The European Commission created the European Innovation Council (EIC), Europe’s flagship innovation funding institute, with the aim of supporting breakthrough innovators facing difficulty financing their research and development activities. In total, the EIC programme has a budget of >€10 billion for 2021-2027, divided across three subprogrammes that address all stages of technological development.

For novel discoveries and technologies that have demonstrated experimental proof of concept, substantial funding is required to advance through technology validation and commercial feasibility assessment. In response to this challenge, the EIC created the EIC Transition programme, to fund innovation activities that support both: maturation and validation of your novel technology, and development of a business case towards the innovation’s future commercialization. EIC Transition consists of both open calls (‘EIC Open’) and challenge driven calls (‘EIC Challenges’).

 

Open call

If a project previously received an EIC Pathfinder, FET- Open, FET-Proactive, FET Flagship or ERC Proof of Concept funding, and the goal is to develop innovation beyond the proof principle, then the EIC Transition is the solution. The Transition programme aims at maturing both the technology and business idea to increase its technology (TRL 4-5/6) and market readiness, in order to prepare towards commercialization of the innovation.

Example activities covered by the EIC Transition are (among others): prototyping, user testing, validation tests, formulation models, spin-off/start-up incorporation, entrepreneur team development, market research, and intellectual property protection. At the end of the EIC Transition, the project partners could decide to apply for an EIC Accelerator, look for investors or another source of the follow-up funding, or consider third party commercialization agreements.

FUNDING INFO

Deadline (Open call & Challenges): 4 May and 28 September 2022. After remote evaluation of the proposals, interview rounds will be held.

Subsidy: Max. €2.5M (total budget €70.9M)

Who can apply?
Single applicants (SMEs, spin-offs, universities) are eligible to apply alone or in small consortia, including 2-5 partners from both academia and industry. Applications must build on the results (demonstrated proof of concept) from a previous FET, Pathfinder or ERC Proof of Concept Project. To apply, applicants must demonstrate that they are the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) owner or have the rights to commercialize the IPR obtained from the previous project.

Application and Evaluation process

It is expected that the preparation and submission of EIC Transition proposals will be moved to the EIC artificial intelligence-based IT platform, as for EIC Accelerator. Until then, proposals should still be submitted via the EU Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal.

The EIC Transition is a two-stage application process. For the first stage, a full proposal consisting of a maximum of 20 pages must be submitted before the deadline. The EIC expert evaluators will evaluate the proposal based on the following criteria: Excellence, Impact, and Quality and Efficiency of the Implementation.

Within 9 weeks after the deadline, the outcome of the evaluation will be provided. Successful proposals will be invited to the second stage – a face-to-face interview 13 weeks after the call deadline. The interview jury will include a maximum of 6 members with expertise in your research and market area. Within 4 weeks the results of the interview will be provided. The project may start 6 months after the deadline.

 

Challenges

Next to the EIC Transition Open Call there are 3 EIC Transition Challenges Calls in 2022, with a total budget of €60.5M. Also for these Challenges calls, the project should build further on the results generated by previous EIC Pathfinder (FET-OPEN) or ERC Proof of Concept Grants. In addition, the deadlines (4 May and 28 September 2022) and the maximum funding amount of €2.5M remain the same as the EIC Transition Open call.

  1. Green digital devices for the future. Digital devices and technologies are part of Europe’s industrial leadership. These technologies are reaching their limits in terms of performance, miniaturisation and the pressure on energy consumption is getting higher. A new class of green digital devices needs to emerge on the market which can address issues such as, energy efficiency, using non-critical, non-toxic raw materials, ensuring circular approaches and/or a high degree of recyclability. Projects should tackle these issues, while maintaining or improving performance and miniaturisation.
  2. Process and system integration of clean energy technologies. Renewable fuels and clean energy technologies that can support energy production, conversion and storage are critical innovations for achieving the goals to reduce emissions by 2030 under ‘Fit for 55’ strategy. This Challenge aims at maturing the proposed energy technology through its integration in a fully functioning energy system, together with the engagement of the ecosystem actors and value chain needed for the market uptake of the technology.
  3. RNA-based therapies and diagnostics for complex or rare genetic diseases. RNA-based therapeutics are promising tools to address unmet clinical needs. The aim of this Challenge is to support maturation and demonstration of novel  technologies for complex or rare genetic diseases with unmet medical needs. Proposals should address one or more of the following objectives: advancing RNA delivery methods, developing novel RNA-based therapies for complex or rare genetic diseases, developing novel RNA-based diagnostics and predictive biomarkers.