European Innovation Council opens funding opportunities for innovators to scale up
Today, the Commission opened funding opportunities worth over €1.7 billion under the European Innovation Council (EIC). This opening follows the adoption of the EIC Work Programme 2022. Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: “The European Innovation Council has already supported 4 unicorns and more than 90 centaurs. The work programme for this year is backed by the biggest ever annual funding for visionary entrepreneurs and researchers, as well as new measures to support female innovators and scale-ups. Europe is committed to supporting innovation and new technologies and we are on track to meet our ambition to make the EIC Europe’s unicorn factory.” Calls opened today offer funding opportunities for multi-disciplinary research teams to undertake visionary research with the potential to lead to technology breakthroughs in any field (grants up to €3 million under EIC Pathfinder). Besides, there are funding opportunities for turning research results into innovation opportunities. Focussing on results generated by EIC Pathfinder projects and European Research Council Proof of Concept projects, the objective is to mature the technologies and build a business case for specific applications (grants up to €2.5 million under EIC Transition). €60.5 million is allocated to tackle three Transition Challenges: Green digital devices for the future; process and system integration of clean energy technologies as well as RNA-based therapies and diagnostics for complex or rare genetic diseases. SMEs and start-ups can apply anytime for EIC Accelerator grants and equity investments.
