Mar 25, 2021

Horizon Europe: EIC work program 2021 published

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The European Commission has published the first work program for the European Innovation Council (EIC) in the new EU framework program for research and innovation Horizon Europe.

The EIC has budget of a total of approx. EUR 10 billion for the seven-year period and is intended to support the identification, development and implementation of groundbreaking, disruptive and technology-oriented innovations.

In addition, the EIC is aiming to help innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with market entry and rapid growth (scale-up).

The first work program, which has now been published, contains the calls for proposals for 2021 in the three main funding lines of the EIC with a total budget of EUR 1.5 billion, which are open-topic (open calls) as well as themed (challenge driven calls):

Pathfinder: Basic research as consortia; open-topic funding of around EUR 168 million. Submission deadline will be May 19, 2021. Approx. EUR 132 million is earmarked for thematic funding. These calls for proposals are expected to open on June 15, 2021 and applications can be submitted until October 27, 2021.
Transition: The support of individual applicants and consortia in research activities for the validation and demonstration of advanced technologies and commercialization has a budget of approx. EUR 60 million
(open-topic) and approx. EUR 40 million (themed, challenge driven calls. Applications must be submitted by September 22, 2021.
Accelerator: For the funding of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) approx. EUR 592 million (open-topic) and approx. EUR 495 million (themed, challenge-driven calls) will be available. The submission of project outlines will be possible soon and will then be open continuously. After a successful review, the full proposals can be submitted by June 9th and October 6th, 2021.

In addition to the calls for proposals for the three main funding lines of the EIC, the 2021 work program also includes more than EUR 60 million for various coaching and support measures, prizes and expert contracts.