News

Since the opening of the EIC Accelerator funding on 9 April, over 2000 start-ups and SMEs submitted short applications on a continuous basis, and 801 of these progressed to submit a full application for funding for the 16 June cut-off of the EIC Accelerator scheme. This is the first cut-off for full applications, and shows a strong demand for EIC funding with a total financial request of €4.85 billion, of which €3.2 billion for equity investment. The very large majority of the applicants (663) requested blended finance (grant combined with equity investment), while 138 asked for grants without equity. 375 companies applied for the…

The European Commission has announced the second round of direct equity investment through the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund. Since its launch in 2020, the EIC Fund has now approved 111 investments in highly innovative start-ups and small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) totalling more than €500 million to scale up breakthrough innovations in areas such as health, circular economy, and Internet of Things (IoT). The announcement represents 69 new investments compared to the first announcement in January This provides a strong foundation for the EIC fund under Horizon Europe, which is expected to invest more than €3.5 billion over the next…

The H2020 INNOSUP funded PITCCH project is a recently established Pan-European open Innovation Network that aims to build structured collaborations between big corporations (BCs) and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) leading to the acceleration of innovative solutions based on advanced technologies: https://ec.europa.eu/easme/en/news/pitcch-first-corporate-challenges-advanced-

The fully-fledged European Innovation Council will be launched on 18 March as a key novelty of Horizon Europe.  To mark the publication of the Work Programme and the first calls, the Commission is organising a two-day event:  – On 18 March, the launch ceremony will include statements from Heads of States and European institutions as well as three short thematic sessions on the contribution of the EIC to Europe’s economic recovery with key players from the start-up and research communities as well as VCs.  – On 19 March, the applicant’s day will provide concrete information on how the EIC works, how to apply, who…

The European Commission has announced today the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between the European Innovation Council (EIC) and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) to reinforce their cooperation to support the best European entrepreneurs. This will enable innovators, innovative SMEs and start-ups, higher education institutions and research organisations to receive quality support services to deploy and scale up innovations faster and with greater impact. Full article available here

A challenge-driven approach, high impact projects, and visionary Programme Managers are vital if the wealth of research results on emerging technologies produced in Europe are to have impact, according to a high-level expert report published today. The report’s recommendations will feed into the implementation of the EIC, due to be launched in early 2021 under the Horizon Europe programme. The experts drew on a broad range of international experience, including from the US DARPA and ARPA-E agencies. The report focuses its recommendation in three overall areas with the objective of achieving maximum impact of EU funding through the EIC: Programme…

The Deep Tech Europe Report reports the results and impacts of the EIC Pilot (2018-2020) : the impact of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Pilot documents projects supporting Sustainable Development Goals (over 90 percent), the amount of follow up investments in EIC supported companies (€5.3 billion) and progress in supporting female innovators. “Human centric AI, quantum computing, medical imaging and in many other areas”, the EIC is unique in supporting both breakthrough research (the EIC Pathfinder) and the scale up of innovative startups and SMEs (the EIC Accelerator). Now EIC is moving from the pilot to the full operational phase…

Generating a toolbox to support research based business from scratch may have two main problems: On one side, trying to re-invent the wheel as research based business is not a new concept and there are already many tools available to support entrepreneurship to conceptualize businesses. On the other, developing something which users may not need because it is either too complex or simple, or either because it is useful for something they do not really need to do. To avoid these two issues, the ACCESS2EIC project defined a structured dialog with the FET community, both NCPs and potential applicants and…

European Research and Innovation Days is the European Commission’s annual flagship Research and Innovation event, bringing together policymakers, researchers, entrepreneurs and the public to debate and shape the future of research and innovation in Europe and beyond. This year, it is a fully virtual event. By creating connections between cutting-edge scientific research and the most pressing challenges of a generation, the European Research and Innovation Days represent a unique opportunity to join the conversation and enact real change. The event is all about collaboration: bringing together individuals and experts from all areas to build connections and ignite a brighter future….

The Commission is inviting applications with a view to selecting members of the Technical Expert Stakeholder Group on SMEs (TESG). Broadening access to market-based sources of financing for European companies at each stage of their development is at the heart of the capital markets union (CMU). To do so, the CMU initiative has strived to create a more conducive regulatory framework supporting access to public funding for Small and Mid-sized Enterprises (SMEs). In January 2018, the concept of SME growth markets was introduced by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II as a new category of multilateral trading venues (MTFs)….