General conditions
1. Admissibility conditions: To be an eligible applicant to EIC Accelerator, you must apply as one of the following eligible entities:
- a single company classified as a SME, and established within a Member State or an Associated Country (see Annex 2 of the EIC Work Programme 2024); or
- a single company classified as a small mid-cap (up to 499 employees) established in a Member State or an Associated Country, but only for exceptional cases for rapid scale up purposes; or
- one or more natural persons (including individual entrepreneurs) or legal entities, which are either:
a. from a Member State or an Associated Country intending to establish an SME or small mid-cap (as defined above) in a Member State or Associated Country by the time of signing the EIC Accelerator grant agreement or, in case the equity only is awarded, at the latest at the date of signature of the agreement on its investment component;
b. intending to invest in an SME or small mid-cap established in a Member State or an Associated Country and may submit a proposal on behalf of that SME or small mid-cap, provided that a prior agreement exists with the company. The grant agreement and/or the investment agreement will be signed with the beneficiary/final recipient of funding company only; or
c. from a non-associated third country intending to establish an SME (including start-ups) or to relocate an existing SME to a Member State or an Associated Country. Your company must prove its effective establishment in a Member State or an Associated Country at the time of submission of the full proposal.
The standard admissibility and eligibility conditions are detailed in Annex 2 of the EIC Work Programme 2024.
There are limitations on the number of times you can submit a proposal described in the section Application submission limits of the EIC Work Programme 2024.
If you are currently a participant in an eligible project funded by Horizon Europe or Horizon 2020 then you may be able to apply through your existing project under the Fast Track scheme (see Annex 3 of the EIC Work Programme 2024). This scheme is managed by the funding body responsible for the existing project and applies to funding bodies listed in Annex 3 of the EIC Work Programme 2024.
Applicants may also be able to apply if they have a project financed by an eligible programme managed by a Member State or an Associated Country under the pilot Plug-in scheme. The Plug-in scheme to apply to the EIC Accelerator is detailed in Annex 4 of the EIC Work Programme 2024.
Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System
The application process consists of a number of steps:
Submission of short proposals
Which may be submitted at any time via the Funding and Tender Opportunities Portal (as from the 1st January 2024) and will be evaluated remotely by EIC expert evaluators on a first come, first served basis. Within approximately 4-6 weeks, you will receive the evaluation result of your short proposal specifying whether or not your proposal met the admissibility, eligibility and award criteria evaluation elements (set out in the next section) and can therefore proceed to submit a full proposal. In both cases, you will receive feedback from four expert evaluators.
Submission of full proposals
If your short proposal is successful, then you will be entitled to receive coaching support to prepare a full proposal from one of the business coaches from the EIC Business Acceleration Services. You can only receive this support once for a proposal.
The optional coaching support is designed to improve the value proposition, business plan and investor pitch. However, it is your decision how to respond to the feedback and support, and the content of your proposal is your sole responsibility.
If you succeeded with your short application under the 2024 Work programme, your full proposal can be submitted to any of the following cut-offs during 2024, and any of the cut-offs for 2025. Applicants who succeeded with a positive evaluation of their short proposal under the 2023 EIC Work Programme may apply to any of the following cut-offs in 2024. You may decide which cut-off to apply to.
The two cut-off dates for 2024 are:
- 13 March 2024
- 3 October 2024
The cut-off dates for 2025 will be announced in the 2025 Work Programme due to be adopted in Autumn 2024.
The applicants that are eligible to apply for a full proposal will receive the links to the submission envirnment and will be able to submit the full proposal through:
EIC Accelerator Open, which has no predefined thematic priorities and is open to proposals in any field of technology or application;
If an application falls within the scope of the Challenges topics below, grant funding is subject to eligibility in accordance with the specific conditions applicable to those topics:
- Human centric generative AI made in Europe (Section IV.2.1 of the EIC Work Programme 2024)
- Emerging quantum technology components (Section IV.2.3B of the EIC Work Programme 2024)
EIC Accelerator Challenges in the following predefined areas of emerging and strategic technologies:
- Challenge 01 - Human Centric Generative AI made in Europe
- Challenge 02 - Enabling virtual worlds and augmented interaction in high-impact applications to support the realisation of Industry 5.0
- Challenge 03A - Enabling the smart edge
- Challenge 03B - Emerging quantum technology components
- Challenge 04 - Food from precision fermentation and algae
- Challenge 05 - Monoclonal antibody-based therapeutics for new variants of emerging viruses
- Challenge 06 - Renewable energy sources and their whole value chain including materials development and recycling of components
Once you submit your full proposal, it will be assessed remotely against award criteria evaluation elements (set out in the next section) by three EIC expert evaluators. Within approximately six-weeks you will be informed about the result of the remote evaluation and will receive feedback. If successful, you will be invited to attend an interview (which may be in person or online) with an EIC Jury.
Interviews with an EIC Jury
All companies receiving a GO from the remote evaluation stage will be invited to an interview with an EIC jury as the final step in the selection process. Interviews will be organised approximately three to four weeks after applicants are informed of the result of the remote evaluation (or longer if there is a need for a further set of interviews). At the interview, you will be assessed by a panel of maximum six jury members. You will be informed about the result of the interview within approximately two weeks.
Invitation to negotiate grant component and due diligence process for investment component
If selected for (potential)funding, you will be invited to negotiate a grant agreement for the requested grant component (if you have applied for it) and to start the due diligence for the investment component (if you have applied for it).
For further information please see the EIC Work Programme 2024.
2. Eligible countries: described in Annex 2(B. Eligibility) of the EIC Work Programme 2024.
Applicants from the United Kingdom can apply to the EIC Accelerator, but can only request and receive funding in the form of “grant only”.
3. Other eligibility conditions: described in Annex 2(General conditions for proposals) of the EIC Work Programme 2024.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex 2(C. Financial and Operational Capacity) of the EIC Work Programme 2024.
5. Evaluation and award:
Award criteria, scoring and thresholds: described in section IV of the EIC Work Programme 2024
Submission and evaluation processes: described in section IV of the EIC Work Programme 2024
Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in section IV of the EIC Work Programme 2024
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 13. General Annexes
Documents
Call documents:
EIC Work Programme 2024
Standard application & evaluation forms - call-specific application form is available in the Submission System
Standard application form (Short proposal)
Standard application form (Full proposal)
Standard evaluation form (Short proposal) - will be uploaded soon
Standard evaluation form (Full proposal) - will be uploaded soon
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MGA
MGA for EIC actions under Horizon Europe - will be uploaded soon
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Call-specific instructions
Detailed budget table (HE LS)- coming soon
Information on clinical studies (HE)
Guidance: "Lump sums - what do I need to know?"
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2023–2024 – 13. General Annexes
HE Programme Guide
EU Financial Regulation
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions
Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement
