Following an analysis of its funding schemes, the EIC Board has recently published recommendations for urgent actions that will help to double the participation of the so-called ‘widening countries‘ to a share of at least 15% of funding across all EIC schemes (from the current level of just over 7%).
In its statement, the EIC Board acknowledged that several important steps have already been taken to increase the participation of innovators from the relevant countries, including providing dedicated funding to National Contact Points and the Enterprise Europe Network to build capacity and support applicants, as well as introducing the “Hop On” scheme that funds additional partners from widening countries that want to join existing EIC Pathfinder projects among others.
However, with five core issues significantly affecting the participation of widening countries in the EIC, the EIC Board believes that further steps are necessary to double the current participation levels and makes a number of recommendations for key actions, which are divided into six areas:
- Identify
- Structural Funds
- Inform
- Train
- Fair
- Impact
Among others, these actions include identifying high-potential companies in all widening countries and keeping them informed about the upcoming EIC funding opportunities, ensuring that the EU executive agency implementing the EIC (EISMEA) provides suitable online training materials to help applicants apply for funding and introducing a new requirement for the EIC evaluation panels to have at least 30% of experts from widening countries.
Further information about the EIC and its funding streams, as well as the ‘Widening Participation’ part of Horizon Europe, is included in UKRO’s dedicated factsheets (links in the ‘Related content section’).