Have you identified EU-funded project result(s) with promising commercial potential that could be the basis for ground-breaking innovations and promising new businesses?
- Is this novel promising technology ready for the next steps towards its maturation and validation, to be further developed and validated for some specific, high potential, commercial applications?
- Have you conducted a preliminary market research to identify potential markets for your innovation and explored potential competitors?
- Do you envisage building a motivated and entrepreneurial team with a mix of skills, including researchers, business people, marketers etc. to develop and drive the idea towards commercial success?
If the answer to each and every of these questions is a clear ‘yes’, then EIC Transition may be the right call for you.
Why should you apply?
EIC Transition funds innovation activities that go beyond the experimental proof of principle in laboratory. It supports both the maturation and validation of your novel technology from the lab to the relevant application environments (by making use of prototyping, formulation, models, user testing or other validation tests) as well as explorations and development of a sustainable business case and business model towards commercialisation into high potential markets.
Your proposed activities must include further technology development on the results achieved in a previous project and follow user-centric methodologies to increase chances of the innovation’s future commercial success in the market. EIC Transition projects should address, in a balanced way, both technology and market/business development, possibly including iterative learning processes based on early customer or user feedback. These activities should include, subject to the level of maturity of the technology, a suitable mix of technology development and validation activities to increase the maturity of the technology beyond proof of concept to viable demonstrators of the technology in the intended field of application (i.e., from minimum TRL 3 or TRL 4 up to Technology Readiness Level 5 to 6). The activities must in all cases address market readiness towards commercialisation and deployment (market research, value proposition, business case and business model, prospects for growth, intellectual property protection, competitor analysis etc.) and aspects of regulation, certification and standardisation (if relevant), aimed at getting both the technology and the business idea investment ready.
EIC Transition aims at maturing both your technology and business idea thus increasing its technology and market/commercial readiness. The expected outcomes of your EIC Transition project are a) a technology that is demonstrated to be effective for its intended application and b) a business model, its validation and a business plan for its development to market. It is also expected that the intellectual property generated by your EIC Transition project is formally protected in an adequate way (Annex 6).
EIC Transition can support several different pathways beyond fundamental research, from technology development and product design to business modelling and commercialisation strategy to reach the market. Some non-exhaustive illustrative examples could be the following pathways:
- A focused collaborative project to further develop strategic and high impact technologies towards specific applications while improving also the market readiness towards a promising market application. This pathway is likely to require a collaboration among several applicants (‘multi-beneficiary’ approach) including SMEs, research performers, technology transfer offices and potential users/ customers;
- An individual SME (including start-ups, spin-offs) identifies a market opportunity to apply the results of an eligible project towards a specific market application. This pathway is likely to require, or lead to, a licensing arrangement with the SME and could also involve a collaboration between the result owner(s) of the eligible project and the interested SME;
- A team of entrepreneurial researchers within a research or technology organisation who want to turn selected project results into a viable product by looking for a suitable business model or creating a start-up or spin-off company, and which may involve collaboration with the host research or technology organisation, as well as their technology transfer offices. In some cases, the results may already be relatively close to market or ready for investment (e.g.,often with higher TRLs) and would therefore normally not need significant further technological development and hence require lower amounts of funding.
- EIC Pathfinder projects (including projects funded under the Horizon 2020 EIC pilot Pathfinder, FET-Open, FET-Proactive, CSA and CSA Lump sum FET Innovation Launchpad, and FET Flagships calls.38)
- European Research Council Proof of Concept projects funded Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe.
- Research and Innovation Actions directly 39funded under Horizon 2020 Societal challenges and Leadership in Industrial Technologies and under Horizon Europe pillar II, with an eligible TRL40.European Defence Fund (EDF), including the Preparatory Action on Defence Research, research projects, but only for proposals which are focused on civil applications (including dual use)
- If you (applicant (s) eligible for funding) were part of the eligible project whose results are further developed in the EIC Transition proposal, you need to confirm in your proposal that you are the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) owner or holder and have the necessary rights to commercialise the results of the project for the whole duration of the EIC Transition project;
- If you (applicant (s) eligible for funding) were not part of the eligible project whose results are further developed in the EIC Transition proposal, you (the coordinator) need to include in your proposal a commitment letter from the relevant owner(s) of the result(s), which confirms the commitment of the owner of the linked project research result to negotiate with you fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory access to such results, including IPR, for the purpose of future commercial exploitation for the whole duration of the EIC Transition project.
- In all cases you need to specify in your application the grant project which generated the result together with reference to where the result has been reported (in the periodic reporting, the Horizon results platform, the Innovation Radar or CORDIS).
- A small consortium of two independent legal entities from two different
- A consortium of minimum three and maximum five independent legal entities
- to receive EIC Booster grants of a fixed amount not exceeding EUR 50 000 to undertake complementary activities to explore potential pathways to commercialisation or for portfolio activities (see Annex 5).
- to submit an EIC Accelerator proposal via the Fast Track scheme (see Annex 3). In addition to funding, projects will receive tailor-made access to a wide range of
- at least 30% of the applications are submitted by women-led SMEs or consortia (see definitions in the Glossary), only the applications of that pool will be invited to interviews;
- less than 30% of the applications are submitted by women-led SMEs or consortia,46 the pool will be expanded to subsequent best ranked applications (starting with the highest scoring in descending, sequential order and at least equal score under Excellence criterion) submitted by women-led SMEs or consortia until reaching, if possible, a composition of the pool of at least 30% of applications submitted by women-led SMEs or consortia. All such applicants invited to interview must have met all evaluation criteria thresholds from the remote evaluation (Table 4).
Technology Transfer Offices are encouraged to actively participate in the EIC Transition project, as they play a key role in enabling and supporting researchers with the development and commercialisation of their results.
At the end of your EIC Transition project, you should be ready for the next stage, which can be to apply for EIC Accelerator (if you are a SME, including start-ups or spin-offs), and to seek other investors or sources of funding, to enter licensing or collaboration agreements with third parties, or other routes to market deployment. In case your project is not led by an SME or commercial partner, the formation and spin out of a new company can be included as part of the activities. You will be expected to describe the intended pathway and route to market in your proposal and must include specific milestones together with concrete and verifiable KPIs during the implementation of your project to assess progress towards the market.
The EIC Transition project is expected to mature your innovation both in its TRL and market and business readiness since the beginning of the project and with both tracks going in parallel and interacting between them.
Applicants to EIC Transition can submit proposals through an EIC Transition Open call which has no predefined thematic priorities and is open to proposals in any field of science, technology or application;
Can you apply?
In order to apply, your proposal must meet the general eligibility requirements (see Annex 2) as well as specific eligibility requirements described in this section.
Your proposal must build on results already achieved within an eligible project that are, at least, at experimental proof of concept (TRL 3) or, ideally, technology validated in the lab level (TRL 4). Proposals building on project results at TRLs other than TRL3 or TRL4 are not eligible.
EIC Transition is restricted to proposals based on results generated by the following eligible projects:
If you are applying on the basis of an eligible project for which the grant is still active, you may apply if the project has been active for at least 12 months (i.e., the start date of the grant is more than 12 months before the date of the selected EIC Transition call cut-off).
If you are applying on the basis of an eligible project which has already been completed, you may apply within 30 months of the completion of the project (i.e. the end date of the grant for the eligible project is less than 30 months from the date of the selected EIC Transition cut-off).
You do not need to be a participant, Principal Investigator or result owner of the previous projects; on the contrary, new participants including start-ups, SME or other innovation actors are welcome and encouraged to apply:
You can apply for EIC Transition either as:
A single legal entity established in a Member State or an Associated Country (‘mono-beneficiary’) if you are a start-up, SME or research performing organisation (university, research or technology organisation, including teams, individual Principal Investigators and inventors in such institutions who intend to form a spin-off company).41 Larger companies (i.e. which do not qualify as SMEs) are not eligible to apply as a single legal entity; or
Member States or Associated Countries, or
(‘multi-beneficiary’) following standard rules i.e. must include at least one legal entity established in a Member State and at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries (see Annex 2).42
Only one proposal can be submitted per eligible originating ERC Proof of Concept funded in Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe and FET Innovation Launchpad project in the same call. Consortia may for example include start-ups, SMEs, research organisations, or larger companies, user/customer organisations or potential end users (e.g., hospitals, utilities, industry, regulatory and standardisation bodies). The applicant must specify which path to market will explore and pursue during the execution of the EIC Transition project: direct exploitation by coordinator or beneficiary, creation of a spin-off company in a Member State or an Associated Country, licensing to an established company (not part of the consortium) or other path to be described. What support will you receive if your proposal is funded? The total indicative budget for this call is EUR 94 million. If successful, you will receive a grant for a Research and Innovation Action to cover the eligible costs, necessary for the implementation of your project. For this call, the EIC considers proposals with a requested EU contribution of more than EUR 0.5 million and less than EUR 2.5 million and duration between 1 and 3 years as appropriate. Nonetheless, in exceptional cases, this does not preclude you to request larger amounts, if very well motivated and duly explained. The funding rate of this grant will be 100% of the eligible costs. Eligible costs will take the form of a lump sum and the amount will be determined during the evaluation process. Applicants must therefore propose the amount of the lump sum based on their estimated project costs as defined in the Decision of 7 July 2021 authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) – and in actions under the Research and Training Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (2021-2025).43
The projects funded through EIC Transition are eligible:
Business Acceleration Services and matchmaking events (see Section V).
The Model Grant Agreement can be found on the Funding and Tenders Opportunities portal.
How do you apply; how long does it take?
The deadline for submitting your proposal is 18 September 2024 at 17h00 Brussels local time.44
You must submit your proposal via the Funding and Tender Opportunities Portal before the given deadline.
Sections 1 to 3 and the cover page (that includes the information about the related project on which the current EIC Transition proposal is built on) of part B of your proposal must consist of a maximum of 22 format A4 pages.
Your proposal will be evaluated first by EIC expert evaluators. You will be informed about the result of this evaluation, including feedback on your proposal, indicatively within 9 weeks after the deadline. If your proposal successfully passes this first evaluation phase (see details below), you will be invited for a n interview, which will be organised approximately between 12-14 weeks after the deadline. At the interview, you will be assessed by a panel of maximum 6 EIC Jury members. You will be informed about the result of the interview indicatively within 4 weeks from the start of the interviews.
If you are successful, you can expect your grant agreement to be signed within 6 months from the call deadline (indicative) and you are expected to start your project within 2 months after signing the grant agreement.
How does the EIC decide if your proposal will be funded?
In a first step, at least three EIC expert evaluators will evaluate and score your proposal against each award criterion (see below). The overall score for each evaluation criterion will be the average of the corresponding scores attributed by the individual evaluators. The total score of your proposal will be the sum of the overall scores from the three evaluation criteria.
Starting with the highest scoring proposal and in descending order, a pool of the best ranked proposals (highest scoring) requesting an aggregated financial support equal to approximately the double of the budget available,45 will be invited to the next step. If in that pool:
The Agency may seek assistance from the European Patent Office to analyse the technological novelty, the inventive merit and the proposed future strategy of EIC proposals shortlisted for Jury interview. EPO experts will not participate directly in the evaluation process but will provide their assessment to the Jury as material ‘for information’. The assessment by the patent examiners will not be binding and the Jury appointed by the EIC will have complete freedom to decide on its relevance.
The second step is an interview with an EIC jury. At the interview your proposal may be represented by a maximum of five persons.47 Only individuals mentioned in the proposal and involved in the future project implementation can represent your proposal at the interview. The EIC jury will be composed of between four and six members, and may additionally include one EIC Programme Manager as observer with expertise in your area or managing one of the EIC Portfolios your project could be allocated to. During the interview you should convincingly pitch your proposal to the jury, who will ask you questions aimed at clarifying various aspects of your proposal in line with the award criteria (in particular those regarding the quality of the team, the incipient business plan and business model, the milestones and KPIs). The jury will recommend your proposal for funding or not (‘GO’ or ‘NO GO’). Proposals will be assessed according to the following award criteria (Table 4). For the interviews, the jury may ask questions concerning any of the award criteria.
Total budget : 94M€
