EIC to launch €300M call to scale up strategic technologies

The European Innovation Council (EIC) plans to invest up to €300 million in strategic technologies next year, in a major push to fill the market gap in financing European deep tech scale-ups, according to a draft of its 2025 work programme obtained by Science|Business.

SMEs and small mid-caps could get between €10 million and €30 million in equity investments - double the current EIC cap of €15 million - to accelerate the development and market launch of their product or service. The maximum investment in the rest of the EIC Accelerator programme will be reduced from €15 million to €10 million.

The planned pilot action follows the adoption earlier this year of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP), which aims to channel funding from existing EU programmes towards critical technologies in the digital, deep tech, cleantech and biotech sectors.

It’s a major change for the EIC, but more modest than initially hoped. After negotiations with member states, STEP’s budget was reduced from €10 billion to €1.5 billion, and will instead mostly redirect existing funds. The Commission’s original plans would have allowed the EIC to make investments of up to €50 million, the director general for research and innovation Marc Lemaître said.

The EIC call will be open to companies of up to 499 employees in EU member states or associated countries, developing innovations with significant economic potential or which can contribute to reducing the EU’s strategic dependencies.

“This investment is designed to catalyse major funding rounds, in the range of €50 million to €150 million, and at least 3-5 times the EIC investment,” the draft document says.

This means applicants must show there is market interest with a pre-commitment from a qualified lead investor, who is not an existing investor in the company, for at least 20% of the targeted funding round.

Applications will be possible on a rolling basis via the Funding and Tenders Portal, and unsuccessful projects may be a awarded a Sovereignty Seal to facilitate access to other EU programmes and to private investment.

The call falls under the EIC Accelerator programme which supports companies looking to develop and scale up innovations with grants and equity. Although the STEP scale up call will initially be a pilot scheme, the budget is expected to total €900 million for 2025-2027.

Overall, the EIC’s spending plans include €262 million for the EIC Pathfinder programme for breakthrough research, €98 million for EIC Transition grants for the maturation and validation of novel technologies, and €634 million for the EIC Accelerator, not including the STEP call.

The draft work programme is dated July 2024, meaning calls, budgets and deadlines could still change before the document is finalised.

EIC Pathfinder

The Pathfinder programme for low technology readiness levels is set to include a €142 million open call for technologies in any field, with successful projects receiving up to €3 million each in most cases. The deadline for submitting proposals is 11 March 2025.

The Pathfinder also includes challenges addressing pre-defined priorities in strategic areas. The total budget for these calls is €120 million, with expected funding of up to €4 million per project. The challenge deadline is 14 October 2025. The challenges included in the draft are:

• Biotech for climate resilient crops and plant-based biomanufacturing
• Generative-AI based agents to revolutionise medical diagnosis and treatment of cancer
• Towards autonomous robot collectives delivering collaborative tasks in dynamic unstructured construction environments
• Waste-to-value devices: circular production of renewable fuels, chemicals and materials

EIC Transition

Transition funds are entirely allocated through an open call for projects that build on proof of concept or technology validated in the lab in a previous project.

These prior results must have been achieved through an EIC Pathfinder project, a European Research Council proof of concept project, a European Defence Fund project, or Horizon Europe Pillar II or Horizon 2020 societal challenges and industrial technologies R&I actions.

EIC will usually consider proposals for grants between €500,000 and €2.5 million, although larger amounts may be granted in exceptional cases. The deadline for submitting proposals will be 17 September 2025.

EIC Accelerator

The Accelerator programme supports the later stages of technology development and scale up of deep tech innovations requiring significant funding over a long period of time.

There will be an open call with a budget of €384 million, and an additional €250 million split evenly across five challenges:

• Acceleration of advanced materials development and upscaling along the value chain
• Biotechnology driven low emission food and feed production systems
• GenAI4EU: Creating European Champions in Generative AI
• Innovative in-space servicing, operations, space-based robotics and technologies for resilient EU space infrastructure
• Breakthrough innovations for future mobility

The Accelerator is unique within the EIC as it provides grants and equity, as well as blended finance with both grant and investment components.

The investment component, which finances market deployment and scale up, can reach €10 million and is meant to fill the funding gap for high-risk innovations until they can attract private investors. Grants fund innovation activities and will cover up to 70% of eligible costs, up to €2.5 million.

Applicants must submit a short proposal, and if successful, will be invited to prepare a full proposal with access to support from EIC business coaches to develop their business plan.

Short proposals can be submitted at any time, with cut-offs for long proposals on 12 March and 1 October, though applicants who are successful with short proposals in 2025 can also apply under the 2026 work programme.

A budget will also be set aside for follow on investments to companies selected under previous EIC work programmes.

The draft work programme also includes details of EIC business acceleration services such as support to access new global markets and to close deals with corporates. EIC will continue to run prizes including the European Prize for Women Innovators and the European Capital of Innovation Awards.

In 2025, start-ups from Widening countries – the 15 EU member states and 14 associated countries with less advanced R&I systems – will have access to a €20 million pilot EIC Pre-Accelerator, according to draft plans. The initiative would support early-stage startups to develop their technology and business case to a level where they can attract EIC Accelerator or other funding.

EIC will present its 2025 work programme during an online information day on 5 November.

Science|Business is making the full history of the drafting process publicly available in our Horizon Papers database. We think it is important to maintain a public record of how the programme evolves in successive rounds of drafting between the Commission and member states. It is a political process – which, so far, the Commission refuses to make transparent. You can share anonymously other draft work programmes at [email protected].

Editor’s note: This article was updated 30 October 2024. The Commission has now officially adopted and published the EIC work programme for 2025, confirming the spending plans reported above. The only major changes in the final work programme compared to the draft relate to the EIC Pathfinder application deadlines. The deadlines are now 21 May 2025 for the open call, and 29 October 2025 for the challenges.