Who should read this document

This document presents the 2026 European Innovation Council (EIC) Work Programme funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. It sets out how the EIC will allocate its funding of over EUR 1.424 billion for the year 2026 and has been prepared following the advice of the EIC Board.

The Work Programme defines the calls for applications targeting innovative researchers, startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), scale up companies, and funders and other organisations and individuals interested in innovation. The focus is on breakthrough technologies and game-changing innovations which are high risk and with a high potential for impact and to scale up internationally and become market leaders.

A broad range of support is available, ranging from grants, investments through the EIC Fund, prizes to Business Acceleration Services (including access to coaching and mentoring, expertise and ecosystem partners). The Work Programme sets out the type of support available, how to apply, and how selection decisions are taken.

It's important for those seeking funding opportunities through the EIC to carefully read and understand the Work Programme to ensure they align with the objectives and meet the eligibility criteria as well as understand each step of the process.

Potential applicants and information sources

Potential applicants, and those interested in the EIC in general, can find more information, including background to the EIC mission, organisation and practical guidance (e.g. challenge guides, frequently asked questions), on the EIC website: EIC website.

Support and advice

Support and advice for potential applicants is available in each EU Member State and Associated Country, through National Contact Points of Horizon Europe and through the Enterprise Europe Network.

Applications can be submitted through the Funding & Tenders Portal, which can also be accessed via the EIC website.

Introduction

Strategic goals and Key Performance Indicators

The EIC was established to identify, develop and scale up breakthrough technologies and companies, to achieve the green and digital transition.

The EIC Board provides strategic advice for the EIC Work Programme 1. For the period 2021-27 the EIC Board has recommended six strategic goals, with associated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), providing clear direction, track progress, and guide implementation and potential new actions 2. The baselines and progress against KPI targets will be included in the annual EIC impact reports. The KPIs represent mid to long term targets.

Six Strategic Goals for the EIC

In addition, the EIC Board has published a set of recommendations to improve the participation of innovators from widening countries in the EIC 4. The recommendations are taken forward in the implementation of the EIC Work Programme, for example in the outreach activities and selection of EIC experts and jury members.

Overview of the 2026 Work Programme

The funding and support available in 2026 is organised into five main funding schemes:

In each case, the direct financial support for visionary researchers and innovators is complemented with access to a range of Business Acceleration Services (Section VII) providing access to leading expertise, corporates, investors and ecosystem actors.

Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator provide for “Open” funding which can support technologies and innovations in any field without any predefined priority areas. In the case of the Pathfinder and Accelerator, this Open funding is complemented by a set of “Challenges” which target specific technologies and innovations of strategic interest for the Union. The EIC STEP Scale Up call targets technologies and innovations within the fields of digital technologies, clean and resource efficient technologies, including net-zero technologies; and biotechnologies.

Outside of the calls, a budget is also set aside to support follow on investments to companies selected under previous EIC Work Programmes.

The Work Programme also supports a number of innovation prizes (Section VIII), and additional supporting actions allowing the functioning of the EIC such as expert contracts, data management, communication and IT (Section IX).

Linkages between these funding schemes will be maximised through proactive management (see below) and approaches, such as additional ‘Booster’ grants to EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition projects (Annex 5), the Fast Track scheme to accelerate the access of successful projects from EU programmes to the EIC Accelerator (Annex 3) and the Plug in for access of projects stemming from national programmes (Annex 4).

Table 1. Summary of main calls in 2026 6.

Main changes of the 2026 Work Programme

The 2026 EIC Work Programme introduces a number of changes and simplifications, following advice from the EIC Board, the mid-term review of Horizon Europe, the policy priorities of the EU in particular the Startup and Scaleup Strategy, and experience and feedback from implementation.

Main changes are:

Key features of EIC support

A combination of financial and non-financial support to accelerate and grow EIC innovations and companies.

The EIC support goes far beyond funding, and it aims at supporting the emergence, acceleration and growth of EIC innovations and deep tech companies. In order to further leverage the EIC investments, all EIC Awardees will be provided with access to a range of externally contracted, bespoke Business Acceleration Services (BAS) at any stage of development of their activities. The EIC uses its pan-European reach to connect EIC Awardees with partners from all around Europe and beyond, thereby also contributing to further develop the innovation ecosystem in Europe by providing access to and from a deal flow of top-level European innovators.

EIC Awardees will also be offered facilitated or priority access to relevant research and technology infrastructures, including those hosted by the Joint Research Centre and receiving funding from Union programmes including on High Performance Computing and in-orbit demonstration and verification activities.

Proactive project and portfolio management by EIC Programme Managers

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

Moreover, EIC takes a proactive approach of project and programme management, performed by EIC Programme Managers 8, to identify, develop and implement such technology visions and to nurture potential market-creating innovations out of EIC funded projects and activities. This will include leveraging existing networks such as the European Digital Innovation Hubs.

A tailored approach to proposal evaluation

The EIC approach to the evaluation of proposals is tailored to the objectives of each of the EIC funding schemes. For the most mature technologies, when business and market readiness levels are close to market funding, greater emphasis is put on 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).

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

For the EIC Accelerator, which supports high risk/high gain innovations to go to the market and scale up, proposals will be evaluated remotely based on a scoring and the top ranked evaluated at interviews based on a binary scoring (GO/NO GO) 9. For the EIC STEP Scale Up, which supports promising companies developing critical technologies 10, proposals will be evaluated following remote interview based on a binary scoring (GO/NO GO) (see Section VI).

Policy of open access and Intellectual Property rights

For the EIC 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). For the EIC Accelerator, the Intellectual Property rules are included in the contract and/or investment agreement 11.

EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition projects may be requested at any stage by EIC Programme Managers to actively share information about results (including preliminary findings), within their EIC Portfolio and with other relevant EIC projects and parties, as detailed in Annex 6. This exchange of information will be subject to non-disclosure obligations regarding confidential results.

Technology transfer and other relevant support is expected to be provided by universities and research organisations for exploiting the results of EIC projects. In the absence of such support and without prejudice to ownership of results, the inventors of results generated by EIC Pathfinder and Transition projects may be entrusted with appropriate access rights for the purpose of further development and exploitation.

Economic security

Following the Communication on the European Economic Security Strategy 12 and the Commission Recommendation on critical technology areas for the EU's economic security 13, a number of provisions have been made to protect Europe from economic security risks.

These measures are:

Intellectual Property: A requirement exists in the grant agreement for all EIC beneficiaries to inform the Agency in cases where the Intellectual Property generated by EIC projects is proposed to be transferred to an entity in a non-associated third country.

EIC investments

The conditions concerning the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes issued by the Council (OJ C 438, 19.12.2017, p. 5) are applied by the EIC in respect of EIC Accelerator investments.

The EIC Fund shall not enter into any contract or maintain a business relationship with any institution or individual listed on sanction lists 17, and in particular shall not make any funds available directly or indirectly to any institution or individual listed in sanction lists 18.

The EIC applies the EU rules, policies and procedures addressing the requirements in respect of money laundering, terrorism financing, tax avoidance, tax fraud, tax evasion contained in Article 158(2)(a) of the Financial Regulation 19 and complies with 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 20 as well as related provisions 21. The breach of these obligations may lead to the interruption of the equity investment process.

EIC–EIT Collaboration

The EIC is progressively increasing collaboration and synergies with the EIT and its Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) with the overall aim of strengthening the European Innovation Ecosystem. The Fast Track process by EIT KICs that allows proposals from companies selected by the EIT KICs to enter the EIC Accelerator evaluation at the second stage will continue; EIC beneficiaries will have access to the services provided by the EIT KICs via the partnerships agreed with the Business Acceleration Services. Collaboration will continue to promote women entrepreneurs, with EIT access to the EIC Women Leadership Programme and a joint approach to the women innovator’s prizes (see Section VIII).

Outlook for 2027

The EIC Work Programme for 2027 will be prepared following the advice provided by the EIC Board. It is envisaged that the main calls on Pathfinder, Transition, Accelerator and STEP will continue without major changes. The experience with the Advanced Innovation Challenges call will be assessed with a view to the continuation and improvement of this support.

Subject to the adoption of the legislative changes proposed by the Commission on a defence mini-omnibus 22 an amendment of the EIC Work Programme is envisaged to provide for EIC Accelerator support to dual-use innovations and equity-only investments in defence. The flagship action set out in the Startup and Scaleup Strategy 23 to launch a Scaleup Europe Fund may also require an amendment to the EIC Work Programme.

Glossary 24

The Agency entrusted by the European Commission with the implementation of Horizon Europe EIC activities, except for the EIC Fund, is the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA).

TRL1 - Basic principles observed. TRL2 - Technology concept formulated. TRL3 - Experimental proof of concept. TRL4 - Technology validated in lab.

TRL5 - Technology validated in relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies). TRL6 - Technology demonstrated in relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies).

TRL7 - System prototype demonstration in operational environment. TRL8 - System complete and qualified. TRL9 - Actual system proven in operational environment (competitive manufacturing in the case of key enabling technologies, or in space).

EIC Pathfinder

The overall objective of the EIC Pathfinder for advanced research is to develop the scientific basis to underpin breakthrough technologies. It provides support for the earliest stages of scientific, technological or deep tech research and development. Pathfinder projects 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 through:

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. 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, respond to societal needs and/or to provide solutions for global challenges.

EIC Pathfinder Open supports early-stage development of such future technologies (e.g., various activities at low Technology Readiness Levels from 1 to 4), based on high-risk/high-gain science-towards-technology breakthrough research (‘deep tech’). This research must provide the foundations of the technology you are envisioning.

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

The expected output 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. You are expected to ensure adequate formal protection of generated Intellectual Property (IP) 39, plan for future exploitation and assess relevant aspects related to regulation, certification, and standardisation.

Can you apply

This call is open for collaborative research. Your proposal must be submitted by the coordinator, on behalf of a consortium including as beneficiaries, at least three legal entities, independent from each other and each established in a different country (at least one in a Member State, and at least two in different Member States or Associated Countries).

The legal entities may for example be universities, research organisations, SMEs, startups, industrial partners or natural persons. Standard admissibility and eligibility conditions and the eligibility of applicants from third countries are detailed in Annex 2.

What support will you receive if your proposal is funded

The total indicative budget for this call is EUR 166 million. You will receive a grant for a Research and Innovation Action to cover eligible costs. For this call, proposals with a requested EU contribution of up to EUR 4 million are considered appropriate; larger amounts may be requested if duly justified. The funding rate will be 100% of the eligible costs.

Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum determined during the evaluation process. Applicants must propose the amount of the lump sum based on estimated project costs as defined in the decision authorising the use of lump sum contributions under Horizon Europe 40.

In addition to funding, successful applicants will receive tailor-made access to a wide range of Business Acceleration Services (see Section VII) and interactions with EIC Programme Managers (see Section I). Projects funded through EIC Pathfinder may be eligible for Booster grants, to submit an EIC Transition proposal, or to submit an EIC Accelerator proposal via the Fast Track scheme (see Annexes 5 and 3).

The Model Grant Agreement can be found on the Funding & Tenders Portal 41.

How do you apply; how long does it take

The deadline for submitting your proposal is 12 May 2026 at 17h00 Brussels local time 42. You must submit your proposal via the Funding & Tenders Portal before the deadline.

Sections 1 to 3 of part B of your proposal, corresponding respectively to the award criteria Excellence, Impact, and Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation, must consist of a maximum of 22 A4 pages. You will be informed about the outcome of the evaluation within 5 months from the call deadline (indicative) and, if selected for funding, can expect your grant agreement to be signed by 8 months after the call deadline (indicative).

How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded

Your proposal will be evaluated and scored individually by at least three EIC expert evaluators with respect to the award criteria. The evaluation committee will decide on the final score based on the scores from the individual evaluation phase and the outcome of its consensus discussions.

Proposals will be assessed and evaluation scores will be awarded in accordance with the table below. Each criterion will be scored out of 5. Proposals that pass the individual threshold will be considered for funding within the limits of the available call budget.

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, a portfolio of projects will be established that explore different perspectives, competing approaches or complementary aspects of the Challenge. A dedicated Programme Manager establishes a common roadmap and proactively steers the portfolio towards the goals of each Challenge.

You should apply if you have a potential cutting-edge project proposal that would contribute to the specific objectives of the respective Challenge. Your proposed project must aim to deliver by its end the expected outcomes defined in the respective Challenge.

Can you apply

The EIC Pathfinder Challenges can support projects from consortia or from single legal entities. Consortia of two entities must comprise independent legal entities from two different Member States or Associated Countries. Consortia of three or more entities must include as beneficiaries at least three legal entities, independent from each other and each established in a different country (at least one in a Member State and at least two in different Member States or Associated Countries).

What support will you receive if your proposal is funded

The total indicative budget for this call is EUR 96 million which is expected to be allocated in approximately equal shares across the Challenges. The funding rate will be 100% of the eligible costs and eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum 43. It is advised to include a work package dedicated to portfolio activities and allocate at least 10 person-months to it.

How do you apply; how long does it take

The call deadline for submitting your proposal is 28 October 2026 at 17h00 Brussels local time 44. Sections 1 to 3 of part B of your proposal must consist of a maximum of 30 A4 pages.

How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded

After submission, proposals are evaluated in two steps: step 1 assesses each proposal separately against the award criteria and step 2 applies portfolio considerations to select a coherent set of projects that will achieve the expected outcomes and impacts of the Challenge.

Further information and details about the categories and the portfolio considerations will be provided in EIC Pathfinder Challenge Guides 45.

Advanced Materials for Miniaturised Energy Harvesting Systems — Background and Scope

The exponential rise in the development and deployment of IoT (Internet of Things) systems and of connected objects (~100 billion by 2025 and ~250 billion by 2030 46 47) will increase the number of sensor networks required to provide data on the ground. A consequence is a commensurate increase in energy consumption coupled with detrimental impacts on environmental sustainability.

Mitigating the impact of a rising number of such devices calls for solutions that will reduce energy consumption and increase the energy autonomy of connected sensors such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and of the IoT systems integrating such sensors. This Challenge focuses on a new generation of advanced materials 48 to deliver miniaturised integrated energy harvesting devices, with significantly enhanced performance compared to the state of the art.

This Challenge supports the ambitions of the European Commission Communication “Advanced Materials for Industrial Leadership” 49.

Specific Objectives

Leveraging digital tools such as AI to accelerate the process of identifying, designing, fabricating, and characterising these new materials is encouraged. All proposals should also identify potential markets and the associated impacts of their innovations.

Expected Outcomes

Portfolio Approach

The portfolio of selected projects should lead to the development of a variety of advanced materials applied to a range of miniaturised energy harvesting modules and final integrated systems.

Expected Impacts

Biotechnology for Healthy Ageing — Background and Scope

Ageing, the gradual decline of organismal homeostasis and of physiologic functions throughout the body and mind, is a critical shared risk factor for many ageing-related chronic diseases. Extended life expectancy is not matched with years spent in good health, presenting significant social, economic and healthcare challenges and calling for interventions that promote healthy longevity.

Specific Objectives

Applicants will be expected to develop a proof of concept in one of the following areas:

All proposals should consider biological sex and gender-specific health determinants in their development, with reproductive ageing also in scope 54.

Expected Outcomes

Portfolio approach

Expected Impacts

DeepRAP: Deep Reasoning, Abstraction & Planning towards trustworthy Cognitive AI Systems — Background and Scope

AI systems have achieved remarkable progress, but there remains a significant gap between human cognition and machine intelligence in robust reasoning, abstraction, and long-term planning. This Challenge aims to move beyond traditional symbolic or neural approaches, improving Reasoning, Abstraction and Planning (RAP) capabilities of AI systems to enable trustworthy cognitive AI.

Specific Objectives

Innovative ideas must explore novel approaches, including neuro-symbolic AI or entirely new frameworks beyond current deep learning and reinforcement learning, potentially inspired by neuroscience, biology, physics, or philosophy. Proposals should address one or more of the following:

Expected Outcomes

Proposals should also propose new methods and metrics for evaluating and certifying reasoning and trustworthiness, follow FAIR principles, and develop synergies with EU initiatives such as TEFs, EBRAINS, RAISE, AI-on-Demand, and the Quantum Flagship 55 56 57 58 59.

Portfolio approach

Expected Impact

Advance scientific state-of-the-art and build a robust, interoperable, application-driven community, positioning Europe at the forefront of trustworthy cognitive AI. Lay the foundations for European leadership in safe, human-centric cognitive AI, supporting sovereignty and competitiveness in key sectors, and supporting the ambitions of the AI Act and the European approach to AI 60 61.

Background and Scope

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems have achieved remarkable progress as evidenced by the ability of Generative AI to recognise patterns and generate contextually relevant outputs based on ever larger models and associated datasets. However, despite the remarkable strides made over the past decade, there remains a significant gap between the capabilities of the human brain and machine intelligence, which must be overcome to achieve robust performance and enable effective interactions with users and stakeholders.

Current Generative AI models can release very accurate outputs and even solve some mathematical problems but might struggle with some complex reasoning benchmarks and to understand the real world. These models frequently fail to reliably solve logic tasks and long-term planning, even when provably correct solutions exist, limiting their effectiveness in critical applications where precision is essential.

Inspired by the human brain’s ability to process information at multiple levels of abstraction—enabling perception, reasoning, and goal-directed planning—the goal of this Challenge is to move beyond the current state-of-the-art in traditional AI approaches, whether symbolic (e.g., rules, decision trees, symbolic regression, etc.) or connectionist, neural (e.g., deep learning, large language models, reinforcement learning). The goal is to significantly improve the Reasoning, Abstraction, and Planning (RAP) capabilities of AI systems.

This will overcome the limitations of current deep learning models, which despite their strengths, have limitations in critical cognitive functions for abstraction, contextualisation, causality, explainability, and intelligible reasoning — competencies that are fundamental to move towards human-like intelligence.

Specific Objectives

Innovative ideas put forward under this Challenge must explore novel approaches, including combinations of existing techniques (i.e. neuro-symbolic AI), or the creation of entirely new frameworks that go beyond current, traditional, deep learning and reinforcement learning paradigms. These could be inspired by developments in diverse fields such as neuroscience, biology, physics, philosophy and more.

The proposals should address one or more of the following cognitive capabilities:

Deep Reasoning

Moving beyond statistical pattern matching to support causal inference, logical reasoning, and context-aware or commonsense decision-making in complex, unstructured environments. This requires shifting from purely data-driven correlations to AI systems capable of understanding why patterns emerge, identifying underlying causes, and drawing valid conclusions through both deductive and inductive processes.

Neuro-symbolic approaches, which combine the learning power of neural networks with the structured inference of symbolic reasoning are particularly encouraged to advance these capabilities. Integrating contextual and commonsense knowledge enables AI to interpret information more holistically, adapt decisions dynamically, and handle ambiguity and uncertainty.

Deep reasoning systems should be able to reconcile multiple sources of information, provide transparent and explainable rationales for their outputs, and align with human values and expectations, ensuring trustworthy and accountable operations in demanding real-world scenarios.

Deep Abstraction

Enabling AI systems to generalise insights from limited data by forming, manipulating, and refining high-level concepts, analogies, and representations that can be transferred across diverse application domains. This includes the development of internal world models to support abstraction, foster commonsense understanding, and integrate semantic and contextual awareness.

Approaches that combine symbolic reasoning, analogical mapping, and representation learning are particularly encouraged, as they empower AI to interpret meaning, intent, and relationships within complex environments. Progress in deep abstraction is essential for achieving cognitive flexibility, robust transfer learning, and adaptive reasoning in dynamic, data-scarce, or rapidly evolving settings.

Deep Planning

Developing robust, adaptive, and scalable planning algorithms/models capable of operating in open-world, agentic, or uncertain real-time environments. This involves leveraging advanced deep learning techniques such as deep reinforcement learning and architectures tailored for planning tasks to enable AI systems to autonomously devise, optimise, and adjust complex strategies in dynamic settings.

Neuro-symbolic approaches integrating neural networks with symbolic reasoning are particularly encouraged to address uncertainty, provide formal guarantees, and enable explainable, dependable decision-making. Emphasis is placed on long-term, flexible planning that incorporates cognitive timing and predictive modelling, enabling systems to anticipate and adapt within dynamic contexts.

Approaches should explore hierarchical planning across multiple temporal levels, contingency planning for effective fallback strategies, and continual re-planning to dynamically update plans as environments evolve. These advancements will underpin resilient, coordinated, and trustworthy AI planning in complex, unpredictable scenarios.

Expected Outcomes

Ambitious proposals put forward under this call will deliver:

In addition, proposals will:

Portfolio approach

The composition of the portfolio of projects to be funded under the DeepRAP Challenge will ensure comprehensive coverage across the following categories with a view to ensuring breadth and enabling synergies between the projects:

The selected projects will also be assigned to lead and/or engage in portfolio activities centred on the following priorities:

Expected Impact

The resulting portfolio will not only advance the scientific state-of-the-art but also build a robust, interoperable, and application-driven community, positioning Europe at the forefront of trustworthy cognitive AI. It should also lay the foundations for future European leadership in safe, human-centric cognitive AI, supporting sovereignty and competitiveness in key sectors. It will support the ambitions of the AI Act 60 and the European approach to Artificial Intelligence 61.

A NO GO but awarded a Seal of Excellence if the Jury confirms the assessment of the evaluation committee that the criteria are met, but it is not recommended for funding within the budget available

If your proposal is submitted under one of the STEP-relevant Challenges calls, your project will also be awarded the Sovereignty (STEP) Seal, if it is recommended as a GO or a NO-GO with Seal of Excellence. The Sovereignty (STEP) Seal complements the Seal of Excellence in facilitating alternative or complementary support from other programmes. Seals of Excellence and Sovereignty (STEP) Seals may be funded by national or European programmes for both grant and investment components and may also be supported for only the grant component (even if selected for blended finance).

Accelerator Award Criteria

The EIC Accelerator evaluation criteria are shown below. A subset of the criteria will be assessed at the short application stage and the full set of criteria assessed at the full application stage by the external technology expert, the evaluation panel and then the Jury. At the full proposal stage, the technology expert will assess the claims made in the proposal against third party information and through a meeting with the applicant. The assessment of the technology expert and the Evaluation Panel will be included in the Evaluation Summary Report which will be made available to applicants at the end of the evaluation process, and if successful for investment support, to the European Investment Bank in its role as investment adviser to the EIC Fund.

Application submission limits

The EIC Accelerator applies limitations on the number of unsuccessful submissions of the same/improved proposal by the same legal entity. These limitations apply equally to applicants submitted via the Fast Track or Plug In schemes.

As from 1 January 2024, after three unsuccessful submissions of the same/improved proposal by the same legal entity to the EIC Accelerator call for Challenges or Open, which can be at any stage of the process (Short Proposal, Full Proposal) and for any form of support (Grant-Only, Blended finance, Equity-Only), an applicant may not apply again to the EIC Accelerator under the Horizon Europe Framework Programme.

In all cases, applicants are expected to take into account the feedback on their previous submission and only reapply if they have made significant improvements.

Additional information concerning investments by the EIC Fund

Such follow-on investments will be limited to the following exceptional categories of cases 123:

The budget for follow on investments and the investment component subsequent to “Grant first” support will come with priority from the follow-on reserve budget as indicated in Annex 1 or from returns generated by EIC Fund investments. In case these budgets are exhausted, available amounts from the budget of this call or from previous amounts allocated to the EIC Fund may be used. In case the budget reserved for follow on investments is not fully used for the above cases, the remaining amount will be transferred to the Accelerator Open call.

Applicants should already indicate in their application if they have a parent or holding company for the purposes of the investment component. In such cases the EIC Fund may decide to invest not in the beneficiary but in its parent or holding company if the following conditions are fulfilled:

In these cases, and where there is a grant component of support, the grant agreement with the beneficiary will include the parent or holding company as an affiliated entity in its role as investee. 124

Indirect management of the investment component of the EIC Accelerator

In line with Article 11(3) of Council Decision 2021/764/EU establishing the Specific Programme implementing Horizon Europe, the Commission has entrusted tasks related to the implementation and management of the investment component of the EIC Accelerator to the European Investment Bank as the implementing partner for an indicative budget for investment amounts as shown in Annex 1.

EIC Accelerator Open

EIC Accelerator Open has no predefined thematic priorities and is open to proposals in any field of technology or application.

If an application to the Open call falls within the scope of the Challenges topics below, grant-only funding is subject to eligibility in accordance with the specific conditions applicable to those topics:

Furthermore, in case of an investment support for applications in the areas of AI, quantum, semiconductors and biotechnology, specific safeguards will be introduced in the investment agreement (see Introduction, section on Economic Security as well as Annex 2).

EIC Accelerator Challenges

The total indicative budget for EIC Accelerator Challenges is EUR 220 million. However, in case of underutilisation, the budget will be transferred to support projects submitted under the Open call aligned with the scope of the relevant Challenge.

The Accelerator Challenges have been identified in areas where breakthrough technologies or game-changing innovations developed by start-ups or SMEs can have a major impact on EU objectives. In 2026, these objectives include [include list of most relevant policy objectives to be pursued by 2026 challenges]

All Challenge applicants are encouraged to develop synergies with relevant activities under other Horizon Europe Work Programmes.

All Challenges fall within the scope and objectives 125 of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) legislation. Hence, applicants to all Challenges will be awarded the Sovereignty (STEP) Seal in accordance with the provisions in Section V.

Advanced Materials for Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Systems Background and Scope

The share of renewables in electricity generation in the EU rose to 47% in 2024 compared to 34% in 2019 126 and this has also underpinned an exponential increase in the EU’s demand for base metals, battery materials, rare earths and other materials for renewable energy generation and storage systems. However, most of these materials are not currently sourced or processed in Europe.

The European Commission Communication “Advanced Materials for Industrial Leadership” 127 identifies an urgent need to boost the development of advanced materials, such as their design, scale-up and manufacturing capacity (from lab to fab) to enhance the EU’s strategic autonomy in key sectors such as energy, while addressing sustainability, circularity and safety issues.

The absence of a common European approach will pose a considerable risk to the EU’s future energy strategic autonomy and requires investments. These target both developers and producers of advanced materials.

This Challenge competition thus aims at scaling startups and SMEs developing advanced materials with added functionalities and improved performance specifically designed for energy storage or energy generation/harvesting systems. The targeted systems cover solar cells, wind turbines, mid-long term energy storage and energy harvesting technologies exploited across Europe.

Specific Objectives

The start-ups and SMEs to be supported under this Challenge must focus on the development of advanced materials 128 for renewable energy or energy storage systems, encompassing the design, synthesis, characterisation, up-scaling, and production of such materials.

The materials and associated processes must be developed with a view to minimising the use of resources, including strategic and Critical Raw Materials (CRMs). They must have their performance benchmarked, minimisation of resource use proven with respect to the state of the art and the use-case considered. In-silico methods of design and testing developed materials should be considered to speed-up the design process and decrease the cost of development.

The environmental footprint of the developed advanced materials should also be measured with a life-cycle analysis that includes an evaluation of the cost and social impact. Applicants are also encouraged to consider the potential impact of emerging environmental markets 129 on their business, and to explore the strategic opportunities these markets may unlock when paired with innovative business models.

The projects selected under this Challenge will become part of the wider advanced materials ecosystem to be fostered by the actions set out in the Commission Communication on Advanced Materials including the new co-programmed partnership IAM4EU 130.

Expected outcomes and impacts

This Challenge aims to scale advanced material technologies that will enhance the EU’s strategic autonomy in energy generation and mid-long energy storage, while addressing sustainability, circularity and safety issues.

This will:

Indicative budget: EUR 50 million

Alternative Concepts and Key Enabling Technologies for Fusion Power Plants Background and Scope

The global demand for clean, abundant, and sustainable energy has never been greater. Fusion energy holds the potential to revolutionise energy production by providing a near-limitless, carbon-free power source that minimises radioactive waste. It has been broadly recognised as a promising path to producing affordable electricity, according to numerous strategies, reports, such as Draghi 131, and roadmaps unveiled worldwide 132.

However, despite significant scientific and technological advancements, commercial fusion energy faces a number of technological, material, and economic barriers. These include:

Europe has a competitive advantage in fusion with highly skilled scientists and engineers, leading experimental facilities and, is also the primary contributor and host of ITER 133, the world’s first fusion experimental device of "power plant level". Europe is also beginning to see growing private investor interest in fusion energy, particularly in emerging companies beyond publicly led initiatives, with a strong push towards commercially viable solutions.

This Challenge, supported by a transfer of budget from Euratom Research and Training Programme 134, will therefore support SMEs and start-ups advancing new fusion reactor concepts and key enabling technologies for fusion power plants.

Specific Objectives

The start-ups and SMEs to be supported under this Challenge must focus on one or more elements of the fusion value chain including:

Expected outcomes and impacts

The Challenge aims to accelerate the transition from achieving fusion energy gain to the full commercialisation of fusion energy, positioning Europe as a global leader in the field. It supports the Competitiveness Compass for the EU 135 by helping fusion energy start-ups and SMEs deploy and scale up their innovative technologies and concepts. Aligned with the Clean Industrial Deal 136 roadmap, the Challenge contributes to a decarbonised energy mix and strengthens EU funding for the next generation of clean energy technologies. It also contributes towards establishing an innovation ecosystem that fosters investment and promotes growth in the fusion sector.

By developing and scaling up breakthrough innovations for fusion energy, the Challenge is expected to:

Indicative budget: EUR 20 million in 20 138

In view of the contribution transferred to EIC from Euratom for this challenge, it is expected that at least 50% of the indicative budget will be provided to legal entities established in Member States or countries associated to both Euratom and Horizon Europe.

Biotech for Regenerating Agricultural Soils Background and Scope

Soils are essential ecosystems that deliver valuable services such as the provision of food, energy and raw materials, nutrient regulation, and water purification and infiltration 139. Healthy soils are thus a key enabler supporting the objectives of the European Green Deal 140.

However, about 60% of EU soils are considered unhealthy 141, losing their capacity to support agricultural production of food, feed and biomass. According to recent estimates, fourteen European countries saw land area highly sensitive to desertification nearly double to 400 000 km2 in the period 2008 to 2017. In addition, agricultural soils in the EU are depleted in soil organic carbon, which could impact EU climate change mitigation efforts 142.

Furthermore, EU soils are under increasing pressure from various sources, including contamination by microplastics 143 144, heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants, as well as the inappropriate use of fertilizers, pesticides, and antibiotics 145. These activities harm soil health and fertility, reduce biodiversity and threaten the sustainability and resilience of agricultural production.

In line with the ambitions of the Commission Communications on Building the future with nature: Boosting Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing in the EU 146 (a critical technology identified under the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) 147), the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy 148, the EU Soil Strategy for 2030, the Vision for Agriculture and Food 149 and the objectives of the EU Mission ‘A Soil Deal for Europe’ 150, this Challenge focuses on reinforcing soil-based agricultural production, encompassing food, feed and biomass, through biotech driven deep tech solutions that will:

Specific Objectives

The start-ups and SMEs to be supported under this Challenge must focus on developing biotech driven solutions in one (or more) of the following areas:

Bioremediation technologies: focused on restoring and enhancing soil health enabling sustainable agriculture in contaminated lands. Proposals could include solutions such as, but not limited to, phyto or mycelial extraction or degradation of pollutants. Solutions that will extract, degrade or transform pollutants must go beyond the state of the art and put forward innovations that demonstrate improvements to the nutritional profile of food and feed, and the quality of the biomass produced

Soil and soil microbiome management technologies: covers solutions that will increase the soil’s organic carbon stock and its structure to enhance biodiversity, improve water retention and boost fertility and nutrient availability

Renewable fertilizers and bio stimulants: targets materials that could be produced from waste and residue streams and biomass in innovative, sustainable and circular ways with the help of microorganisms or their biological components, enabling a virtuous cascading approach from agricultural operations or from bio-based industrial processes

Regardless of the specific area addressed, companies are encouraged to leverage digital tools such as AI and monitoring technologies such as sensors, as appropriate, to facilitate the identification or the development of processes and to reliably assess the evolution of soil health conditions to make the resulting products and services suitable for integration into existing production systems. All projects must provide a lifecycle assessment (LCA) considering environmental, social and economic consideration. Proposals are also expected to consider regulatory aspects alongside issues surrounding consumer acceptance and articulate suitable strategies to support market entry within and beyond the EU. Applicants are encouraged to consider the potential impact of emerging environmental markets 151 on their business, and to explore the strategic opportunities these markets may unlock when paired with innovative business models.

The startups and SMEs supported under this Challenge will be connected through the EIC’s Business Acceleration Services with stakeholders engaged in the EU Mission Soil 152 and with Horizon Europe Cluster 6, including its public-private partnership Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE JU) to support the accelerated uptake of breakthrough solutions.

Expected Outcomes and Impact

This Challenge aims to scale deep tech solutions that will improve soil health and the sustainability, efficiency, and resilience of the European agricultural sector, which spans food, feed and biomass. Their entry into the market will reverse the declining health of agricultural soils resulting in an enhanced production of high quality, sustainable crops.

By targeting breakthrough solutions, it will also support Europe’s future strategic autonomy and enhance the competitiveness of the sector by helping it overcome challenges linked to climate change and environmental stresses including soil biodiversity loss and pollution as well as contributing to boosting biotechnology in the EU.

Indicative budget: EUR 50 million

Boosting the European Critical Raw Materials value chain Background and Scope

Europe’s technological sovereignty and capacity to deliver on the twin green and digital transitions is contingent on access to Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) 153 along all stages of the value chain. A subset of these CRMs also classified as “strategic raw materials 154” due to their use in strategic technologies and strong projected demand growth. Secure access to such materials will reduce Europe’s dependence on unreliable suppliers and integrating circularity is crucial to making the most of the EU’s limited resources. Actions foreseen under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) 155 adopted in 2024 aim to strengthen the supply security of CRMs by:

Deep tech start-ups and scale-ups can make an important contribution to achieving the 2030 EU benchmarks defined in the CRMA, in particular, those companies driving forward Strategic Projects 157 under the CRMA. Start-ups and SMEs could contribute to developing and commercialising new deep tech innovations that address the entire spectrum of activity from exploration via extraction and refining to the recycling of CRMs with a view to:

Specific Objectives

The start-ups and SMEs to be supported under this Challenge must look to develop and deploy deep-tech innovations that contribute to the CRMA and European domestic capacity in one or more of the following areas:

The deep tech innovations must improve the sustainability of the EU’s sources for critical and strategic raw materials in line with the EU principles for sustainable raw materials and must clearly justify the relevance and business case for all targeted minerals and metals.

The environmental footprint of the proposed innovations should also be measured with a life-cycle analysis that includes an evaluation of the cost and social impact. Applicants are encouraged to consider the potential impact of emerging environmental markets 158 on their business, and to explore the strategic opportunities these markets may unlock when paired with innovative business models.

Deep-sea mining does not fall within the scope of this call.

Expected outcomes and impacts

By targeting breakthrough innovations, the Challenge is expected to contribute to the secure supply of sustainably produced primary and secondary critical and strategic raw materials for EU industrial value chains and strategic sectors and help strengthen the EU mining value chain.

Specific conditions

In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, and security, it is important to avoid a situation of technological dependency on a non-EU source, in a global context that requires the EU to take action to build on its strengths, and to carefully assess and address any strategic weaknesses, vulnerabilities and high-risk dependencies which put at risk the attainment of its ambitions.

For this reason, and in line with Article 136 of the Financial Regulation 159, beneficiaries 160 of grant-only Accelerator funding must not be directly or indirectly controlled by a non-associated third country or a legal entity established in a non-associated third country other than such third countries or legal entities established in Member States, associated countries, OECD countries, African Union Member States, MERCOSUR, CARIFORUM, Andean Community and countries with which the EU has concluded strategic partnerships on raw materials 161 as well as trade agreements (or association/economic partnership or equivalent agreements, including the new Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships) containing raw materials cooperation provisions (i.e. Energy and Raw materials chapters) 162.

Indicative budget: EUR 50 million

Deep Tech for Climate Adaptation Background and Scope

Europe is warming faster than any other continent in the world 163. As the Earth continues to warm, climate change is increasingly affecting humans, economic activities and natural systems across the globe including in Europe 164.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identified 4 key risks for Europe 165, which will become more severe as the world continues to warm:

As policies and actions are not keeping up with the rapidly growing climate risks, the need for adaptation solutions will only become more pressing.

Start-ups and scale-ups are already developing deep tech solutions to address these climate risks. On the other hand, the European Commission - through its EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change 166 – is supporting climate adaptation efforts on the ground, uniting more than 400 regional and local authorities across Europe towards climate resilience by 2030.

The aim of this Challenge is to improve Europe’s Climate resilience by scaling up companies and solutions and connect them to the Mission’s regions and local authorities.

This Challenge competition focuses on deep tech solutions including nature-based solutions (NbS) 167 and engineering approaches reinforced by AI and other Key Enabling Technologies (KET).

Specific Objectives

The start-ups and SMEs to be supported under this Challenge must look to develop and deploy deep-tech innovations that will address one of the following priorities:

Combating extreme heat in urban environments: climate-neutral solutions that address urban heat island effects and urban cooling by for example reducing heat transfer, heat accumulation and cooling costs in urban areas. Proposals could include solutions such as, but not limited to, temperature-responsive and reflective materials, insulation, coating that regulate building temperatures, biomimetic nano-structured metamaterials that selectively/adaptively reflect or absorb light bandwidth, novel green-roof and green-façade systems integrating nature and materials for new build and retrofit

Climate Smart Agriculture: this includes scalable climate smart crops, nature-based solutions, agroecology, integrated pest management with increased resilience to several simultaneous climate threats as well as microbial solutions, and bio stimulants enhancing climate resilience. Deep tech solutions for indoor food production such as, but not limited to, variable transparency solar glass which could be applied to industrial and residential buildings also fall within scope

Combating Water scarcity: this includes the reuse of water through wastewater processing and water filtration solutions sensitive to emerging pollutants and could include biotech solutions such as, but not limited to, bacterial, mycelial or plant extraction or degradation and nature-based solutions. These solutions must be suitable for large and small-scale applications in urban and/or rural regions

Flood and coastal protection: includes solutions for new (temporary) buildings /(green) infrastructure and retrofit to help infrastructure withstand damage from storm waters, coastal and river flooding alongside novel/ targeted predictive systems or early warning systems

Expected outcomes and impacts

By targeting deep tech including nature-based solutions, this Challenge looks to develop and commercially scale timely solutions needed across Europe to adapt to key climate risks. Applicants are encouraged to consider the potential impact of emerging environmental markets 168 on their business, and to explore the strategic opportunities these markets may unlock when paired with innovative business models.

Furthermore, the EIC will, through its Business Acceleration Services, especially the innovation procurement programme, connect the startups and SMEs supported under this Challenge with the network of regions and local authorities engaged in the Mission on Climate Adaptation (leveraging the Mission Implementation Platform), to facilitate the accelerated uptake of breakthrough solutions for climate adaptation. The solutions stemming from this Challenge will be part of the portfolio of solutions developed by the Adaptation Mission.

Indicative budget: EUR 50 million

EIC Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Scale Up Call 169

If you answered yes to all questions, then the EIC Strategic Technology for Europe Platform (STEP) Scale Up call could be your launchpad to success. This call provides significant funding to fuel groundbreaking innovation in strategic technologies 170, propelling Europe's economic, industrial, and technological competitiveness. This is a new call that has been introduced as a pilot action following the STEP Regulation 171 to address an important market gap in financing deep tech scale up companies in Europe and to inform decisions on future support.

The companies selected under the EIC STEP Scale Up call shall receive investments ranging from EUR 10 to EUR 30 million. This investment can significantly accelerate the development and market launch of your technology, product, or service. With this funding, you'll gain the power to disrupt established markets and forge new ones across Europe, potentially achieving significant global impact.

Crucially, this investment is designed to catalyse major funding rounds in the range of EUR 50 to 150 million, and at least 3-5 times the EIC investment.

This call is part of the implementation of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) 172 which supports the development or manufacturing of critical technologies throughout the Union or safeguarding and strengthening their respective value chains. Besides support from the EIC, the projects may be eligible for support under other EU programmes included in STEP.

In 2026 support for start-ups in semiconductor technologies and quantum technologies will be pursued in particular through the STEP Scale Up call which foresees larger investments targeting strategic technologies including in support of the Chips Act. The EIC Accelerator Open call remains available in general for startups and SMEs including for quantum and semiconductor technologies.

These technologies are deemed critical where they meet either of the following conditions:

The Commission Guidance Note 174 concerning certain provisions of STEP Regulation adopted on May 2024, provides detailed information on the criticality conditions.

This call targets companies raising significant funding rounds and you must demonstrate an initial market interest such that the EIC investment acts as a catalyst for larger funding rounds.

You will therefore need to demonstrate that the company already has a pre-commitment 177 for an equity investment which meets the following elements:

An investor may submit a proposal on behalf of an eligible SME or small mid-cap as defined above, provided that a prior agreement exists with the company. The investment agreement will be signed with the selected SME or small mid-cap.

The support will be in the form of equity-only investments managed by the EIC Fund. Applicants to this call will not receive a grant component. It provides significant financial support, and applicants should apply for an investment of a minimum of EUR 10 million 182 and maximum of EUR 30 million, to co-invest in a funding round 183 in the range of EUR 50 to 150 million, and at least three to five times the amount of the requested EIC contribution.

The specific terms of each investment are considered and negotiated on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the EIC Fund Investment Guidelines. This ensures the investment is tailored to your company's needs while aligning with EIC's objectives.

EIC STEP Scale Up is designed to fill the funding gap for companies to invest in the scale up of high-risk innovations and where the amount needed for the scale up cannot be fully financed by other investors, including InvestEU direct and indirect financial products provided by implementing partners. Applicants are encouraged to consider in particular complementarity with Venture Debt from InvestEU implementing partners in order to meet their financing needs.

When implementing investments, the EIC Fund will ensure that supported companies keep most of their value, including their IP, in the EU or in the Associated Countries in order to contribute to their economic growth and job creation. Where necessary, the EIC Fund will be requested to take appropriate safeguard measures for individual companies on a case-by-case basis in order to protect European interests as defined in the Investment Guidelines.

Beyond funding, your company will benefit from a strong support system that fosters your continued growth within Europe through Business Acceleration Services (details available in Section VII). Applicants to the EIC STEP Scale Up call who meet the evaluation thresholds will also be awarded a Sovereignty (STEP) Seal, to facilitate and provide possibility of the access to funding and support from other EU programmes and other funders and investors.

To be deemed admissible and eligible, proposals must consist of:

All personal data and information in your proposal will be kept strictly confidential. However, before submitting your full proposal, you will need to give agreement to share necessary information with the EIC Fund.

In addition, you will be asked as part of your application whether your company would be interested in Venture Debt support from InvestEU implementing partners, if your company is awarded a Sovereignty (STEP) Seal 185.

Upon submission, your proposal will be assessed if it meets the eligibility criteria set out above in terms of whether it falls within scope of the STEP technologies; the pre-commitment from a single investor; and the eligibility of the applicant entity.

The investment adviser to the EIC Fund, may be requested to support the eligibility assessment regarding the pre-commitment from an investor.

In cases where a Technology Due Diligence report is not already available, this will be conducted by a suitably qualified external expert.

If your application meets these requirements, you will be invited to attend a jury interview. It is expected that you will be informed about the interview within approximately 4-6 weeks from the start of the evaluation process following the relevant batching date.

At the interview, you will be assessed by a Jury of maximum six members (see Glossary). Detailed information about the format of the interview will be communicated to you in the invitation.

You will be informed about the result of the interview within approximately two weeks from the end of the interview session.

An award decision will be adopted by the Commission, which will authorise a maximum amount of investment by the EIC Fund, which will follow the amount requested in the application, with an additional flexibility amount of maximum EUR 5 million per proposal. The flexibility amount is to enable the EIC Fund to make an investment decision for a higher amount than requested if justified to take account of developments of the company since the date of application and the opportunity of catalysing a larger overall funding round with co-investors. The additional flexibility amount may only be used if there are sufficient amounts available on the EIC Fund accounts (e.g., due to budget available from other investments).

The relevant information from your proposal will be passed to the investment adviser for the EIC Fund, to proceed with the detailed due diligence and subject to a positive due diligence and subsequent EIC Fund Investment Committee decision, the investment agreement. Should the investment due diligence result in a lower investment amount the released amount will be made available for additional funding under the EIC STEP Scale up call.

If you have expressed an interest and given agreement and your company has been awarded a Sovereignty (STEP) Seal following the evaluation, the relevant information from your proposal will be passed to the relevant InvestEU implementing partners to consider for Venture Debt support.

The EIC STEP Scale Up call utilizes a "first come, first served" approach to evaluate proposals. However, juries will be asked to take account of overall budget availability for the full year and will be limited to recommend proposals amounting to no more than 70% of the available budget for the calendar year within the first six months of the year. The Jury will be informed about budget availability, including additional amounts that may be available due to previous amounts awarded that were not fully used.

Proposals will be assessed according to the following award criteria (Table 9). The EIC Jury may focus the interview on any element of your proposal based on its own assessment.

The EIC Jury members, based on your interview and their overall assessment, will recommend one of three outcomes for your proposal:

The Jury may also provide recommendations regarding a potential resubmission, or not, of your application and improvements needed.

Application submission limits

The EIC STEP Scale Up call applies limitations on the number of unsuccessful submissions of the same/improved proposal by the same legal entity.

As from 1 January 2026, after three unsuccessful submissions of the same/improved proposal by the same legal entity to the EIC STEP Scale Up call which can be at any stage of the process (eligibility check, interviews), an applicant may not apply again to the EIC STEP Scale Up call under the Horizon Europe Framework Programme.

In all cases, applicants are expected to take into account the feedback on their previous submission and only reapply if they have made significant improvements.

Business Acceleration Services

The Business Acceleration Services (BAS) provide EIC Awardees and other eligible entities with services aiming at:

BAS is a distinctive feature of the EIC that enables it to provide not only “money”, but “smart money”. The BAS services are also used by EIC Programme Managers and EIC Project Officers to proactively manage the EIC portfolios.

The eligible entities and the BAS services available for each group are:

The BAS service offering consists of core services funded through the work programmes, and a larger portfolio of services available from EIC Ecosystem partners.

The BAS services funded through the work programmes are specifically tailored to EIC Awardees and seal-of-excellence holders needs and the changing nature of markets and overall economic environment. The flexibility for piloting new services and approaches and adapting or even stopping the ones that are not efficient is built in all BAS implementing contracts.

Unless otherwise specified in the specific calls, the eligible entities can apply to EIC’s BAS services through open calls published on the EIC Community Platform. The selection is done based on assessment from business partners or market experts or on a first come first served basis.

The BAS services funded through the EIC work programmes cover among other things:

Additional to the BAS services funded through the EIC work programmes the services provided by EIC Ecosystem partners (see Glossary) offer eligible entities access to an even larger portfolio of high quality, topic, or sector specific services from service providers from all over Europe. The services are for example incubation and acceleration actions, legal and IP expertise, access to testing and research infrastructure, matchmaking with large corporates and investors, and many more. The services from EIC Ecosystems partners can be accessed through the EIC Service Catalogue. The catalogue provides information of the services, conditions to apply and eventual costs.

The EIC BAS services and the infrastructure to provide access to EIC Ecosystem partners are funded through multi-year procurements 190, expert contracts (coaching) and Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) some of which were financed through previous Work Programmes. The following actions pertaining to BAS services will be funded in 2026.

EIC business coaches (direct EIC services)

Business coaching focuses on providing insights on business development and guidance to improve business performance. EIC coaching is mandatory part of EIC funding. Beneficiaries are encouraged to choose their coach/coaches early in their project to maximise the benefits

Coaching topics cover the entire entrepreneurial and innovation endeavour from challenging the value proposition and business model, IP management, data protection, improving strategy and investor business case, building the team and leadership, to international expansion. EIC business coaching is provided to eligible entities:

The eligible companies/teams will receive an invitation to use the Coach Matching Tool. Beneficiaries can use this tool to find and select coaches that suit their needs.

In all cases the EIC will request to the coach and coachee a structured coaching report/survey after the coaching has been provided, to ensure the services are of the highest quality.

The EIC coaching services are provided by highly qualified business coaches selected against strict evaluation criteria included in the continuously open call for expression of interest in accordance with Article 242 of the Financial Regulation 193, and new coaches are selected when necessary. The selected coaches register their profile and expertise in the Commission’s corporate database.

Applicants to provide EIC coaching services must have: at least five years of professional experience as investor, board advisor or in managerial positions with responsibilities in developing business innovation; and at least five years of coaching experience supporting new business development within a corporate’s departments or with start-ups. The fields of new business development include technical expertise as well as practical involvement on go-to-market processes, building/acquisition of strategic partnerships and organizational and financial development.

EIC business coaches have the task to support the recipients of BAS depending on their needs, assess with them improvement opportunities and assist them in their process of learning and solving complex business development issues. As highly qualified specialized business coaches, their fees will be proportionate to their high-level strategic support, and it will closely mirror the international level of fees for experts performing tasks of similar nature. In this respect, EIC business coaches will receive EUR 1 000 per day of coaching (corresponding to EUR 500 per half day), which is considered to be proportionate to the specific services that EIC business coaches will provide, which are more complex than the standard tasks of experts evaluators.

International Trade Fairs 4.0

This action will allow to select EIC Awardees and eligible entities that are SMEs that have market ready solutions to attend European and international business trade fairs. The aim is to support their commercialisation strategy in European and foreign markets, and to strengthen the EU innovation brand around the world. The action will also support for strategic priorities for international outreach following the Startup and Scaleup Strategy and other relevant Union policies. The provided business services will include exhibition space within the ‘EIC Pavilion’ in relevant fairs, market training sessions for the participating companies, organisation of business meetings at the fair, company promotion, the organisation of side events and sessions at the fair.

Financial support to access services from Ecosystem partners

The EIC seeks partnerships with EIC Ecosystem Partners (see Glossary). The goal is to provide all EIC Awardees and other eligible entities with access to existing or bespoke services from the best service providers around Europe for the incubation, acceleration, growth and scale up of innovative tech companies, such as for instance: pitching and networking events, matchmaking to customers and investors, specialised trainings (e.g. on intellectual property protection, technology due diligence etc.), innovation boot camps and summer schools, support to validate/accelerate a technology, mentorship, business coaching, co-investment opportunities, data mining or mapping services e.g. of tech infrastructures, piloting plants, testbeds etc.

This action covers the financial support in the form of lump sum grants to EIC Awardees aiming at co-funding access to services from Ecosystem Partners. It is complemented by a procurement of services (awarded under a different Work programme) to support the Agency with the selection and quality control of ecosystem partners and managing the catalogue of services.

Scope of the action – financial support to third parties

The standard admissibility and eligibility conditions for Coordination and Support Actions (CSAs), as outlined in Annex 2, will apply to this call. The CSA Beneficiary will provide financial support to EIC Awardees in the form of lump sums, covering up to 70% of the cost of access to R&D infrastructure, prototyping and IP and legal support and up to 50% of the cost of all other types of services received from EIC Ecosystem Partners. A continuously open call will be implemented for the selection of EIC Awardees, ensuring timely and flexible access to support. Applications should propose a limited number of maximum lump sum amounts, corresponding to different categories of services, as defined in the EIC Service Catalogue.

The EIC Awardees having access to this support are as defined in the Glossary and for the purposes of this action include also Awardees selected through calls under the H2020 EIC Pilot (2018-2020) 194 and entities awarded a Seal of Excellence under the EIC Work Programmes and the EIC Pre-Accelerator call under WIDERA Work Programme under Horizon Europe.

The CSA Beneficiary will launch a continuously open call, inviting eligible entities to apply for a fixed-amount lump sum 195 under this action. Applications of the eligible entities submitted to the CSA beneficiary must reference a specific partner from the online EIC Ecosystem Partner Catalogue, and a prove of approval from this Partner. The application may concern a service to be still implemented or already delivered services (no later than 6 months from the accomplishment of the service). Lump sum grants will be awarded by the CSA beneficiary on a “first-come, first-served” basis, determined by the electronic timestamp of the successful application submission, and subject to eligibility checks and confirmation of the absence of double funding.

In addition, the CSA Beneficiary will be responsible for disseminating information about the call and establishing a dedicated helpdesk to reply to the questions from EIC Awardees and other eligible entities. The application system put in place should be lean and should not request to create a full profile on already existing platforms.

The CSA Beneficiary will be responsible for monitoring the services received by the EIC Awardees, run the quality survey directly after the end of the service and impact survey 6 months after the end of the service. Both surveys should be validated with the Agency.

The maximum size of cumulative support allocated to a recipient (or third party) under this action is EUR 60,000.

The CSA Beneficiary needs to put in place a real-time reporting and monitoring system about applications received and funding awarded per EIC Awardee and other eligible entities as well as aggregated data displayed in dashboards, including but not limited to geographical distribution, type of service, financial support received (value of the lump sums, type and geographical distribution of partners, results of the quality and impact surveys etc). The exact content of the dashboard will be defined at the beginning of the project. By the end of the project all data gathered during its implementation will be made available to the Agency following template provided by the Agency.

The CSA Beneficiary will be required to work in close coordination with the Agency and the contractor responsible for implementing the call for Ecosystem Partners and EIC service catalogue, as well as with other EU services as necessary. This collaboration will include participation in regular coordination meetings and the timely provision of relevant information to support the effective implementation of the action. In addition, the CSA Beneficiary will contribute, in cooperation with the Agency, to the preparation of an “uptake and impact report” summarising the overall activities and outcomes of the EIC Ecosystem Partnership Action.

The CSA Beneficiary must ensure sound financial management and applicants must clearly outline in their proposals the mechanisms that will be put in place for the effective and efficient administration of financial support, including measures to prevent misuse or abuse.

If admissible and eligible, the proposals for the Coordination and Support Actions will be evaluated and ranked against the criteria as described in Annex 2. The funding rate of the CSA is 100% of the eligible costs. At least 80% of the total budget to be funded by the EIC must be allocated to financial support to third parties (the EIC Awardees and other eligible entities). An effective duration of around 2-3 years would enable the project to achieve the desired objectives.

Expected outcomes and impacts

This action should facilitate for EIC Awardees and other eligible entities to access the best competence, ecosystems and infrastructure in Europe for their specific need, and at the same time provide the conditions for ecosystems to build critical mass to provide highly specialised and excellent ecosystem services.

This action should:

The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will be used to monitor the action shall include as a minimum:

Further KPIs can be developed in the proposal for this action and will be taken into consideration during the evaluation stage.

EIC Scaling Club 2.0

The focus for EIC Scaling Club 2.0 is to increase success and support the growth of the top deep tech companies in Europe, by strengthening the skills, knowledge and network of peers, investors and customers needed for growth.

EIC Scaling Club 2.0 should support a minimum of 70 deep tech companies with the potential to scale up as global leaders or potential unicorns. 196 Minimum 35 of these companies should come from the EIC portfolio (primarily EIC Fund portfolio) and the remaining deep tech companies should come from similar programmes at Member State and Associated Country level.

The identified companies, ready for series B+ funding rounds, should demonstrate credible high-growth potential and should develop cutting-edge solutions in key technological areas, contributing to Europe’s technological autonomy and supporting EU’s strategic priorities, e.g. AI, advanced materials, quantum, biotech, robotics and space technologies, energy and decarbonisation, as specified in the Competitive Compass for the EU. 197 The cohort of supported companies, active in diverse sectors, should be geographically and gender diverse, engaging companies from across the EU and Horizon Europe Associated countries and a balanced portfolio of women-led companies.

The initiative should provide a package of growth-focused capability building support through bespoke networking and learning among peers and partners, as well as facilitating outreach. The initiative should also enhance visibility of the selected companies and the European scaleup scene.

The activities

The package of growth-focused support to the identified companies, should focus on:

The initiative should leverage the existing networks and build on the success and methodologies of its predecessor action, the EIC Scaling Club.

For the implementation, the action should:

The proposal must describe the suggested methodology, both for identifying the supported companies and for scaling them up. The proposal should include the concrete set of proposed scale-up support actions, strengthened by the rationale for their implementation and added-value. It should also suggest a methodology for alumni engagement and visibility enhancement.

Expected impact

Governance

Strategic access to innovation procurement

In line with the EU’s Start-up and Scale-up Strategy, which recognises innovation procurement as a key instrument to foster the growth of innovative SMEs and modernise public services, the action will address both supply and demand sides of procurement ecosystems.

The support will indicatively include: Continued provision of training and guidance, including Innovation Procurement Academies and the EIC Innovation Procurement Toolkit, to equip EIC beneficiaries with the skills to engage effectively in procurement markets.

Targeted assistance to public buyers, including cities, agencies, and national authorities, to design and implement innovation-friendly procurement procedures.

Facilitated matchmaking between EIC beneficiaries and public/private buyers through tailored brokerage events and a growing Community of Buyers hosted on the EIC platform.

One-on-one support to EIC innovators, including opportunity scanning, tender preparation assistance, and bid submission support to maximise successful participation in procurement processes.

Pilot support to connect Project Managers and buyers to jointly identify needs and validate EIC-developed solutions, in particular in the areas under Advanced Innovation Challenges.

Exploration of regulatory sandboxes and demand-driven pilots to de-risk the path towards procurement and deployment of innovative solutions.

Reinforcement of synergies with other EIC Business Acceleration Services, including the EIC Global Expansion Programme and international trade fair participation, to position procurement as a global commercialisation channel.

Expected Impact

Increased participation and success of EIC beneficiaries in procurement processes across strategic sectors and geographies. Strengthened capacity of public and private buyers to identify and procure innovative solutions. Greater visibility and commercial traction of EIC-funded innovations through procurement. Contribution to the development of a more innovation-friendly procurement culture in Europe, aligned with industrial and technological sovereignty objectives.

Corporate partnership 4.0

The EU Startups and Scaleups Strategy has announced that the Commission will create a European Corporate Network to better integrate large companies, corporate venture investors and corporate procurers into the EU’s innovation ecosystem and benefit from innovative solutions developed by startups. This network will bridge the gap between established corporations and agile startups and scaleups, fostering mutual benefits and accelerating the adoption of new technologies.

The Network members would advise on related policy, engage in matchmaking with startups and make a voluntary commitment to privilege European startups when they engage, invest and procure innovative solutions, especially when they use public funding or when they operate critical research or technology infrastructures. This commitment aims to establish a preferential environment for European startups, particularly within strategic sectors, thereby reinforcing regional innovation, enhancing economic security, and reducing dependence on non-EU entities, aligning with the "Strategic Open Strategic Autonomy" priority.

This action aims to support the announcement made in the Startups and Scaleups Strategy. Considering the scope of the EIC, this action includes the following objectives:

These objectives will be implemented in close partnership with the Commission and the Agency.

EIC Prizes

The European Prize for Women Innovators

Nevertheless, women continue to face multiple barriers, in bringing new ideas to the market and raising capital for their companies. This negatively affects the success rate of women-founded businesses and perpetuates the lack of awareness about the systemic nature of gender inequality. Hence, women’s efforts and contributions to science and innovation should be encouraged and supported.

The Political Guidelines for the European Commission for 2024-2029 underscore a strengthened commitment to gender equality. Building on this momentum, the Commission is set to renew its Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 200, which has been instrumental in promoting equality across all EU policies, and will continue to drive progress towards a more inclusive and equitable society.

Within the first 100 days of the present Commission’s mandate, the adoption of the Competitiveness Compass paves a way toward an effective and equal Union of skills, promoting gender equality, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. It aims to harness the full potential of talents in Europe, by diversifying the workforce and thus enhancing the EU competitiveness and more inclusive economy. Additionally, the EU Roadmap for Women’s Rights states a clear objective of promoting gender-equal access to finances and economic opportunities, including entrepreneurship.

As outlined in the New European Innovation Agenda 198, supporting women innovators strengthens the European research and innovation system and creates gender-equal working environments where all talents can thrive. By integrating a gender dimension in projects, research quality is improved as well as the production of the knowledge, technologies and innovations.

The European Prize for Women Innovators celebrates the women entrepreneurs behind Europe’s game-changing innovations, so that they may inspire other women and girls realise their full potential as the EU’s future scientists, innovators, and tech leaders.

This prize supports a culture within research and innovation organisations and companies allowing women to become the innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

The prize is awarded every year to women from across the EU and countries associated to Horizon Europe, who have transformed their ideas into disruptive innovations to benefit people and the planet and who are inspiring leaders.

As for the previous edition, the 2027 European Prize for Women Innovators is organised in coordination between the Agency and the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT). The winners are chosen by an independent expert jury.

There are two EIC prize categories funded under this Work Programme: Women Innovators and Rising Innovators. In the first category, three prizes of EUR 100 000, EUR 70 000 and EUR 50 000 are awarded to the three highest-ranked applications. In the second category, three prizes of EUR 50 000, EUR 30 000 and EUR 20 000 are awarded to the three highest-ranked applications from promising ‘Rising Innovators’ under the age of 35. (The EIT Women Leadership category will be funded and managed by the EIT in coordination with the above prizes.)

In addition to the above, those applying for the Rising Innovators category must be aged under 35 at the start of the call year. 206 There is no age limit to apply for the Women Innovators category, though applicants eligible for several prize categories can only apply to one.

Applicants are expected to provide proof of eligibility upon request.

Applicants must support their written application with an inspiring video message about themselves and their achievements, lasting no more than 90 seconds.

The jury’s assessment will be based on Parts A and B of the application form, as well as the video submitted by the applicant.

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 will be specified in the rules for this contest published at the launch of the contest. For the common ‘Rules of Contest for Prizes’ please see the Funding & Tenders Portal.

Indicative Budget

The European Capital of Innovation Awards (iCapital)

Cities and/or towns are faced with most severe societal and sustainability challenges but do also have the means to develop, promote, and apply effective innovative solutions. They are the place where ideas, people, public and private actors meet and engage to improve the quality of life of citizens. They are the natural playground where breakthrough innovations flourish and nourish. They provide ground to experiment new technologies and products in a real environment, their interaction with people and their added value.

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 particularly crucial to enhance the city’s capacity to attract and retain 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 and inspires many other cities follow a similar path.

The New European Innovation Agenda 207 sets out a vision for harnessing the power of innovation to drive economic growth, social progress, and contribute to the green and digital transition in Europe. The agenda emphasizes the need for strategic investments in key technologies, including deep tech, and for strengthening and better connecting innovation ecosystems through stronger collaboration between regions, to close the innovation divide.

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.

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 cumulative criteria set out below, would reward the winner (ranked 1st) with EUR 1 million and two runners-up (ranked 2nd and 3rd) with EUR 100 000 each one.

The second one, the European Rising Innovative City category, would include cities with a population of 50 000 and up to 249 999 inhabitants; and, based on the cumulative criteria set out below, would reward the winner (ranked 1st) with EUR 500 000 and the two runners-up (ranked 2nd and 3rd) 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).

For the category of the European Capital of Innovation, the candidate city must have a minimum population of 250 000 inhabitants. In countries where there are no such cities, the city coming closest to 250 000 inhabitants is eligible to apply for the European Capital of Innovation category, provided that it has a minimum population of 50 000 inhabitants and that the city did not apply for the European Rising Innovative City category. The candidate cities for the European Rising Innovative City category must have a population of 50 000 and up to 249,999 inhabitants. In countries where there are no such cities, the largest city by number of inhabitants is eligible.

Winners of former European Capital of Innovation Awards editions, as well as runners-up of the edition 2024 are not eligible. This does not apply to previous finalist cities.

Applicants that have already received an EU or Euratom prize cannot receive a second prize for the same activities.

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 process 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.

Moreover, in this edition, the title “Capital of Innovation –iCapital- 2026” or “Rising Innovative city 2026” will be awarded in the respective category. Therefore, to celebrate the year the winning cities (ranked 1st in each category) will be invited to sign a declaration of intent 209 to commit on a series of actions to promote iCapital during the year.

For the common rules of contest for prizes, please see the Funding & Tenders Portal.

In addition to the monetary reward, the prize brings high visibility in the form of renewed public interest and increased media coverage.

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, promoting the replication of best practices in the innovation field; enhanced citizens’ involvement in the decision-making process; and supported cities resilience.

Indicative budget: the following 2026 budget will be allocated as follows

Indicative timetable of contest(s)

The European Prize for Women Innovators

Objectives and scope

Facing fast-paced developing technologies and science, it is crucial to involve women and girls in the design, development and up-take of innovative solutions. Achieving gender equality and diversity benefits not only individuals, but also increases the performance of business, research and innovation.

Nevertheless, women continue to face multiple barriers, in bringing new ideas to the market and raising capital for their companies. This negatively affects the success rate of women-founded businesses and perpetuates the lack of awareness about the systemic nature of gender inequality. Hence, women’s efforts and contributions to science and innovation should be encouraged and supported.

The Political Guidelines for the European Commission for 2024-2029 underscore a strengthened commitment to gender equality. Building on this momentum, the Commission is set to renew its Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, which has been instrumental in promoting equality across all EU policies, and will continue to drive progress towards a more inclusive and equitable society.

Within the first 100 days of the present Commission’s mandate, the adoption of the Competitiveness Compass paves a way toward an effective and equal Union of skills, promoting gender equality, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. It aims to harness the full potential of talents in Europe, by diversifying the workforce and thus enhancing the EU competitiveness and more inclusive economy. Additionally, the EU Roadmap for Women’s Rights states a clear objective of promoting gender-equal access to finances and economic opportunities, including entrepreneurship.

As outlined in the New European Innovation Agenda 198, supporting women innovators strengthens the European research and innovation system and creates gender-equal working environments where all talents can thrive. By integrating a gender dimension in projects, research quality is improved as well as the production of the knowledge, technologies and innovations.

The European Prize for Women Innovators celebrates the women entrepreneurs behind Europe’s game-changing innovations, so that they may inspire other women and girls realise their full potential as the EU’s future scientists, innovators, and tech leaders.

This prize supports a culture within research and innovation organisations and companies allowing women to become the innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

The prize is awarded every year to women from across the EU and countries associated to Horizon Europe, who have transformed their ideas into disruptive innovations to benefit people and the planet and who are inspiring leaders.

As for the previous edition, the 2027 European Prize for Women Innovators is organised in coordination between the Agency and the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT). The winners are chosen by an independent expert jury.

There are two EIC prize categories funded under this Work Programme: Women Innovators and Rising Innovators. In the first category, three prizes of EUR 100 000, EUR 70 000 and EUR 50 000 are awarded to the three highest-ranked applications. In the second category, three prizes of EUR 50 000, EUR 30 000 and EUR 20 000 are awarded to the three highest-ranked applications from promising ‘Rising Innovators’ under the age of 35. (The EIT Women Leadership category will be funded and managed by the EIT in coordination with the above prizes.)

Eligibility criteria

All applicants must comply with the following eligibility criteria to participate:

In addition to the above, those applying for the Rising Innovators category must be aged under 35 at the start of the call year. 206 There is no age limit to apply for the Women Innovators category, though applicants eligible for several prize categories can only apply to one.

Applicants are expected to provide proof of eligibility upon request.

Applicants must support their written application with an inspiring video message about themselves and their achievements, lasting no more than 90 seconds.

The jury’s assessment will be based on Parts A and B of the application form, as well as the video submitted by the applicant.

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 will be specified in the rules for this contest published at the launch of the contest. For the common ‘Rules of Contest for Prizes’ please see the Funding & Tenders Portal.

Expected results

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

Indicative Budget

The European Capital of Innovation Awards (iCapital)

Cities and/or towns are faced with most severe societal and sustainability challenges but do also have the means to develop, promote, and apply effective innovative solutions. They are the place where ideas, people, public and private actors meet and engage to improve the quality of life of citizens. They are the natural playground where breakthrough innovations flourish and nourish. 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 to new models of innovation engaging citizens, ensuring their involvement in the decision-making process, and reinforcing democracy and rights. An increasing number of cities are acting as test beds for innovation and run people-driven initiatives to find solutions to societal challenges, such as climate change, digitalisation, sustainable growth or social cohesion, including through new endeavours such as nature-based solutions and EU Missions.

The New European Innovation Agenda 207 sets out a vision for harnessing the power of innovation to drive economic growth, social progress, and contribute to the green and digital transition in Europe. The agenda emphasizes the need for strategic investments in key technologies, including deep tech, and for strengthening and better connecting innovation ecosystems through stronger collaboration between regions, to close the innovation divide.

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 this edition, 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 cumulative criteria set out below, would reward the winner (ranked 1st) with EUR 1 million and two runners-up (ranked 2nd and 3rd) with EUR 100 000 each one.

The second one, the European Rising Innovative City category, would include cities with a population of 50 000 and up to 249 999 inhabitants; and, based on the cumulative criteria set out below, would reward the winner (ranked 1st) with EUR 500 000 and the two runners-up (ranked 2nd and 3rd) 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

The award is launched and managed by the Agency. 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 process 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.

Moreover, in this edition, the title “Capital of Innovation – iCapital – 2026” or “Rising Innovative city 2026” will be awarded in the respective category. Therefore, to celebrate the year the winning cities (ranked 1st in each category) will be invited to sign a declaration of intent 209 to commit on a series of actions to promote iCapital during the year.

For the common rules of contest for prizes, please see the Funding & Tenders Portal.

Expected results

The European Capital of Innovation Awards aim to champion inspiring cases of municipality-enabled innovation flourishing in cities. The Awards are a prestigious recognition for city administrators who are courageous enough to open up their governance practices to experimentation, to boost innovation by all means, to be a role model for other cities, and to push the boundaries of technology for the benefit of their citizens.

In addition to the monetary reward, the prize brings high visibility in the form of renewed public interest and increased media coverage.

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, promoting 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 2026 budget will be allocated as follows

Indicative timetable of contest(s)

Other Actions

Honoraria and expenses of the 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 from the budget of the EIC work programme.

Remuneration is justified on the grounds of the personal commitment of the members 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 or any other additional meetings and events where EIC Board members are asked to attend. It will be accompanied by a compensation for travel (‘travel allowance’) and other expenses (‘per diem’) for in person meetings on location.

These amounts are adapted to high level expert’s terms as performed by other entities for similar high-level work. Additional work other than plenary meetings shall be reimbursed based on time spent and at the request of the Commission, of a daily amount of EUR 1 100. In accordance with Article 49(2) of the Horizon Europe Regulation, the level of remuneration for EIC Board members is beyond the standard conditions, as the Board consists of high-level experts, their role goes beyond that of normal experts, and a daily reimbursement of an amount of EUR 1 100 (EUR 2 200 for plenary meetings where attendance and preparation correspond to two days) is in line with relevant market standards and proportionate to the specific tasks attributed to them. 211

Type of action: Expert contract action. Indicative budget: EUR 0.5 million. Indicative Opening: From Q1 2026

External expertise for monitoring, ethics and policy advice

The EIC uses external independent experts for monitoring of projects 212 and ethics compliance, for other compliance checks (including on Gender Equality Plans), for communication activities, for technology assessments (including where necessary on risks to economic security), for policy advice on the optimal achievement of the EIC objectives, as well as for the implementation of scientific/technological/innovation intelligence, proactive management of EIC activities (including support to BAS activities and to the EIC Programme Managers) and project reviews for increases in Accelerator support 213. 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. 214

Type of action: Expert contracts

Indicative budget: EUR 4 million

Indicative opening: From Q1 2026

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, following advice from the EIC Board, with an objective to strengthen the reputation of the EIC among its stakeholders, potential applicants, policymakers, investors and the broader EU innovation ecosystem.

The action will include EIC global outreach activities, in particular to raise awareness of the EIC among international investors and innovative researchers.

It also includes activities to the EIC becoming a thought leader within the European (deep) tech community, enhancing the EIC’s standing as a leading authority in startups and innovation. This action covers the maintenance and management of the EIC website and its social media channels; the creation of relevant informative content and materials; the preparation and development of thematic communication campaigns; media relations and other outreach and stakeholders engagement activities including with EIC jury members.

In addition, this action provides further support to the organisation of the EIC Summit 2026. Furthermore, this action supports the organisation of the EIC Awards Ceremonies, the organisation of the iCapital alumni network awards ceremony, as well as various communication activities around the EIC Prizes.

This action will also support a prominent EIC presence at key European Commission and/or third-party events, ensuring high visibility of the EIC and selected beneficiaries, leading to increased impact in the visibility and branding of the EIC among key audiences. This should allow the EIC to become a prominent voice in the ongoing debates relevant to innovation policy in Europe and globally. Communication and outreach should generate awareness and impact at international, European, national, regional and local levels.

Type of action: Public procurement actions

Indicative opening: From Q1 2026

Indicative budget: EUR 4 million

EIC Data management and IT systems integration 215

The purpose of this action is to provide to the EIC the technical means to achieve the EIC Programme objectives.

This action covers the entire development lifecycle of the relevant IT tools and methodology including the development of user stories, functional and technical analysis, IT architecture and development of new functionalities, evolutive maintenance of existing IT components, cloud infrastructure architecture and provisioning, automatic/user testing of new features, IT helpdesk and user support while ensuring adequate IT project and team management, and ensuring security and IT governance compliance.

The focus in 2026 continues to build on the existing work done within the EIC and continues to ensure the evolutive maintenance of existing IT tools in support of the EIC, with the needed technical and usability improvements to the EIC IT system, and develop new functionalities and features in response to evolving business processes and user needs. The objective is to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the EIC operations complementing the EC Corporate IT Tools.

The focus will also be on harnessing the data and information coming from internal and third-party sources to enable data-driven/strategic decision-making and strategic intelligence for the proactive management of EIC activities and the efficient and effective delivery of services to EIC applicants, beneficiaries, and stakeholders.

Considering the above, the EIC IT developments will focus on the following key components:

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. AI development and implementation will be in accordance with the AI Act, European Commission's guidelines on AI and relevant corporate compliance rules.

Type of action: Public procurement action

Indicative budget: EUR 3.6 million

Indicative opening: From Q1 2026

Future-oriented strategic intelligence research to support EIC internal knowledge production and management

The purpose of this action is to extend the ongoing collaboration between EIC and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). The goal is to solidify and expand EIC internal capacity by combining the production and management of future-oriented knowledge with best-in-class data-driven and expert-based inputs.

This is centred on evidence-based support to operational activities such as the proactive management by EIC Programme Managers, support to the EIC Feedback to Policy (F2P) mandate, or support to EIC equity related activities. The main work streams are to:

Type of action: Administrative Agreement implying direct transfer of credits/budget to the JRC due to volume, complexity, and cost of services, including expert engagement

Indicative timetable: Q2 2026

Indicative budget: EUR 400 000

European innovation gender and diversity index

This action aims to build on the foundational work of the GENDEX Pilot Project (2023–2025) and the European Parliament’s Pilot Project on the Gender Gap in Investments, transforming them into a fully operational, data-driven, and stakeholder-ready Gender & Diversity Index. These pilots have established the basis for a European-wide framework to measure and address gender and diversity disparities—particularly in deep tech, venture capital, and start-up ecosystems.

While SHE Figures remains the Commission’s flagship monitoring tool for gender equality in R&I, this action complements it by addressing underexplored areas such as investment flows, start-up dynamics, and venture ecosystems, offering more practical and actionable insights for funders, investors, and innovators.

Objectives

Expected Deliverables

The contractor will:

Expected Impact

Type of Action: Public procurement

Indicative budget: EUR 700,000

Fees for the European Investment Bank for tasks related to the investment component of the EIC Accelerator

In line with Article 11(3) of Council Decision 2021/764/EU establishing the Specific Programme implementing Horizon Europe, the Commission has entrusted tasks related to the implementation and management of the investment component of the EIC Accelerator (which includes the EIC STEP Scale Up and reserve for follow on investments) to the European Investment Bank as the implementing partner for an indicative budget for investment amounts as shown in Annex 1.

The European Investment Bank will receive an annual fee for these tasks.

Type of Action: Contribution agreement

Indicative budget: EUR 1 million

Irish Presidency Conference

In light of the EU’s Choose Europe initiative, and the launch of its Startup and Scaleup Strategy in May 2025, the objective of this action is to support the organisation of a conference on the competitiveness and future direction of Europe’s startup and scaling ecosystem and how Europe can further enhance its ecosystem in a global context, including deeptech startups and scale ups. The conference will provide a timely opportunity for relevant stakeholders (e.g. founders, European and national policy makers, academia, investors, large corporates, innovation agencies, national and regional accelerators, amongst others) to assess the comparative progress being made by Europe to encourage stakeholders to Choose Europe and to advance its ecosystem based on the stated ambitions of the EIC and objectives of the Startup and Scaleup Strategy and the European Innovation Act. The conference will be organised by University College Dublin (UCD) in Q4 of 2026 during the Irish Presidency of the Council (July-December 2026).

Expected outcomes and impacts:

Type of Action: Coordination and Support Action (CSA)/Grant to a named beneficiary (as the implementation of this grant is linked to an Irish Presidency event in support of the EIC). It will be awarded to an identified beneficiary according to Article 24(3)(b) HE Regulation in conjunction with Article 198(e) of the Financial Regulation

Legal entities: University College Dublin

Indicative budget: EUR 300 000

Indicative Timeline: Q1 2026

Annexes

These Annexes set out the general conditions applicable to calls and topics for grants and other forms of funding under the EIC Work Programme 2026. They also describe the evaluation and award procedures and other criteria for Horizon Europe EIC funding.

If a call or topic deviates from the general conditions or includes additional conditions, this is explicitly stated for the call or topic in the main part of this EIC Work Programme.

Applicants are invited to read the call documentation on the topic page of the Funding & Tenders Portal (‘Portal’) carefully, and particularly these Annexes, the Horizon Europe Programme Guide , the Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual216 and the EU Grants AGA — Annotated Grant Agreement217 218. These documents provide clarifications and answers to questions on preparing the application.

Annex 1 Estimated Indicative Budget

Annex 2 General conditions

These general conditions are those applicable to calls and topics for grants and other forms of funding under the EIC Work Programme 2026. They also describe the evaluation and award procedures and other criteria for Horizon Europe EIC funding.

In particular, they outline:

If a call or topic deviates from the general conditions or includes additional conditions, this is explicitly stated for the call or topic in the main part of this EIC Work Programme.

Applicants are invited to read the call documentation on the topic page of the Funding & Tenders Portal (‘Portal’) carefully, and particularly these Annexes, the Horizon Europe Programme Guide , the Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual227 and the EU Grants AGA — Annotated Grant Agreement228 229. These documents provide clarifications and answers to questions on preparing the application.

Applications must be submitted before the call deadline.

Applications must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal electronic submission system (accessible via the topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.

Applications must be submitted using the forms provided inside the electronic submission system (not the templates available on the topic page, which are only for information). The structure and presentation must correspond to the instructions given in the forms.

Applications must be complete and contain all parts and mandatory Annexes and supporting documents. Applications must be readable, accessible and printable. Applications must include a plan for the exploitation and dissemination of results including communication activities, unless provided otherwise in the specific call/topic conditions.

Page limits

In addition to the above admissibility conditions, page limits will apply to parts of applications. The page limits, and sections subject to limits, will be clearly shown in the application templates in the Funding & Tenders Portal electronic submission system. Unless provided otherwise in the specific call/topic conditions, the limit for a full application is 45 pages (except for ‘Coordination and support’ actions, where the limit is 30 pages). For topics using lump sum funding, the limit for ‘Research and Innovation’ actions and ‘Innovation’ actions is 50 pages and the limit for ‘Coordination and support’ action is 33 pages. After the call deadline, excess pages will be automatically made invisible, and will not be taken into consideration by the evaluators.

Concurrent submissions

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 (including the EIC STEP Scale Up Call) before the evaluation feedback has been provided for the earlier submission. If a case of concurrent submission is identified, only the proposal submitted last (before the deadline) will be taken into consideration. Concurrent implementation occurs when the awardee of an ongoing EIC Accelerator/EIC Pilot/SME instrument grant project submits another full proposal with a grant component before the first project reaches its end date. 230

Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations 231) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation 232 have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call/topic. A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality 233.

Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register before submitting their application, in order to get a participant identification code (PIC) and be validated by the Central Validation Service before signing the grant agreement. For the validation, they will be asked to upload the necessary documents showing their legal status and origin during the grant preparation stage. A validated PIC is not a prerequisite for submitting an application. For more information, see Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment.

Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary 234 which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.

Associated partners — Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any specific call/topic conditions.

Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons 235.

EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.

Joint Research Centre (‘JRC’) — Where provided for in the specific call/topic conditions, applicants may include in their proposals the possible contribution of the JRC but the JRC will not participate in the preparation and submission of the proposal. Applicants will indicate the contribution that the JRC could bring to the project based on the scope of the topic text. After the evaluation process, the JRC and the consortium selected for funding may come to an agreement on the specific terms of the participation of the JRC. If an agreement is found, the JRC may accede to the grant agreement as beneficiary requesting zero funding or participate as an associated partner and would accede to the consortium as a member.

Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members (e.g. European research infrastructure consortia (ERICs)) may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’ 236. However, if the action is in practice implemented by the individual members, those members should also participate either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities (otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible).

Restrictions on participation in Innovation Actions, including the EIC Accelerator — In accordance with the 2019 “EU-China – A Strategic outlook” communication, the 2021 “Global Approach to Research and Innovation” communication, and the joint conclusions of the 4th EU-China Innovation Cooperation Dialogue of 2019, an exercise to develop a Joint Roadmap for the future of EU-China cooperation in science, technology, and innovation (Roadmap) has been established between the EU and China. As progress so far has mainly taken place on the framework conditions linked to research rather than on those related to innovation and taking into account the nature and objectives in particular of Innovation Actions, cooperation with entities established in China needs to be calibrated accordingly. Legal entities established in China are therefore not eligible to participate in Horizon Europe Innovation Actions, including the EIC Accelerator, in any capacity. Exceptions may be granted on a case-by-case basis for justified reasons.

Restrictions for the protection of European communication networks — The protection of European communication networks has been identified as an important security interest of the Union and its Member States. 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 Additional eligibility criteria may apply to actions identified as subject to restrictions for the protection of European communication networks (5G, post-5G and other technologies linked to the evolution of European communication networks).

Restrictions on participation or control — In line with Article 22(5) of the Horizon Europe Regulation, for actions related to EU strategic assets, interests, autonomy or security, the specific call/topic conditions may limit participation to legal entities established only in EU Member States or in EU Member States and specific associated or non-associated third countries.

EU restrictive measures — Entities subject to EU restrictive measures (EU Sanctions Map) 246 247 are not eligible to participate in any capacity. Applicants to the EIC Accelerator undertake that their Ultimate Beneficial Owners are not listed and, moreover, do not do business with customers, or make funds or economic resources available to, or for the benefit of (directly or indirectly) any natural or legal person designated under EU sanctions (Obligation of Result).

Special rules also apply to entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/05. 248

Legal entities established in Russia, Belarus, or in non-government-controlled territories of Ukraine — Given the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the involvement of Belarus, there is currently no appropriate context allowing the implementation of the actions foreseen in this programme with legal entities established in Russia, Belarus, or in non-government-controlled territories of Ukraine. With specific regard to measures addressed to Russia, following the adoption of the Council Regulation (EU) 2024/1745 of 24 June 2024 (amending Council Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 of 31 July 2014) concerning restrictive measures in view of Russia’s actions destabilising the situation in Ukraine, legal entities established outside Russia but whose proprietary rights are directly or indirectly owned for more than 50% by a legal person, entity or body established in Russia are also not eligible to participate in any capacity.

Measures for the protection of the Union budget against breaches of the principles of the rule of law in Hungary — Following the Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/2506, as of 16 December 2022, no legal commitments can be entered into with Hungarian public interest trusts established under the Hungarian Act IX of 2021 or any entity they maintain.

Restrictions on control in Accelerator grant-only actions – In line with Article 136 of the Financial Regulation 250, participation as a beneficiary 251 in Accelerator grant-only actions may, as an additional eligibility condition, be limited to legal entities which are not directly or indirectly controlled by a non-eligible third country or by a legal entity established in a non-eligible third country.

Entities eligible for funding (B.2.) — To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries: Member States of the European Union (including their outermost regions); Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States 252; countries associated to Horizon Europe – Pillar III 253 254 255; and the following low- and middle-income countries 256. Legal entities not listed may be eligible if provided for in the specific call/topic conditions, or if their participation is considered essential for implementing the action by the Agency.

Associated partners — Entities not eligible for funding (and therefore not able to participate as beneficiaries) may participate as associated partners, unless specified otherwise in the specific call/topic conditions. Coordination and Support Actions — To be eligible to participate as beneficiaries (or affiliated entities) in ‘Coordination and support’ actions, legal entities must be established in a Member State or Associated Country, unless the specific call/topic conditions provide otherwise.

International organisations — International European research organisations are eligible to receive funding. Other international organisations have specific conditions as per the call/topic text.

B.3 Single legal entity (‘Mono-beneficiary’) and consortium (‘multi-beneficiary’) composition — Applicants for mono-beneficiary actions must be established in a Member State or Associated Country. Proposals for multi-beneficiary actions must be submitted by a consortium including at least three independent legal entities, each established in a different country as follows: at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State; and at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.

B.4 Eligible activities — Eligible activities are the ones described in the call conditions. Applications will only be considered eligible if their content corresponds, wholly or in part, to the topic description for which it is submitted. Projects must focus exclusively on civil applications and must not aim at human cloning for reproductive purposes; intend to modify the genetic heritage of human beings which could make such changes heritable; or intend to create human embryos solely for the purpose of research or for the purpose of stem cell procurement.

Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) — Where the specific call/topic conditions require a Technology Readiness Level (TRL), the definitions set out in the Glossary apply, unless otherwise specified.

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. For more information, see How to complete your ethics self-assessment. Projects involving ethics issues will have to undergo an ethics review to authorise funding and may be made subject to specific ethics requirements.

Security — EU classified and sensitive information — Projects involving classified and/or sensitive information will have to go through the security appraisal process to authorise funding and may be made subject to specific security rules. See Commission Decision 2015/444 258 for rules on protecting EU-classified information.

Gender equality plans and gender mainstreaming — Relevant EIC Awardees must take all measures to promote equal opportunities between men and women in implementing the action and, where applicable, in line with their gender equality plan. Specific minimum requirements apply for certain entities.

Financial support to third parties — Where the specific call/topic conditions allow for financial support to third parties, the applicants must clearly describe objectives and expected results and comply with EU standards on transparency and openness of calls.

If admissible and eligible, the proposals for Coordination and Support Actions will be evaluated and ranked against the following award criteria: Excellence; Impact; Quality and efficiency of the implementation.

Scores and weighting — For Coordination and Support Actions full applications, each criterion will be scored out of 5. The threshold for individual criteria will be 3. The overall threshold, applying to the sum of the three individual scores, will be 10. All scores will be given a weight of 1. Proposals that pass the individual threshold AND the overall threshold will be considered for funding, within the limits of the available call budget.

Two-stage calls — Where applicable, this is detailed in the main part of this Work Programme, under the relevant sections.

All proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funders & Tenders Portal electronic submission system (accessible via the topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.

Proposals must be complete and contain all parts and mandatory annexes and supporting documents. The application form will have two parts:

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). Proposals should be designed to stay as close as possible to the award criteria. When submitting the proposal, the coordinator will have to confirm mandate and correctness, and that all participants comply with the conditions for receiving EU funding.

For lump sum grant proposals, the estimated budget must be described in a detailed budget table and comply with eligibility conditions for EU actual cost grants (see AGA — Annotated Grant Agreement, Article 6). Applicants may be asked at a later stage for further documents (for legal entity validation, financial capacity check, bank account validation, etc.).

Proposals will be checked for formal requirements (admissibility and eligibility) and then evaluated (for each topic separately) for operational capacity and award criteria by an evaluation committee composed of independent external experts and then ranked according to their quality score. Exceptionally, where indicated in the specific call/topic conditions, the evaluation committee may be composed partially or fully of representatives of EU institutions.

For proposals with the same score within a single budget envelope, a priority order method will apply, considering coverage of call aspects, scores on Excellence and Impact (with specific order for Innovation actions), gender balance, geographical diversity, and other factors related to the objectives of the call/Horizon Europe.

At the end of the evaluation, all applicants will be informed of the result in an evaluation result letter. Invitation to grant preparation does not constitute a formal commitment to funding; legal checks still apply. If indicated, proposals may also receive a Seal of Excellence and/or a Sovereignty (STEP) Seal263 . Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) — where provided for, positively assessed proposals may be awarded a ‘STEP Seal’264 if the project contributes to STEP objectives. 265

Budget flexibility — The budgets set out in the calls and topics are indicative. Unless otherwise stated, final budgets may change following evaluation. The final figures may change by up to 20% compared to the total budget indicated in each individual part of the work programme. 219

Evaluation review procedure — If the consortium believes that the evaluation procedure was flawed, the coordinator can submit a complaint following the deadlines and procedures set out in the evaluation result letter. Only procedural aspects may be reviewed.

Indicative timetable for evaluation and for signature of the grant agreement — Information on the outcome of the evaluation: around 5 months from the deadline for submission; indicative date for the signing of grant agreements: around 8 months from the deadline for submission.

Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) 265

If provided for in the specific call/topic conditions, proposals that have been assessed positively and comply with the minimum quality requirements (including eligibility, exclusion, and award criteria) may be awarded a STEP Seal, if the project contributes to any of the STEP objectives. Information about the project will be, upon agreement, displayed in the STEP Portal with the aim of enhancing the visibility of the project, which may help it attract public or private funding by certifying its quality and contribution to the STEP objectives.

Budget flexibility — The budgets set out in the calls and topics are indicative. Unless otherwise stated, final budgets may change following evaluation. The final figures may change by up to 20% compared to the total budget indicated in each individual part of the work programme. Changes within these limits will not be considered substantial within the meaning of Article 110(5) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No Regulation 2024/2509.

Evaluation review procedure

If the consortium believes that the evaluation procedure was flawed, the coordinator can submit a complaint (following the deadlines and procedures also set out in the evaluation result letter). Only the procedural aspects of an evaluation may be the subject of a request for an evaluation review. The evaluation of the merits of a proposal will not be the subject of an evaluation review.

A request for an evaluation review must relate to a specific proposal and must be submitted within 30 days after the beneficiary accesses the evaluation results. The deadlines will be counted from the date of opening/access. The maximum size limit of the request is 7 000 characters.

Notifications of evaluation results which have not been opened in the Funding & Tenders Portal within 10 days after sending are considered to have been accessed (see also Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions). An evaluation review committee will provide an opinion on the procedural aspects of the evaluation.

The evaluation review committee may recommend a re-evaluation of the proposal, to be carried out primarily by evaluators who were not involved in the previous evaluation, or a confirmation of the initial evaluation.

Indicative timetable for evaluation and for signature of the grant agreement

Unless otherwise stated in the specific call/topic conditions, the timing for evaluation and grant preparation is as follows:

LEGAL AND FINANCIAL SET-UP OF THE GRANT AGREEMENTS

During the grant preparation stage, the applicant will be asked to prepare the grant agreement, together with the Agency project officer. This grant agreement will set out the framework for the grant and its terms and conditions, particularly concerning deliverables, reporting and payments.

The applicable model with the complete text of the provisions is available on the topic page, together with the other call documentation.

Starting date & project duration

The project starting date and duration will be fixed in the grant agreement (see Data Sheet, point 1). Normally, the starting date will be after the grant has been signed. A starting date before the date the grant is signed (retroactive) can be granted exceptionally for duly justified reasons. 266

The project duration is provided in months. Extensions will be possible only exceptionally, for duly justified reasons and if the Agency agrees.

Milestones and deliverables

The milestones and deliverables for each project will be managed through the grant management system in the Portal and are reflected in Annex 1 of the grant agreement. The standard deliverables will be set out in the specific call/topic conditions.

Form of grant, funding rate and maximum grant amount

The grant parameters (maximum grant amount, funding rate, total eligible costs, etc.) will be fixed in the grant agreement (Data Sheet, point 3 and Article 5). The project budget is provided in EUR. The amount of the grant awarded may be lower than the amount requested.

For actual cost grants, the grant will be a budget-based, mixed actual cost grant. This means that it will reimburse ONLY certain types of costs (eligible costs) and ONLY those costs actually incurred for the project (NOT the budgeted costs). The costs will be reimbursed at the funding rate fixed in the specific call/topic conditions and in the grant agreement.

Such grants may NOT produce a profit. If there is a profit (i.e. surplus of revenues + EU grant over costs), it will be deducted from the final grant amount. Moreover, the final grant amount may be reduced in case of non-compliance (e.g. improper implementation, breach of obligations, etc.).

The relevant maximum Horizon Europe funding rates are as follows:

Other funding rates may be set out in the specific call/topic conditions. For lump sum and unit grants, the funding rate is already applied as part of the methodology for fixing the amounts and is therefore not shown in the grant agreement.

Budget categories and cost eligibility rules

The budget categories and cost eligibility rules are fixed in the grant agreement (see Data Sheet, point 3 and Article 6). Budget categories:

Actual costs (i.e. costs which are real and not estimated or budgeted) for:

Units (i.e. an amount per unit) for:

Flat-rate (i.e. costs calculated by applying a percentage fixed in advance to other types of eligible costs) for:

Lump sum (i.e. a global amount deemed to cover all costs of the action or a specific category of costs, if provided for in the specific call/topic conditions). Within a grant, different forms of costs can be used. Costs can also be declared under several EU Synergy grants, if the cumulative funding under the grants does not exceed 100% of the eligible costs and the contributions declared to them.

Reporting & payment arrangements

The reporting and payment arrangements are fixed in the grant agreement (Data Sheet, point 4 and Articles 21 and 22). After the grant has been signed, the consortium will normally receive a float to start working on the project (normally, pre-financing of 160% of the average EU funding per reporting period; exceptionally, less or no pre-financing).

For actions with only one reporting period, it will be less, since 100% would mean the totality of the grant amount. Payments will be automatically lowered if one of the consortium members has outstanding debts towards the EU (granting authority or other EU bodies). Such debts will be offset by the Agency, in line with the conditions set out in the grant agreement (see Article 22).

At the moment of the prefinancing payment, an amount ranging from 5% to 8% of the maximum grant amount will be deducted from the prefinancing payment and transferred to the mutual insurance mechanism. This mechanism covers the risks associated with non-recovery of sums due from the beneficiaries.

There will be one or several interim payments linked to a periodic report, depending on the duration of the project. At the end of the project, the consortium will be invited to submit a report on the basis of which the final grant amount will be calculated.

If the total of earlier payments is higher than the final grant amount, the beneficiaries concerned (or the coordinator) will be asked to pay back the difference (recovery).

Certificates

Depending on the size of the grant amount and on the type of beneficiaries, beneficiaries may be required to submit a certificate on the financial statements. The thresholds for this certificate are fixed in the grant agreement (Data Sheet, point 4 and Article 24).

Liability regime for recoveries

The liability regime for recoveries is that of individual financial responsibility. Each beneficiary is liable only for their own debt (and those of its affiliated entities, if any) (Data Sheet point 4.4 and Article 22).

Provisions concerning project implementation

In addition to the standard provisions, the following specific provisions in the model grant agreement will apply to all grants awarded under this work programme:

Additional exploitation obligations in case of a public emergency: If requested by the Agency, beneficiaries must grant non-exclusive licences to their results – for a limited period of time specified in the request and on fair and reasonable conditions – to legal entities that need the results to address the public emergency. These legal entities must commit to rapidly and broadly exploiting the resulting products and services on fair and reasonable conditions. This provision will apply up to 4 years after the end of the action

Additional information obligation relating to standards: Unless stated otherwise in the specific call conditions, beneficiaries must, up to 4 years after the end of the action, inform the Agency if the results could reasonably be expected to contribute to European or international standards

Please also see Annex 6 of this Work Programme. Where provided for in the specific call conditions, the Agency may, up to 4 years after the end of the action, object to a transfer of ownership or to the exclusive licensing of results, as set out in the specific provision of Annex 5.

Communication, dissemination, open science and visibility (Article 17 and Annex 5)

In addition to the standard provisions, the following specific provisions in the model grant agreement will apply to all grants awarded under this work programme:

Open science - additional practices, validation of scientific publications: Beneficiaries must provide (digital or physical) access to data or other results needed to validate 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)

Open science - additional practices, public emergency: In case of a public emergency, if requested by the granting authority, beneficiaries 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 beneficiaries’ legitimate interests, the beneficiaries must grant non-exclusive licences, on fair and reasonable conditions, to legal entities that need the research output to address the public emergency. These legal entities must commit to rapidly and broadly exploiting the resulting products and services on fair and reasonable conditions.

This exception is limited to 4 years after the end of the action.

Specific rules for carrying out the action (Article 18 and Annex 5)

Other provisions may be set out in the specific call/topic conditions.

Non-compliance and breach of contract

The grant agreement (Chapter 5) provides for the measures that may be taken in case of breach of contract (and other violations of law). For more information, see the Annotated Grant Agreement (AGA).

APPLICANT AGREEMENT REQUIREMENTS

This annex consolidates all requirements regarding agreement by applicants referenced throughout this Work Programme. The objective is to ensure transparency for applicants and facilitate data handling processes for the Agency.

All data will be processed in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 (the EU Data Protection Regulation) and other applicable legal frameworks, and all data are considered strictly confidential. Confidentiality and data protection obligations apply at all stages of the evaluation, support, and implementation processes.

Types of data concerned (non-exhaustive)

The data subject to agreement-based sharing may include (non-exhaustively):

Note: The provisions in this annex do not override or modify any applicable confidentiality obligations established elsewhere in this Work Programme or its Annexes

Annex 3 Fast Track scheme to apply for the EIC Accelerator

The ‘Fast Track’ scheme is a specific process applicable to the EIC Accelerator. It provides for a specific treatment of proposals 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 (Section V). Instead, a project review is carried out by the responsible granting authority or national funding body to assess the innovation or market deployment potential of an existing project, and to decide whether the project is suitable for support under the EIC Accelerator.

The project review – implemented by the granting authority or national funding body responsible for the programme – must be conducted using:

The responsible granting authority or national funding body can submit the outcome of the projects review to the EIC Accelerator, if the project review concludes that the following conditions are met:

Fast Track applicants will then be invited to prepare a full proposal for the EIC Accelerator following the notification about the successful result of the initial review. The Fast Track Accelerator applicants will be submitted to the same submission limitations that apply to the EIC Accelerator.

They will receive coaching as specified in Section V. Full proposals to the EIC Accelerator stemming from the Fast Track scheme will be assessed as set out in Section V, and will be treated in exactly the same way as all other full proposals.

In 2026, the national funding bodies, schemes, projects and beneficiaries which are eligible for the Fast Track for EIC Accelerator are:

These national 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, the scheme 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 is being implemented by the relevant funding bodies.

Annex 4 EIC Plug-in scheme for the EIC Accelerator

Following the evaluation of the EIC Plug-in pilot scheme from 2022-24, the objectives for the EIC Plug-In scheme are:

The EIC Plug-In scheme aims to support collaboration between national or regional funding bodies providing grants or/and equity to deep tech startups, in particular around the review and evaluation of suitable projects and companies for EIC Accelerator. The aim is to strengthen the capability of the funding bodies to identify and support promising deep tech projects and companies that could benefit from EIC Accelerator support.

Eligible funding bodies will be able to propose a limited number of companies from national and regional programmes, for direct access to the full proposal stage of the EIC Accelerator. The companies should be selected based on criteria equivalent to the criteria for EIC Accelerator short application (Section V) and through a process that guarantees an independent assessment of proposals.

The eligible funding bodies, programmes and project review processes will be certified by the Commission with the support of external experts. The list of responsible national and regional funding bodies from Member State and Associated Country that have certified programmes will be published on the EIC website.

The selected projects and companies will have the same access to EIC coaching as proposals selected in the EIC Accelerator short application phase. Full proposals stemming from the Plug-in partnership will be assessed as set out in Section V and will be treated exactly the same way as all other full proposals. The number of proposals that can be given access for the Plug-In will be limited at the level of the Member State and Associated Countries.

The Commission may withdraw the certification, if it finds out that:

A Member State or Associated Country may decide not to implement the Plug-in scheme or to introduce it at a later stage.

Annex 5 Booster grants for EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition Awardees

In line with Article 47(2) of the Horizon Europe Regulation, with the aim to implement Portfolio coordinating activities or to nurture innovation out of these, Booster grants of a fixed amount not exceeding EUR 50 000 may be awarded outside any call for proposal to EIC Awardees, Technology Transfer Offices, EIC Inventors and other third parties linked to projects already selected under the Pathfinder or where relevant Transition calls (EIC Pathfinder projects including grants resulting from certain EIC pilot Pathfinder, FET-Open and FET-Proactive calls, see Section III and of EIC Transition projects).

Additionally, and for the purpose of further assessing innovation potentialities and exploring potential pathways to commercialisation out of these projects' results (preliminary or final), applicants may also be EIC Awardees, Technology Transfer Offices, EIC Inventors and other third parties provided with the necessary access rights or entrusted with any such task by the concerned awardee.

Booster grants may in particular support the development of potential innovation stemming from the future EIC Market Place. Complementary activities to explore potential pathways to commercialisation (Innovation activities) could include, but are not limited to:

Portfolio activities could include, but are not limited to:

These Booster grants do not fund research, or activities that were already foreseen in the original project or that are already funded by other EIC instruments. A maximum of three Booster grants can be awarded for each EIC Pathfinder project and more than three may be awarded in exceptional and duly justified cases. 269

A maximum of one Booster grant can be awarded for each EIC Transition project and more than one may be awarded in exceptional and duly justified cases. Any such Booster grant can be awarded to an individual EIC awardee or a group of EIC Awardees.

EIC Awardees or other potential booster grant beneficiary as indicated above can be invited to apply at any time for a Booster grant following a positive recommendation from an EIC Programme Manager or a project review or a participation in the EIC Tech2Market BAS action, in particular Business Validation Programme and/or Venture Building Action (Opportunities exploration phase or Team creation).

Each proposal will be assessed in accordance with Article 29, paragraph 2, of Horizon Europe Regulation taking into account the following considerations (award criteria): For activities to explore potential pathways to commercialisation:

For portfolio activities:

Each proposal will be evaluated by a mixed evaluation committee composed of:

The evaluation committee will assess whether the proposal meets each of the award criteria and will give a GO or NO GO. Proposals receiving at least two GO will be selected. Proposals not receiving at least two GO will be rejected. The evaluation committee may invite a rejected applicant to resubmit an adjusted proposal.

The implementation of Booster grants for Innovation activities will be performed by the CSA beneficiary selected under the call for proposals HORIZON-EIC-2024-BOOSTER.

Annex 6 Additional provisions concerning Intellectual Property for EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition

In accordance with the Horizon Europe Regulation, 270 the current Work Programme provides for additional dissemination and exploitation obligations in particular to facilitate the exploitation of results, and to enable a more pro-active role to the Commission and EISMEA identifying and maximising exploitation opportunities in the Union.

Together with specific intellectual property rules provided for under Annex 5 of the Model Grant Agreement, the following rules will apply to EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition actions.

Definitions

The following definition is complementing those provided in the Glossary in the introductory section of this Work Programme for the purpose of this Annex. With reference to information and results owned by any EIC Awardee that is a not-for-profit legal entity, EIC Inventors are any of their employees and subcontractors, established in a Member State or Associated Country, and appearing or entitled to appear as inventor in any corresponding patent filing and according to the definition of inventor for the relevant patent jurisdiction.

Exchange of information for the purpose of EIC portfolio activities

Access to information about results 282

At any time and without prejudice to the EIC Awardee’s ownership of results, the EIC Programme Manager may request any EIC Awardee to facilitate information on results (preliminary or final) generated by the action, subject to paragraphs b) and c) below, with the aim to probe their potential for further innovation.

Where any such result (preliminary or final) 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 Agency as confidential and disseminated only to:

Where based on that confidential information any of the above-mentioned entities request disclosure or access to the underlying detailed data and results, the EIC Awardee 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.

EIC Awardees may object to the obligation provided for under paragraph b) when: committing to either publish or patent or protect by any other intellectual property right without unreasonable delays, or demonstrating concrete exploitation of the said preliminary findings and results, subject to initial discussion with and final agreement of the Agency on the corresponding update of the Plan for dissemination and exploitation referred to in Section 3.1.

Non-disclosure obligations

Where EIC Awardees are informed on or given access or disclosure to any preliminary findings, results or other intellectual property generated by other EIC actions, and where this information is earmarked as confidential in accordance with section 2.1.b, they must:

These EIC Awardees may disclose any such information to their employees and, with the prior authorisation of the owner, to their subcontractors established in a Member State or an Associated Country if these subcontractors need to access it for the performance of their work with respect to the permitted purpose and are bound by a written agreement or professional obligation to protect its confidentiality in the way described in this section.

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

The restrictions in this section do not apply if 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 Awardee on any recognised stock exchange.

Upon the end or termination of the grant agreement or of the participation of the EIC Awardee, it must immediately cease to use the said information, except if otherwise directly agreed with the owner, or if the EIC Awardee remains a member of the EIC Community referred to under section 2.1.b. The provisions of this section will be in force for a period of 60 months following the end or the termination of the grant agreement or of the participation of the EIC Awardee, at the end of which period they will cease to have effect.

Specific provisions on intellectual property and related dissemination and exploitation activities

Plan for exploitation and dissemination

EIC Awardees must report to the Agency on their exploitation and dissemination activities in accordance with the grant agreement, together with any updated version of the plan for exploitation and dissemination, and within 30 days upon request from the EIC Programme Manager for the purpose of EIC portfolio activities.

The Agency may also request an update of the plan for exploitation and dissemination of the results at any time during the implementation of the action. EIC Awardees 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.

EIC Awardees must also identify therein any pre-existing technology fitting the action’s needs and objectives and try to reach appropriate licensing agreements between them to prevent research funding redundancy. The EIC Awardees are deemed to have signed the Consortium Agreement at the date of the signature of the grant agreement. The Agency may require a copy at any time in accordance with the grant agreement.

Dissemination activities

Each EIC Awardee will propose and undertake dissemination activities of the plan for exploitation and dissemination agreed by the Agency with the aim of supporting innovation in the European Union and fostering the development of the EIC Community, opting for publications as the main route to bring technical and scientific knowledge to the public.

When approving the plan for exploitation and dissemination of the results or any update, the Agency may subject any proposed dissemination activity to one or a combination of the following conditions:

Where the Agency disagrees to a dissemination activity, it will actively assist the EIC Awardees to achieve compliance with the required conditions, without unreasonable delay and in due time, notably by proposing complementary EIC support for exploitation or support of the Business Acceleration Services, as detailed and referred to under section VII. Where the Agency agrees to a dissemination activity, it will abide by the grant agreement.

The Agency is hereby entrusted with the right to also disseminate and promote the exploitation of any results that are made public by the EIC Awardee or with its assent.

Exploitation of results

EIC Awardees must use their best efforts to exploit their results or have them exploited by a third party, in priority those established in a Member State or an Associated Country, including through transfer or licensing. The Agency may object to a transfer of ownership or the exclusive licensing of results under certain conditions as detailed in the EIC grant agreement.

EIC Awardees must report on any exploitation operation: at the reporting periods provided for in the grant agreement; with the periodicity agreed at the end of the action together with the final exploitation and dissemination plan; and within 30 days upon request from the Agency, within 4 years after final payment.

Each EIC Awardee agrees upon signature of the grant agreement to ensure the necessary support or access rights for the further development and exploitation of results that any of its EIC Inventors have contributed to (respecting the transfer rule).

If the EIC Awardee provides financial or other support to the EIC Inventor for any such exploitation, royalties or other returns may be shared with the EIC Awardee on mutually beneficial terms, provided the conclusion of any such agreement does not prevent the EIC Inventor(s) from exercising their rights.

Such financial support should include as a minimum the full or partial funding of the costs of relevant intellectual property right protection in major jurisdictions. Other support includes expertise, access to infrastructure and facilities, or other forms of support. The royalties and other returns to the EIC Awardee should be fair and proportionate to the financial and other support provided.

If the EIC Awardee does not commit to provide support within a maximum period of 6 months from the date of the first formal request from the EIC Inventor, or that support is manifestly inadequate, then the EIC Awardee must entrust sufficient access rights to allow the EIC Inventor to further develop and exploit the result. If the EIC Awardee does not provide support for exploitation, then by default the access rights to the EIC Inventor are royalty-free.

The EIC Inventor must inform the EIC Awardee in due time before any exploitation activity they intend to undertake, and report to the EIC Awardee on the implementation of the exploitation activity.

If the EIC Awardee considers that the exploitation activity could negatively affect its own exploitation activities: in the absence of any approved exploitation and dissemination plan, the EIC Awardee may request to the Agency the suspension of the access rights of a given EIC Inventor, by demonstrating that their use negatively puts at stake their future strategy or ongoing valorisation activities.

Where an exploitation and dissemination plan has been approved, the EIC Awardee may directly suspend the access rights of a given EIC Inventor if this would negatively affect the implementation of the said approved plan. The EIC Inventor may request the Agency to lift that suspension by demonstrating that the exercise of the access rights does not affect the said plan.

Failure to exploit or disseminate

The Agency is entrusted with the right to disseminate and promote the exploitation of results that have not been made public through dissemination activities or patent or protection by any other IPR, where the EIC Awardee owning it:

Where the EIC Awardee continues to oppose the dissemination by the Agency or refuses to provide any data or document necessary for the said dissemination, the Agency may impose penalties in accordance with the grant agreement.