Dec 20, 2023

Horizon Europe: EIC Work Program 2024 published

The European Commission adopted the 2024 work program of the European Innovation Council (EIC) as part of Horizon Europe.

The EIC focuses on identifying, developing and implementing groundbreaking, disruptive and technology-oriented innovations. In addition to the basis research required for this, the funding is aimed at market entry and rapid market growth (scale-up) – especially of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The work program that has now been publishedm contains the calls for proposals for 2024 in the EIC’s three main funding lines with a total budget of EUR 1.2 billion.

The EIC Pathfinder supports market-oriented technology research in multi-disciplinary consortia with up to EUR 4 million per project. These are both open-topic („open“) and topic-specific („challenges“). The call for poroposals ends on March 7, 2023 (Pathfinder Open) or October 16, 2023 (Pathfinder Challenges). In Pathfinder Challenges, Consortia are expected to tackle one of the following portfolios:

Carbon dioxide & nitrogen management and valorisation,
Mid-long term, systems-integrated energy storage,
Cardiogenomics,
Healthcare continuum technologies,
DNA-based digital data storage and
Alternative quantum information processing, communication, and sensing.

The EIC Transition aims to turn research results from previous EU projects to market maturity (validation, demonstration, commercialisation). Such projects should have been funded under one of the following instruments: IC Pathfinder/FET Open, ERC Proof of Concept, European Defense Fund or Horizon pillar 2 („Societal Challenges and Leadership in Industrial Technologies). Both Consortia and individual applicants can apply for funding of up to 2,5 million EUR/project and submit their proposals by September 18, 2024.

In addition, the EIC Accelerator promotes the activities of start-ups and SMEs that want to develop and strengthen innovation with high impact potential.

The Business Acceleration Services offer all EIC-funded projects access to consultants, mentors and experts as well as a wide range of networking opportunities with corporates, investors etc.

An EIC Information Day is planned for January 15, 2024, 9:00 a.m. – 5:15 p.m. (CET) as an online event. Another online Information Day about the Accelerator Challenges will take place on January 16,2024.

Further information:
EIC Work Programme 2023
EIC website
EPC call overview for Horizon Europe (internal link)

Are you planning an application for one of the tender topics? Please feel free to contact us! The EPC team is happy to support you!