The 2023 Work Program of the European Innovation Council (EIC), one of the important components of the Horizon Europe Program, has been published.
In 2023, the EIC is expected to fund a total of €1.6 billion for projects of scientists and innovators that are disruptive and have the potential to create new markets. More than 500 million of this budget will be allocated to projects that will build the technology of the future in areas considered strategic for Europe.
This year's work program also includes several innovations and pilot actions to support the New European Innovation Agenda.
The highlights of EIC's 2023 Work Program are as follows:
- In order to enable start-up companies and SMEs to become global leaders in strategic technology fields, eight challenges have been identified to be supported by a 525 million Euro fund consisting of grants and investments.
- A new structure was created to enable promising researchers to transfer their talents to deep technology startups through internships.
- Support for women innovators was developed by bringing together the companies supported by the EIC Accelerator and the Women TechEU initiative.
- Support was provided for testing EIC innovations in public and private sector procurement processes.
- Further collaboration was established with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) through the delivery of business acceleration services and the launch of a joint EIC-EIT Woman Innovator Prize.
Funding programs to be carried out by EIC in 2023:
- EIC Pathfinder (€343 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 (€128.3 million) to turn research results into innovation opportunities, focussing on results generated by EIC Pathfinder projects and European Research Council Proof of Concept projects, to mature the technologies and build a business case for specific applications (grants up to €2.5 million).
- EIC Accelerator (€1.13 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 (grants below €2.5 million, equity investments from €0.5 up to €15 million).
All projects of the European Innovation Council have access to Business Acceleration Services, which provides coaches, mentors and expertise, partnering opportunities with corporates, investors and others, and a range of other services and events.
EIC 2023 Work Programme can be accessed here.