Are you a UK spinout, startup or scaleup looking for funding for a radical new technology? The EU-funded Pathfinder competition could be just what you’re looking for.
Offering grants of up to €4 million (£3.4 million), the European Innovation Council’s (EIC) Pathfinder competition is perfect for:
- Ambitious SMEs
- Working alone or with other organisations across Europe
- Looking to validate an early-stage innovation
Below, I’ve laid out the main things you need to know about Pathfinder, including who’s eligible and how much funding you could access.
If you want to know whether you should apply, book in an Eligibility and Competitiveness Assessment.
In a free, 30-minute consultation, my colleagues and I will tell you:
- Whether you’re eligible for the EIC Pathfinder competition
- How good your chances are of winning funding
- What other grants or government funding schemes you’re eligible for
What is the EIC Pathfinder competition?
The EIC Pathfinder offers grant funding of up to €4 million (£3.4 million) to SMEs that need funding to validate an initial idea or concept for a transformative new technology. This includes proof-of-concept work, like laboratory testing or modelling, designed to produce the scientific basis for future research.
In terms of technology readiness levels (TRL), a framework used extensively in grant funding, Pathfinder looks to mature projects from TRL 1 or 2 to levels 3 or 4.
The Pathfinder competition is run by the European Innovation Council. Established under Horizon Europe, the EIC is the EU’s flagship innovation programme, with a budget of more than €10 billion. Pathfinder is one of three grant funding competitions run by the EIC, alongside Accelerator, for later-stage innovations and Transition, for companies that have already won EU funding.
Pathfinder’s awards cover up to 100% of a project’s eligible costs, far more than many of the other grants available to UK startups and scaleups. In addition to funding, successful applicants receive a host of non-financial support through the EIC’s Business Acceleration Services. These include coaching, mentoring, and networking opportunities.
EIC Pathfinder Streams: Open and Challenges
Pathfinder is split into two streams: Open and Challenges.
Open
- Offers grants of up to €3 million
- Open to innovations from all areas of science and technology
- Only open to consortia containing at least three different entities, one of which must be from an EU member state
Challenges
- Offers grants of up to €4 million
- Open to individual organisations and multinational consortia
- Projects must look to address one of a series of pre-defined ‘challenges’
The current challenges are:
- Biotech for climate resilient crops and plant-based biomanufacturing
- Generative-AI-based agents to revolutionise medical diagnosis and the treatment of cancer
- Towards autonomous robot collectives delivering collaborative tasks in dynamic, unstructured construction environments
- Waste-to-value devices: Circular production of renewable fuels, chemicals and materials
Who is eligible for the Pathfinder competition?
To qualify for an EIC Pathfinder grant, your project, company, and, if applicable, consortium, must meet a range of precise criteria. Let’s explore.
Your project
Your project must look to test the viability of an initial idea or concept for a truly radical technology. Your technology must be capable of disrupting existing markets or establishing brand-new ones.
Your company
To apply to the EIC Pathfinder, you must be a micro, small or medium-sized business–an SME. The EU defines an SME as a company with:
- No more than 250 employees
- And a turnover of no more than €50 million
- Or a balance sheet worth no more than €43 million
Your company must have the technical personnel and commercial acumen to successfully undertake the project you are proposing to the EIC and exploit the results of your project once it’s finished.
Your consortium
The Pathfinder competition is open to consortia – groups of organisations working together on the same project.
The Open strand is only open to consortia, comprising:
- At least one entity from an EU member state
- At least two other independent entities from different member states of associated countries*
The Challenges stream is open to both consortia and individual entities. Consortia applying to the Challenges stream must include at least two legal entities from member states or associated countries*.
*Associated countries means countries associated to Horizon Europe. This includes the UK.
How do I apply to the EIC Pathfinder competition?
The EIC Pathfinder application process has just one step: submitting a proposal.
Proposals have two parts, A and B. Part A contains administrative information and is relatively simple to complete. Part B contains technical information about your project, organisation and consortium members.
Proposals are submitted via the EU’s Funding & Tenders Portal. The 2025 deadlines are:
- Open: 21 May 2025
- Challenges: 29 October 2025
Proposals are independently assessed by at least three expert EIC evaluators.
Applications to the Open stream are then reviewed by an evaluation committee. The assessors at this stage will be different to the ones who performed the initial assessment.
Meanwhile, after the initial review, applications to the Challenges strand are reassessed by your EIC evaluators in a consensus meeting, where they agree on a final score for your proposal.
Part B of your proposal must be no longer than 30 A4 pages if you’re applying for the Challenge strand or 17 pages if you’re applying to the Open strand.
I recommend you set aside at least 6 weeks to work on your application. That’s clearly a lot of time, which is why it’s so important to be certain that you, your consortium partners, and your project are all eligible for the Pathfinder scheme before you apply.
There are few things worse than spending more than a month of valuable time on a proposal only to find out it had zero chance of winning because it didn’t satisfy the competition’s criteria.
If you want to truly know whether you’re eligible for Pathfinder, just book a free Competitiveness and Eligibility Assessment with me and my colleagues at GrantTree.
Your consortium
Pathfinder applications are judged across three areas: Excellence, Impact, and the Quality and efficiency of implementation.
Excellence – The overall strength of your proposal, ambitiousness of your technology and plausibility of your project.
Impact – The likely impact of your technology, including its potential to disrupt and create markets, your plans to exploit it, and your ability to raise awareness of your innovation through communication and scientific literature.
Quality and efficiency of implementation – The strength of your work plan, how effectively you’ve allocated resources to different work packages and consortium members, and the quality of you and your partners in terms of your ability to complete the project tasks.
When will I know if I’ve been successful?
The EIC will let you know if your proposal has been successful – “retained for funding”, to use the Council’s language – within 5 months of the application deadline. You can expect to sign your grant agreement within 8 months of the deadline.
This is a much longer wait than you’d be expected to endure for other innovation grants. Though I would argue that the amount of funding and quality of support on offer make the wait worthwhile.
How do I apply to the EIC Pathfinder competition?
Winning a Pathfinder grant can help you transform a nascent idea into patent-protected proof of concept, en route to commercialisation.
However, like all EIC schemes, Pathfinder is highly competitive, with only 8% of applications to the Challenges strand and 4% to the Open strand accepted in the last round.
GrantTree’s grants experts can maximise your chances, helping you craft a compelling and comprehensive application proving that your project deserves a multi-million-pound grant.
We have a suite of services to suit a range of budgets and support requirements. To find out how my colleagues and I can help you secure a game-changing funding windfall, just get in touch.
