European Innovation Council

The European Innovation Council (EIC) is a flagship initiative of the European Commission to turn disruptive European science into groundbreaking commercial propositions and accelerate the scale-up of “game-changing” innovations. It is a key building bloc of a reinforced European ecosystem and the New European Innovation Agenda, filling the gap between R&D support, private investors and the market.

With a budget of over €10 billion under the Horizon Europe Programme (2021 – 2027) it seeks to position Europe as a global leader in the current wave of deep tech innovation: innovation that is rooted in cutting edge science, technology and engineering.

The EIC provides a one stop shop for innovators across Europe and looks to ensure we turn excellent European deep tech research into innovations, and also industrialise and deploy radical deep tech innovations at scale.

Support from idea generation by researchers through to their commercialisation and market entry by start-ups and SMEs is delivered through three core schemes:

• the ‘EIC Pathfinder’ for early-stage research on breakthrough/game-changing technologies;
• the ‘EIC Transition’ for transforming research results into innovation opportunities;
• the ‘EIC Accelerator’ for individual start-ups and SMEs to develop and scale up breakthrough innovations through a unique mix of grant funding and direct investment through the EIC Fund.