On 17 January 2022, the European Innovation Council (EIC) announced the winners of its new “Transition” funding scheme. Twenty-five out of 42 awarded proposals stem from ERC-funded research. Successful projects will receive in total €99 million in EU funding. The purpose is to turn the research results obtained by EIC Pathfinder pilot projects and ERC Proof of Concept projects into commercially viable ventures. The funding will help validate the technologies in real-world settings and build the business case to bring the innovations to market. The call was designed in a partnership between the EIC and the ERC, with advice from members of the ERC Scientific Council and the EIC pilot Advisory Board. Read more

Prof Kurt Mehlhorn, chair of ERC Working Group on Innovation, said: “I’m glad to see that in this first EIC Transition call the research that earlier benefited from ERC funding fared so well. Transition grants offer a great opportunity to scale up innovative technologies developed in ERC Proof of Concept projects. ERC mission is to support blue-sky research, but the frontier science discoveries often have a clear potential for application, which our entrepreneurial grantees are quick to exploit. It’s yet another proof that excellent science is the bedrock of innovation.”

The EIC “Transition” scheme supports both single entities (research teams, SMEs, spin outs) as well as small consortia (up to 5 partners from different countries). In this call the candidates submitted 292 proposals. The successful projects come from 24 EU Member States and Horizon Europe associated countries. The highest number of beneficiaries of the funding come from Germany (25), Italy (17) and Spain (14). This first call included dedicated funding for technologies in energy harvesting and storage and medical technologies and devices as well as open funding for any area of technology. Each project will receive a grant of up to €2.5million and will have access to EIC Business Acceleration Services including coaching, mentoring, and partnering events. Projects are also eligible for the Fast Track scheme to access the EIC Accelerator for supporting the commercialisation and scale up phases.