Deadline for applications: 09/11/2021. 74

Indicative budget: EUR 7.3 million for a Coordination and Support Action with a duration of 3 years (2022-2024)

For general award criteria check Annex 2.

Enhancing synergies between the EIC and Startup Europe

Rationale

To support scaling up of companies in Europe, the EIC is seeking to build synergies with the wider European startup ecosystem via a new wave of actions under the Commission’s existing Startup Europe initiative. The actions will act as a catalyst to fulfil the potential of European startups, in delivering market-ready applications and technology solutions that can contribute to the competitiveness and strategic autonomy of EU industry in key technology areas and value chains.

Actions will reinforce the activities of the European Innovation Council by targeting digital and deep tech startups that have received support from EIC to support their scale up in Europe. The actions can support also deep tech startups not yet supported by the EIC, including startups that have already received private investment or EU funding (e.g. under Horizon Europe or the Digital Europe Programme), and raise their awareness of the opportunities on offer from the EIC.

Scope

Connecting local digital and deep tech startup ecosystems and supporting cross-border acceleration activities for startups. Among the startup ecosystems to be connected, specific attention will be given to inclusion of ecosystems in Widening countries.

Actions should also ensure the integration of startups with the Digital Europe Programme (for example from European Digital Innovation Hubs), the non-EIC parts of Horizon Europe (for example detected using Innovation Radar intelligence) and national programmes targeting startups. Actions should be published on the Startup Europe one-stop-shop 75 and where relevant in the EIC Community 76, raise broad awareness of support for startups, while knowledge generated by the project(s) should contribute to EIC Business Acceleration Services and the general activities of the EIC Forum. Special attention will be given to support digital and deep tech startups and scaleups, wherever they are situated in Europe, to access innovation procurement opportunities (public or corporate procurers).

Each proposal should demonstrate sustainability of proposed actions beyond the life of the project.

Expected Outcome

Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

Expected Impact

Proposals should address the following and provide appropriate metrics for measuring success with respect to a defined baseline:

The action will include financial support to third parties 77 to allow startups to benefit from the services described above. The monitoring of the support to third parties provided for each action, as well as the management of the financial support to third parties, will be ensured by the coordinator.

The applicants must put in place proper communication and publicity of the actions engaged.

Financial support provided by the participants to third parties is one of the primary activities of this action in order to be able to achieve its objectives. Therefore, the EUR 60 000 threshold provided for in Article 204 (a) of the Financial Regulation No 2018/1046 does not apply.

The applicants must put in place a system that allows the proper monitoring of the benefit gained by the third parties as consequence of the actions described above and, ultimately, the proper reporting of the impact obtained.

Applicants must allocate at least 75% of the total proposed budget to financial support to third parties.

Eligible entities: Startup ecosystem builders, business angel organisations, venture capital entities, accelerators, incubators, startup associations

Type of Action: Coordination and support actions

Deadline for applications: 22/09/2021.

Indicative budget: EUR 6 million for 3-4 Coordination and Support Actions with a duration of 2 years (2022-2023)

For general award criteria check Annex 2.

For more details on the evaluation process, please refer to the heading ‘How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded’ under EIC Transition Open.]

The call will open on 15 April 2021. The Director-General responsible for the call may decide to open the call up to one month prior to or after the envisaged date(s) of opening. The Director-General responsible may delay the deadline(s) by up to two months.

Annexes

Annex 1 Estimated Indicative Budget 79

Other actions

Annex 2 General conditions for applications

Admissibility

Applications must be submitted before the call deadline.

Applications must be submitted electronically directly via the Funding & Tender Opportunities portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the call topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section); or indirectly via the EIC Platform where applicants will be redirected to the Portal. Paper submissions are NOT possible.

Applications must be readable, accessible, printable and complete (contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents) and must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Electronic Submission System.

The Application Form for Pathfinder and Transition will have two parts: Part A (to be filled in directly online) — contains administrative information about the applicant organisations (future coordinator and beneficiaries and affiliated entities), the summarised budget for the proposal and call-specific questions; and Part B (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded as PDF in the system) — contains the technical description of the project.

Annexes and supporting documents will be directly available in the Submission System and must be uploaded as PDF files (or other formats allowed by the system). The page limits and sections subject to limits will be clearly shown in the application templates and must be respected. Excess pages will be automatically made invisible, and will not be taken into consideration by the evaluators.

For the EIC Accelerator, the applicant must not be in a situation of concurrent submission/implementation. Concurrent submission exists when an applicant submits more than one proposal for evaluation to any EIC Accelerator call before the evaluation feedback has been provided for the earlier submission. If a case of concurrent submission is identified, only the proposal submitted first will be deemed eligible. Concurrent implementation occurs when the grant holder of an ongoing EIC Accelerator/EIC Pilot/SME Instrument project submits another proposal before the first project is finalised.

In no circumstances shall the same costs be financed twice by the budget (Article 191 of the Financial Regulation). Applicants may be asked at a later stage for further documents (for legal entity validation, financial capacity check, bank account validation, etc.).

Entities eligible for participation

Any legal entity, 82 regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations), 83 is eligible to participate, provided that the conditions laid down in the Rules for Participation 84 have been met together with any other conditions laid down in the specific call or topic.

In order to be eligible for funding, the applicants must be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e., Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)) and Associated Countries (see Annex 3). 85

Eligible activities

Eligible activities are the ones described in the call conditions. Projects must have a focus on civil applications and may not aim at human cloning for reproductive purposes, intend to modify the genetic heritage of human beings which could make such changes heritable (with the exception of research relating to cancer treatment of the gonads, which may be financed) or intend to create human embryos solely for the purpose of research or for the purpose of stem cell procurement, including by means of somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Ethics

Projects must comply with ethical principles (including the highest standards of research integrity), and applicable EU, international and national law. Applicants must have completed the Ethics Self-Assessment as part of their application.

Projects involving ethics issues will have to undergo an ethics review to authorise funding and may be made subject to specific ethics requirements (which become part of the grant agreement in the form of ethics deliverables, e.g. ethics committee opinions/authorisations required under national or EU law).

Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence

AI-based systems or techniques need to be developed in a safe, secure and responsible manner, with a clear identification of and preventative approach to risks. Depending on the type of research being proposed (from basic to pre-competitive) and as appropriate, AI-based systems or techniques should be, or be developed to become:

Security — EU classified and sensitive information

Projects involving classified and/or security sensitive information will have to go through the Security Appraisal process to authorise funding and may be made subject to specific security rules (detailed in a Security Section, which is annexed to the grant agreement). Specific provisions for EU-classified information (EUCI) and sensitive information (SEN) will be included in the grant agreement, as necessary and appropriate.

The rules for protecting EU-classified information (governed by Commission Decision (EU, Euratom) 2015/444 security rules) provide for instance that: 86

Please note that, depending on the type of activity, facility security clearing may have to be provided before grant signature. The granting authority will assess the need for clearings in each case and will establish their delivery date during grant preparation.

Use of Copernicus and Galileo/EGNOS

Projects involving earth observation, positioning, navigation or timing data, services or technologies must make use of at least Copernicus and Galileo/EGNOS data, services and technologies.

Gender Equality Plans and gender mainstreaming

Each legal entity being a public body, a research organisation or a higher education establishment must have a Gender Equality Plan, covering the following elements:

A self-declaration will be requested at application stage, while the existence of the Gender Equality Plan is checked before grant signature.

Open Science

For EIC Pathfinder, the EIC-funded projects must provide immediate open access to results (i.e. through publication) through a trusted repository for peer-reviewed publications. EIC-funded projects must develop and update a data management plan and manage responsibly all digital research data generated in the action in line with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable data). Data will be open in principle but exceptions to open access apply.

Topics may require the use of European Open Science Cloud-federated repositories or adherence to other open science practices such as early and open sharing of research or citizen involvement in research. EIC-funded projects (or authors) must retain sufficient intellectual property rights to comply with all of their open science requirements, including specific licensing requirements.

EIC-funded projects must, if requested by the EIC and SME Executive Agency, grant for a limited period of time specified in the request non-exclusive licences — on fair and reasonable conditions — to their results to legal entities that need the results to address the public emergency and commit to rapidly and broadly exploit the resulting products and services at fair and reasonable conditions. This provision will apply up to four years after the end of the action.

Unless provided otherwise in the specific call conditions, EIC-funded projects must — up to four years after the end of the action — inform the EIC and SME Executive Agency, if the results could reasonably be expected to contribute to European or international standards. The EIC and SME Executive Agency may — up to four years after the end of the action — object to a transfer of ownership or the exclusive licensing of results.

For EIC Pathfinder, EIC-funded projects must provide (digital or physical) access to data or other results needed for validation of the conclusions of scientific publications, to the extent that their legitimate interests or constraints are safeguarded (and unless they already provided the (open) access at publication).

In case of a public emergency, if requested by the EIC and SME Executive Agency, the EIC Pathfinder funded projects must immediately deposit any research output in a repository and provide open access to it under a CC BY licence, a Public Domain Dedication (CC 0) or equivalent. As an exception, if providing open access would be against the EIC projects’ legitimate interests, such projects must grant non-exclusive licenses — on fair and reasonable conditions — to legal entities that need the research output to address the public emergency and commit to rapidly and broadly exploit the resulting products and services at fair and reasonable conditions. This exception is limited to four years after the end of the action.

EIC Fund

The EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes (as amended from time to time) issued by the Council (OJ C 438, 19.12.2017, p. 5) (the "Council Conclusions") shall be directly applied by the EIC Fund in respect of EIC Accelerator operations.

The EIC Fund shall apply EU rules, policies and procedures, addressing the requirements in respect of money laundering, terrorism financing, tax avoidance, tax fraud, tax evasion contained in Article 155(2)(a) of the Financial Regulation and reflecting the prohibition to enter into new or renewed operations with entities incorporated or established in jurisdictions listed under the relevant Union policy on non-cooperative jurisdictions or that are identified as high-risk third countries pursuant to Article 9(2) of Directive (EU) 2015/849 as may be amended, or that do not effectively comply with Union or internationally agreed tax standards on transparency and exchange of information, as well as the possibility to derogate from this requirement when the action is physically implemented in one of those jurisdictions, contained in Article 155(2)(b) of the Financial Regulation.

The breach of these obligations may lead to the interruption of the equity investment process.

Financial and operational capacity

Applicants to EIC Pathfinder and Transition calls must have stable and sufficient resources to successfully implement the projects and contribute their share. Organisations participating in several projects must have sufficient capacity to implement all these projects.

The financial capacity check will be done by us on the basis of the documents you will be requested to upload in the Participant Register during grant preparation (e.g. profit and loss account and balance sheet, business plan, audit report produced by an approved external auditor, certifying the accounts for the last closed financial year, etc.). The analysis will be based on neutral financial indicators, but will also take into account other aspects, such as dependency on EU funding and deficit and revenue in previous years.

The check will normally only be done for the coordinator and if the requested grant amount is more than EUR 500 000, except for: public bodies (entities established as public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (low-value grant).

For more information, see Rules on Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment.

Operational capacity

Applicants to EIC Pathfinder and Transition calls must have the know-how, qualifications and resources to successfully implement their tasks in the project and contribute their share (including, when appropriate, sufficient experience in EU/trans-national projects of comparable size).

This assessment of operational capacity will be carried out during the evaluation of the award criterion ‘quality and efficiency of the implementation’, on the basis of the competence and experience of the applicants and their project teams, including its operational resources (human, technical and other) or, exceptionally, the measures proposed to obtain it by the time of the implementation of the tasks. Public bodies, Member State organisations and international organisations are exempted from the operational capacity check.

For the EIC Accelerator, the operational capacity of the applicant will be assessed during the evaluation of the award criterion ‘Level of risk, implementation, and need for Union support’. Experts will judge whether each participant has, or will have in due time thanks to EIC support, sufficient operational capacity to successfully carry out their tasks in the proposed work plan.

Exclusion

Applicants that are subject to EU administrative sanctions (i.e. exclusion) 87 or are in one of the following exclusion situations 88 banning them from receiving EU grants can NOT participate:

Applicants will also be refused if it turns out that: 89 during the award procedure they misrepresented information required as a condition for participating or failed to supply that information, or they were previously involved in the preparation of the call and this entails a distortion of competition that cannot be remedied otherwise (conflict of interest).

Annex 3 Eligible Associated Countries and Third Countries

In order to be eligible for funding, the applicants must be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:

Legal entities which are established in countries not listed above will be eligible for funding when provided for in the specific call conditions, or their participation is considered essential for implementing the action.

Single legal entity (‘Mono-beneficiary’) and consortium (‘multi-beneficiary’) composition

Applicants for mono-beneficiary actions (EIC Accelerator, EIC Transition where specified, EIC Pathfinder where specified) must be established in a Member State or Associated Country. Applications for multi-beneficiary actions (EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition where specified) must be submitted by a consortium including at least three independent legal entities, each established in a different Member State or Associated Country and with at least one of them established in a Member State. Applications for Coordination and Support actions may be submitted by one or more legal entities, which may be established in a Member State, Associated Country, or in exceptional cases and if provided for in the specific call conditions, in another third country.

The European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), international European research organisations and legal entities created under EU law are deemed to be established in a Member State other than the ones in which the other legal entities participating in the action are established.

Annex 4 Fast Track scheme to apply for the EIC Accelerator

The ‘Fast Track’ scheme is a novelty under Horizon Europe and a specific process applicable to the EIC Accelerator. It provides for a specific treatment of applications that result from existing Horizon Europe or Horizon 2020 projects.

Under the Fast Track scheme, applicants do not apply directly to the EIC Accelerator call (see Section II.3 of the work programme). Instead, a project review is carried out by the responsible funding body to assess the innovation or market deployment potential of an existing project, to decide whether the project is suitable for support under the EIC Accelerator.

The project review — implemented by the funding body responsible for the programme — must be conducted using: equivalent award criteria as set out for the short application stage of the EIC Accelerator (Section II.3), centred on the underlying idea of that potential new action; and equivalent evaluation processes guaranteeing an independent assessment of proposals in compliance with Art. 43(3) to (5) of the Rules for Participation.

The responsible funding body can submit the outcome of the project review to the EIC Accelerator, if the review concludes that the following conditions are met: the proposal meets the two first criteria of the EIC Accelerator (excellence and impact), there is no duplication of funding of activities to be supported under the EIC Accelerator with the existing grant, and the applicant meets the eligibility criteria for the EIC Accelerator.

The applicant will then be invited to prepare a full application for the EIC Accelerator to one of the cut-off dates within the next 12 months following initial review. They will receive support through the EIC artificial intelligence-based IT platform and coaching as specified in Section II.3. Applicants may decide to which eligible cut-off they apply.

Full applications to the EIC Accelerator stemming from the Fast Track scheme will be assessed as set out in Section II.3, and will be treated in exactly the same way as all other full applications.

At a first stage, the funding bodies and schemes which are eligible for the Fast Track for Accelerator cut-off dates in 2021 are: The EIC Pathfinder and Transition projects (including under EIC pilot); The ERC Executive Agency for Proof of Concept; The Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT); The Eureka secretariat for SMEs supported under the Eurostars-2 Joint Programme and the Partnership on Innovative SMEs.

These funding bodies are responsible for implementing the Fast Track scheme in accordance with the above provisions. They may decide not to implement the scheme or to introduce it at a later stage.

Subject to experience with the Fast Track scheme in 2021, it may be opened to other parts of Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020, and to the funding bodies responsible for their implementation. The EIC website will provide up to date information about how the Fast Track scheme will be implemented by the relevant funding bodies.

Annex 5 Pilot Plug-in scheme to apply for the EIC Accelerator

The pilot Plug-in scheme is a novelty under Horizon Europe and a specific process applicable to the EIC Accelerator only. Its process is equivalent to the Fast Track scheme’s, as described under Annex 4, except that it applies to applications that result from existing national or regional programmes.

Following the results of a mapping of national and regional programmes, a pilot initiative by the European Commission in close cooperation with Member States and Associated Countries, is included in the first work programme of Horizon Europe.

Under the 'plug-in' scheme, applicants do not apply directly to the EIC Accelerator call (see Section II.3). Instead, a project review is carried out to assess the innovation or market deployment potential of an existing project at national or regional level, to decide whether the project is suitable for support under the EIC Accelerator.

The project review — implemented by the funding/managing body responsible for the programme or by another appointed authority under the responsibility of the funding body — must be conducted using equivalent award criteria as set out for the short application stage of the EIC Accelerator (Section II.3), centred on the underlying idea of that potential new action; and equivalent evaluation processes guaranteeing an independent assessment of proposals in compliance with Art. 43(3) to (5) of the Rules for Participation.

The responsible funding/managing body or other appointed authority under the responsibility of the funding body can submit the outcome of the project review to the EIC Accelerator, if the review concludes that the proposal meets the two first criteria of the EIC Accelerator (excellence and impact), there is no duplication of funding of activities to be supported under the EIC Accelerator with the existing grant allocated at national or regional level, and the applicant meets the eligibility criteria for the EIC Accelerator.

The applicants will then be invited to prepare a full application for the EIC Accelerator to one of the cut-off dates within the next 12 months following initial review. They will receive support through the EIC artificial intelligence-based IT platform and coaching as specified in Section II.3. Applicants may decide to which eligible cut-off they apply.

Full applications to the EIC Accelerator stemming from the Plug-in scheme will be assessed as set out in Section II.3, and will be treated exactly the same way as all other full applications.

The pilot Plug-in scheme will be implemented with a limited number of programmes, which are assessed by a group of experts (see Section VI.9) and certified by the Commission. To guarantee the effective implementation of this pilot, only public programmes – both national and regional – will be considered initially. The experts will assess the programmes 92 submitted by the Member States and Associated Countries, their related national or regional evaluation procedures, and whether the project review is equivalent to the assessment of proposals under the EIC Accelerator.

The Commission will certify which programmes are suitable for the pilot Plug-in scheme based on the experts’ assessment. The experts will collaborate with the EIC plug-in contact points (representatives of Member States and Associated Countries) who will have to provide accurate information regarding the programmes. Only programmes for which all the key elements and information are provided by the EIC Plug-in contact points will be considered for the certification. The mapping exercise is the basis and starting point of the experts’ work. The result of the mapping exercise and the certification will be published on the EIC website.

The Commission services 93 will be notified if any future changes in the criteria and/or evaluation of the regional or national programmes may impact the assessment and certification of those programmes.

The Commission may withdraw the certification, if it finds out that: false information was used to obtain the certification; or the project review did not comply with the provisions as set out in the EIC WP.

The funding/managing bodies in charge of these national/regional programmes, or other appointed authority under the responsibility of the funding body, are responsible for implementing the Plug-in scheme in accordance with the above provisions. They may decide not to implement the scheme or to introduce it at a later stage. A coordination among the different national and regional funding bodies will have to be ensured at national level to avoid duplication of the applications.

The EIC website will provide information about how the Plug-in scheme will be implemented by the relevant funding/managing bodies. After the certification process is concluded, the responsible funding/managing bodies or other appointed authorities under the responsibility of the funding body, will be entitled to present the projects that have passed the project review and were funded under those certified programmes.

Plug-in applications will be accepted starting from the first EIC Accelerator cut-off in 2022 at the earliest. The pilot plug-in scheme will be subjected to an assessment after the first implementation to verify the effectiveness of the process and the quality of the applications, in view of the renewal of the Plug-in process under subsequent cut-offs and possibly the inclusion of other programmes.

Annex 6 Ad hoc grants for EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition grant holders

The grant holders of EIC Pathfinder projects (including grants resulting from certain EIC pilot Pathfinder, FET-Open and FET-Proactive calls, see Section II.1) and of EIC Transition projects are eligible to receive ad hoc grants with fixed amounts of up to EUR 50 000, as specified in the relevant call sections of this work programme.

In line with Article 47(3)(b) of the Horizon Europe Regulation, 94 the ad hoc grants are not subject to any call. They reflect the necessity and hence the possibility for the EIC to proactively support, at any stage of a project implementation, the assessment of any potentially innovative lead stemming from an EIC Pathfinder project, or reinforce the coordination and management of a Portfolio where needed.

These ad hoc grants will fund either complementary activities to explore potential pathways to commercialisation (for EIC Pathfinder grant holders) or portfolio activities (for EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition grant holders).

Complementary activities to explore potential pathways to commercialisation could include, but are not limited to:

Portfolio activities could include, but are not limited to:

These ad hoc grants do not fund research or activities that were already foreseen in the original project. A maximum of three ad hoc grants can be awarded for each EIC Pathfinder project and more than three may be awarded in exceptional and duly justified cases. A maximum of one ad hoc grant can be awarded for each EIC Transition project. Any such ad hoc grant can be awarded to an individual grant holder or a group of grant holders. 95

EIC grant holders, after discussion with an EIC Programme Manager or following a project review, can apply for such an ad hoc grant. Each application will be assessed in accordance with Article 26.1, paragraph 2, of Horizon Europe Regulation taking into account the following considerations:

For activities to explore potential pathways to commercialisation: Timeliness and pertinence of the activities proposed (Excellence); Potential of the proposed deep-tech innovation to create new markets or to solve pressing societal needs/problems (Impact); Expertise, capabilities and motivation of the applicants to take this innovation forward to the market (Quality and efficiency of implementation).

For portfolio activities: Contribution of the activity to the objectives of the portfolio (Excellence); Timeliness of the activity proposed to maximize its impact (Impact); Engagement of portfolio’s projects and relevant external partners (Quality and efficiency of implementation).

The final decision will be motivated and communicated to the grant holders and the Programme Committee. Successful applicants will be invited for grant preparation, which might take into account adjustments proposed by the EIC Programme Manager.

Following successful grant preparation, the granting authority will award the ad hoc grant (Coordination and Support Action) 96 to cover the eligible costs necessary for the implementation of the proposed activities. The funding rate of this grant will be 100% of the eligible costs.

Annex 7 Additional provisions concerning Intellectual Property for Pathfinder and Transition actions

In accordance with the Horizon Europe Regulation, 97 the Work Programme may provide for additional exploitation obligations, in particular to put more emphasis on exploitation of results, and highlight the role the Commission should play in identifying and maximising exploitation opportunities in the Union.

Together with specific intellectual property rules provided for under Annex 2 in relation to emergency situations and standardisation, the following rules will apply to EIC Pathfinder and Transition actions and be reflected in the applicable Model Grant Agreement adopted by the Commission.

In addition, the said Model Grant Agreement will also address the specific objectives and means assigned to the EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition activities by the Council Decision 98 adopting the Horizon Europe Specific Programme, i.e. the regrouping of projects into Portfolios, 99 with the aim to stimulate cross-fertilisation, exchange between innovation actors and to nurture market-creating innovation out of EIC Pathfinder results, but also the role to be played by EIC Programme Managers 100 in this context and in developing an active management culture of EIC activities.

Where any such preliminary finding or result was not already made public through agreed dissemination activities or a patent or protection by any other intellectual property right, that information shall be earmarked and treated by the Granting Authority as “confidential” and disseminated only to: other EIC beneficiaries bound by an EIC grant agreement or an EIC contract that refers to or includes the obligations detailed under section 2.2 below; EIC inventors having signed a non-disclosure agreement with the granting authority, providing for the obligations detailed under section 2.2 below; or other members of the EIC Community established in a Member State or an Associated Country and having signed a non-disclosure agreement with the granting authority, providing for the obligations detailed under section 2.2.

Where based on that confidential information any of these entities request disclosure or access to the underlying detailed data and results, the beneficiary may refuse it based on its legitimate interests, including commercial exploitation and any other constraints, such as data protection rules, privacy, confidentiality, trade secrets, Union competitive interests, security rules or intellectual property rights.

Beneficiaries may object to the above obligation when committing to either publish or patent or protect by any other intellectual property right without unreasonable delays, or by demonstrating concrete exploitation of the said preliminary findings and results, subject to initial discussion with and final agreement of the granting authority on the corresponding update of the Plan for dissemination and exploitation referred to in Section 3.1.

The EIC beneficiary may disclose any such information to its employees and, with the prior authorisation of the owner, to its subcontractors established in a Member State or an Associated Country who have a need to access it for the performance of their work with respect to the permitted purpose, and who are bound by a written agreement or professional obligation to protect its confidentiality.

No obligations are imposed where such information is already known to the EIC beneficiary before and is not subject to any other obligation of confidentiality; is or becomes publicly known through no act or default of the EIC beneficiary; or is obtained by the EIC beneficiary from a third party and in circumstances where the EIC beneficiary has no reason to believe that there has been a breach of an obligation of confidentiality.

The restrictions do not apply to the extent that any such information is required to be disclosed by any law or regulation, by any judicial or governmental order or request, or pursuant to disclosure requirements relating to the listing of the stock of the EIC beneficiary on any recognised stock exchange. Upon the end or termination of the grant agreement or of the participation of the EIC beneficiary, it must immediately cease to use the said information, except if otherwise directly agreed with the owner, or if the beneficiary remains a member of the EIC Community. These provisions shall continue to be in force for a period of 60 months following the end or termination of the grant agreement or of the participation of the EIC beneficiary.

Beneficiaries must address and agree in their Consortium Agreement on all related intellectual property issues, from ownership and co-ownership of results to the consortium’s internal approval process for their dissemination. Beneficiaries must also identify therein any pre-existing technology fitting the action’s needs and objectives and try to reach appropriate licensing agreement between them to prevent research funding redundancy. The beneficiaries are deemed to have signed the Consortium Agreement at the date of the signature of the grant agreement. The granting authority may require a copy at any time in accordance with the Grant Agreement.

When approving the plan or any update, the granting authority may subject any proposed dissemination activity to one or a combination of the following conditions: the prior assessment of any innovation potential of the results to be disseminated; the prior protection of the result to be disseminated, in accordance with the Grant Agreement, the cost being eligible; or the simultaneous unrestricted dissemination through the EIC Marketplace.

Where the granting authority disagrees to a dissemination activity, it will actively assist the beneficiaries to achieve compliance with the required conditions, without unreasonable delay and in due time, notably by proposing complementary EIC support for exploitation or a support of the EIC Business Acceleration Services. Where the granting authority agrees to a dissemination activity, it will abide by the Grant Agreement. The granting authority is hereby entrusted with the right to also disseminate and promote the exploitation of any results that are made public by the beneficiary or with its assent.

Each beneficiary agrees that any of its EIC Inventors is entrusted upon signature of the Grant Agreement with the necessary access rights 101 to the result they have contributed to for the purpose of further developing and exploiting it. If the beneficiary provides support to the EIC inventor for any such exploitation, royalties may be shared with the beneficiary in mutually beneficial terms, provided the conclusion of any such agreement does not prevent the EIC Inventor(s) from exercising their rights.

Beneficiaries must report on any exploitation operation at the reporting periods provided for in the Grant Agreement; at a periodicity agreed at the end of the action together with the final exploitation and dissemination plan; and within 30 days upon request from the granting authority, within 4 years after final payment.