European Innovation Council

The EIC Accelerator offers start-ups and SMEs grants of up to €2.5 million combined with equity investments through the EIC Fund ranging from €0.5 to €15 million or more. In addition to financial support, all projects benefit from a wide range of Business Acceleration Services that provide access to leading expertise, corporates, investors and ecosystem actors. Companies can submit their ideas to the EIC Accelerator at any time, which are then evaluated within 6- 8 weeks. For ideas meeting the EIC criteria for excellence, impact and risk-level, companies are invited to prepare full applications to submit to one of the regular cut-off dates.

Under the Fast Track and Plug In schemes, applicants do not apply directly to the EIC Accelerator call. Instead, the responsible funding bodies decide whether an existing project is suitable for support under the EIC Accelerator based on a project review to assess the innovation or market deployment potential of such project. The Fast Track is being implemented by a number of the Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and further information can be found on their websites. The Fast Track is also available for: ongoing EIC Pathfinder and EIC Transition projects (including pilot Pathfinder/ FET projects funded under Horizon 2020); Funding schemes for SMEs supported under the Eurostars-2 Joint Programme and the Partnership on Innovative SMEs managed by the Eureka secretariat and relevant national bodies; and companies awarded a grant only project under the Horizon 2020 EIC pilot Accelerator and the Horizon Europe EIC Accelerator (given the level of technological maturity that Accelerator projects have, only beneficiaries of ongoing projects (i.e. ending date of the project not expired yet) will be considered eligible). If a project is deemed suitable for the Fast track, a first assessment shall take place at least 5 months before the project's ending date in order to have the time to organise the project review. Fast track and Plug In applications are subject to the same rules on submission and resubmission as the short proposals. Applicants that are submitted via a Fast Track or Plug In Scheme are invited immediately to prepare a full application to the EIC Accelerator and are not required to pass the short proposal stage. They are treated equally to other applicants at the full application stage and are also eligible to receive coaching support.

Under the Fast Track and Plug In schemes, applicants do not apply directly to the EIC Accelerator call. Instead, the responsible funding bodies decide whether an existing project is suitable for support under the EIC Accelerator based on a project review to assess the innovation or market deployment potential of such project. The Plug In scheme is implemented by a number of Member States and Associated countries and applies to eligible companies that are supported by the programmes that have been certified. The funding body managing the programme implements the project review and decides which applicants to submit to the EIC Accelerator. A list of all the programmes certified for the Plug In is available on the EIC website. Fast track and Plug In applications are subject to the same rules on submission and resubmission as the short proposals. Applicants that are submitted via a Fast Track or Plug In Scheme are invited immediately to prepare a full application to the EIC Accelerator and are not required to pass the short proposal stage. They are treated equally to other applicants at the full application stage and are also eligible to receive coaching support.