The European Innovation Council (EIC), part of the EU research and innovation programme Horizon Europe, said it will support European deep tech research and high-potential start-ups with €1.4 billion in 2025.
The EIC Work Programme 2025 represents an increase of nearly €200 million on 2024.
“In addition to a bigger budget, the 2025 work programme brings several improvements, including better access to scale-up equity funding with the EIC Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) scale-up scheme, introduced following the STEP regulation adopted earlier this year,” said EIC.
“Other improvements based on the recommendations of the EIC Board are also included.”
Iliana Ivanova, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: “The European Innovation Council has emerged as a gamechanger in EU support to breakthrough innovation.
“In 2025, it will boost EU deep tech with even more resources, amounting to €1.4 billion from Horizon Europe, our research and innovation programme.
“The targeted support, especially through the STEP scale-up call, will help bridge critical funding gaps and build a stronger, more resilient innovation ecosystem in Europe.”
The EIC said the main highlights of the investment are:
- New EIC STEP Scale-up scheme, which will work with a budget of €300 million in 2025 (and expected to grow to €900 million over the period 2025-27) to provide larger investments in companies aiming to bring strategic technologies to the EU market and avoid strategic dependencies. It will provide investments of between €10 and €30 million through the EIC Fund per company to leverage private co-investment, achieving at least €50 to €150 million in total. The EIC STEP Scale-up scheme will help address a market gap in deep tech scale-up funding in Europe, targeting digital technologies, clean and resource-efficient technologies including net-zero, and biotechnologies.
- Updated set of ‘EIC Challenges’: €120 million for emerging technologies including autonomous robots, climate resilient crops, converting waste to input materials and medical diagnosis. €250 million for earlier stage companies in specific target technologies including generative artificial intelligence, new space, agri tech and future mobility solutions.
The EIC said the EICWork Programme 2025 is built around three main funding schemes:
- EIC Pathfinder – €262 million for multi-disciplinary research teams to undertake visionary early-stage technology research and development with the potential to lead to technology breakthroughs (grants up to €4 million).
- EIC Transition – €98 million to turn research results into innovation opportunities, following up on results generated by EIC Pathfinder, European Research Council Proof of Concept and Horizon Europe Pillar 2 (societal challenges) collaborative projects (grants up to €2.5 million).
- EIC Accelerator – €634 million for start-ups and SMEs to develop, commercialise and scale up innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones (grants below €2.5 million, investments from €500 000 to €10 million).