The European Commission has adopted the 2022 work programme of the EIC with a budget of up to €1.7 billion in 2022 for breakthrough innovators to scale up and create new markets. EIC is a novelty of the Horizon Europe programme, with a budget of €10 billion between 2021 and 2027. Read the full EIC Work Programme 2022.
What are the funding opportunities?
- EIC Pathfinder – for multi-disciplinary research teams, worth €350 million, to undertake visionary research with the potential to lead to technology breakthroughs.
- EIC Transition – funding to turn research results into innovation opportunities, worth €131 million.
- EIC Accelerator – worth €1,16 billion, for start-ups and SMEs to develop and scale up high impact innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones.
New elements of the 2022 work programme:
- A new EIC Scale-Up 100 initiative: Having already supported over 2600 small and medium business (SMEs) and start-ups in the past since 2018, the EIC introduces the EIC Scale-up 100 initiative to identify 100 promising deep tech EU companies that have the potential to become ‘unicorns’ (with valuation of over €1 billion).
- Equity investments above €15 million: The EIC Accelerator will allow companies working on technologies of strategic European interest to apply for EIC investments of more than €15 million.
- Stronger support to women innovators:
- Development of an innovation gender and diversity index to identify gaps and encourage diversity within companies. This will provide consistent information to investors, funders, customers and policy makers.
- The 2022 edition of the EU Prize for Women Innovators will include two additional prizes for innovators under 35 – hence, there will be six prizes awarded in total: three prizes to the most inspiring women innovators across the EU and the countries associated to Horizon Europe, and three prizes to the most promising ‘Rising Innovators’ under the age of 35.
European Innovation Council online Info Day – 22 February 2022: Event streaming
