European Innovation Council: €1.2 billion for strategic technologies and scaling up companies
The Commission adopted today the European Innovation Council (EIC) 2024 work programme. It opens funding opportunities worth over €1.2 billion in 2024. The majority is dedicated to SMEs and start-ups to develop and scale up “deep tech” innovations in critical fields such as generative artificial intelligence (AI), space, critical raw materials, semiconductors and quantum technologies. This goes alongside the Commission Decision which completes the restructuring of the EIC Fund, which will receive a capital injection of €585 million to invest in EIC selected companies, leveraging over €2 billion in new investments.
Investing in strategic technologies
While the majority of EIC funding is open to all fields of technology, €420 million is earmarked for novel technologies and for SMEs and Startups to tackle challenges supporting directly the European Green Deal, REPowerEU, the Chips Act, future AI Act, Net Zero Industry Act and other EU policies, including the New European Innovation Agenda. In line with the Commission's strategy on economic security, applications in critical areas such as AI and quantum will be screened for foreign ownership and investment safeguards to be applied by the EIC Fund.
The EIC work programme 2024 details the funding in three main schemes:
- EIC Pathfinder (€256 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 (€94 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 for the first time to project results from Horizon collaborative projects from Pillar 2/ societal challenges (grants up to €2.5 million).
- EIC Accelerator (€675 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 €15 million). €405 million is earmarked for investments to be managed by the EIC Fund, which will receive an additional €180 million to follow on investments in companies selected under previous EIC Accelerator calls.
The Commission has also completed the restructuring of the EIC Fund by transferring its shares to the European Investment Bank, while keeping its steer over the Fund's investment policy. Together with measures introduced in the EIC work programme, this will allow the EIC Fund greater flexibility to manage the portfolio of investments, already comprising over 500 of Europe's most promising start-ups and high growth companies.
Simplification and other novelties
Building on the advice of the EIC Board, the work programme introduces a number of simplifications and improvements:
- The introduction of lump sum funding in most EIC calls that will remove financial reporting requirements for beneficiaries.
- The update of specific rules on Intellectual Property to empower Technology Transfer Offices, following the recommendations of the EIC Board.
- The introduction of consensus meetings for EIC Accelerator applications to improve the robustness of the evaluation process.
- Flexibility for the EIC Fund to increase or delay investments in selected companies to better respond to their needs and market developments.
- The opening of EIC Transition funding to follow up results from Horizon collaborative projects, in addition to results from ERC Proof of Concept, EIC Pathfinder and European Defence Fund projects.
Background
The EIC was launched in March 2021 as a major novelty under the Horizon Europe programme, building on a pilot phase from 2018-2020. It has a budget of over €10 billion between in 2021-2027.
The restructuring will temporarily transfer the Commission's shareholding in the EIC Fund to the European Investment Bank from 1 January 2024 while ensuring the Commission maintains the overall policy oversight of the Fund's governance and investment activities. The amount of €585 million to be allocated to the EIC Fund in 2024 is expected to leverage over €2 billion for EIC investee companies given the success of the EIC Fund in attracting co-investors (over 3 times the amount of EIC investment).