The Commission has adopted and published the next annual Work Programme for European Innovation Council (EIC), which includes funding opportunities worth over €1.4 billion for strategic technologies and scaling up companies.
EIC Funding in 2025
The EIC Work Programme for 2025 includes information about the funding available under four main schemes:
- EIC Pathfinder (€262 million) for multi-disciplinary research teams to undertake visionary research with the potential to lead to technology breakthroughs (grants up to €4 million).
- EIC Transition (€98 million) to turn research results into innovation opportunities, following up on results generated by EIC Pathfinder projects, European Research Council Proof of Concept projects and open to project results from Horizon collaborative projects from Pillar 2/ societal challenges (grants up to €2.5 million).
- EIC Accelerator (€634 million) for start-ups and SMEs to develop and scale up innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones (grants below €2.5 million, investments from €0.5 to €10 million).
- The EIC Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Scale Up (€300 million), to provide additional equity funding to promising companies (SMEs, start-ups, spin-offs and small mid-caps) driving innovation in critical areas to help them secure larger private co-investment for further scaling their businesses (investments from €10 to €30 million).
Key Updates
In addition to the new STEP Scale up scheme, the 2025 EIC Work Programme includes:
- An updated set of ‘EIC Challenges’. This includes €120 million for emerging technologies including autonomous construction robots , climate resilient crops and converting waste to input materials and medical diagnosis and €250 million for earlier stage companies in specific target technologies including generative AI, new space, agri tech and future mobility solutions.
- Increasing access to Business Acceleration Services for emerging companies from ‘widening countries’.
- Seals of Excellence awards under the Transition and Accelerator calls, and the new STEP Seal under the STEP Scale up and Accelerator Challenge calls. These Seals aim to facilitate access to complementary and alternative funding sources such as Cohesion Policy Funds as well as to the EIC Business Acceleration Services.
Other updates of the 2025 Work Programme are outlined on page 9 of the document.
Information Days
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5 November 2024: European Innovation Council Online Info Day
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6 November 2024: European Innovation Council Accelerator Challenges Info Day