EIC Accel­er­at­or

The EIC Accel­er­at­or of the cur­rent EU Frame­work Pro­gramme for Research and Innov­a­tion ​‘Hori­zon Europe’ is the suc­cessor to the ​‘SME Instru­ment’, which was estab­lished in the pre­vi­ous EU Frame­work Pro­gramme ​‘Hori­zon 2020’. The EIC Accel­er­at­or is for innov­at­ive small and medi­um-sized enter­prises (SMEs). It is part of the European Innov­a­tion Coun­cil (EIC) pro­gramme and con­sists of two vari­ants: Accel­er­at­or Open (bot­tom-up) and Accel­er­at­or Chal­lenges (top-down).

The EIC Accel­er­at­or Open

The EIC Accel­er­at­or Open fund­ing pro­gramme is aimed exclus­ively at SMEs. It is open to all top­ics and sup­ports SMEs with growth poten­tial in devel­op­ing con­crete and high-risk innov­a­tions to mar­ket matur­ity. The fund­ing rate is 70% and applic­ants have the option of apply­ing for equity cap­it­al in com­bin­a­tion with grants. Fund­ing ranges from €0.5 mil­lion to €2.5 mil­lion, and equity cap­it­al can be up to €15 million.

The EIC Accel­er­at­or Challenges

Just like the Accel­er­at­or Open SME, this instru­ment pro­motes (primar­ily start-ups, spin-outs and scal­ing-ups) with innov­at­ive ideas focused on the fol­low­ing topics:

• Stra­tegic Digit­al and Health Tech­no­lo­gies: highly innov­at­ive and high-risk ideas that lead to new busi­ness mod­els and smart products. The com­pany should have the poten­tial to become a glob­al mar­ket lead­er in the devel­op­ment of stra­tegic tech­no­lo­gies in the fol­low­ing areas: 
  • Digit­al tech­no­lo­gies: Devices, meth­ods, sys­tems, work­ing prin­ciples, pro­cesses and stand­ards applic­able to the ICT industry, such as advanced high-per­form­ance com­put­ing, edge com­put­ing, quantum tech­no­logy, cyber secur­ity, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and blockchain.
  • Health­care tech­no­lo­gies: e.g. AI-driv­en instru­ments for early dia­gnos­is, devel­op­ment of bio­mark­ers for clin­ic­al pro­gnoses, etc.
• Green Deal Innov­a­tions for Eco­nom­ic Recov­ery: Innov­a­tions that make a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Solu­tions are par­tic­u­larly sought in the fol­low­ing areas: renew­able ener­gies, includ­ing hydro­gen and energy stor­age sys­tems, build­ing renov­a­tion, low-car­bon indus­tries, and batteries.

The pro­cess is divided into three stages.