Last updated: April 2025
If you’re an innovative UK startup or scaleup looking for grant funding to develop your game-changing technology, European Innovation Council grants should definitely be on your radar.
Established under the EU’s vast Horizon Europe programme, the European Innovation Council or ‘EIC’ offers grants of up to €4 million (£3.4 million) to help businesses across Europe mature and scale high-risk, high-impact research and development projects.
In this guide, I’ve explained the key things you need to know about the EIC, including the different grants it offers and who’s eligible for them.
If you want to know whether you should apply for an EIC grant, my colleagues and I at GrantTree would be happy to perform a free Eligibility and Competitiveness Assessment, telling you which of the EIC’s three grant competitions you’re best suited for and how likely we feel you are to win funding.
Boasting an endowment of more than €10 billion, the EIC is Europe’s “flagship innovation programme”. Its mission is to identify, develop, and scale breakthrough technologies through a combination of grant funding, equity investment, and other forms of support.
EIC funding is available to companies and research organisations in EU member states, as well as countries associated to Horizon Europe, which includes the UK.
The European Innovation Council runs four competitions, each focusing on different stages of the innovation journey. Three offer grant funding, which I’ll explain in more detail below. The fourth is STEP Scaleup, which offers up to €30 million in equity funding. You can learn more about STEP Scaleup on the EIC website.
Unlike most grants, the three EIC’s competitions are open for many months at a time, some all year round, and welcome proposals from all fields of science and technology. This makes them an extremely attractive source of funding for innovative UK businesses, but it also makes them highly competitive, with 4-10% of applicants receiving funding.
That’s where GrantTree can help. Calling on decades of grant-winning experience, our team of innovation experts, bid managers and application writers can make sure your submission is as strong as possible, elevating you above the competition and maximising your chances of success.
Learn more about how GrantTree can improve your chances of winning an EIC grant.
Learn more about the European Innovation Council’s three grant funding competitions: Pathfinder, Transition, and Accelerator.
The first of the three schemes is EIC Pathfinder, which offers large grants – up to €4 million (£3.4 million) – to help SMEs validate early-stage ideas through experimentation and laboratory testing.
Using the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) framework employed by innovation funding bodies across the world, Pathfinder looks to mature innovations from TRL 1 or 2 to TRL 3. Pathfinder grants cover up to 100% of your eligible project costs.
Pathfinder is split into two ‘strands’ or ‘streams’. They are:
The next programme is EIC Transition, which offers grants of up to €2.5 million (£2.1 million) for companies, universities, and research organisations looking to bring laboratory-validated innovations to market.
Transition funds projects that test models and prototypes in real-world environments, taking an innovation from TRL 3/4 to TRL 5/6. Transition grants cover up to 100% of your eligible project costs.
EIC Transition is open to proposals from all fields of science and technology. However, it is only open to innovations that have already received grants from specific EU-funded schemes.
Learn which schemes and find out if EIC Transition is right for your business.
The final EIC grant competition is Accelerator, which offers up to €2.5 million (£2.1 million) to help SMEs and individuals intending to launch a qualifying business to commercialise late-stage innovations.
In TRL terms, the Accelerator programme looks to evolve a TRL 6 innovation to TRL 8, where it is ready for market. Accelerator grants cover up to 70% of your eligible project costs.
Like Pathfinder, EIC Accelerator has two streams:
In addition to funding, Accelerator provides successful applicants with a host of other valuable support, such as access to the EIC’s global partner network, vast innovation ecosystem, and experienced coaches.
The Accelerator programme also offers companies up to €10 million in equity investment. However, this is only available to companies in the EU.
Find out if the EIC Accelerator grants are right for your business.
Scheme | TRL Supported | Target TRL | Max grant available | Max % of costs covered | Who can apply? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pathfinder | 1–2 | 3 | €4m (£3.4m) | 100% | SMEs and consortia, including organisations from at least three eligible countries |
Transition | 3/4 | 5/6 | €2.5m (£2.1m) | 100% | SMEs, research organisations, universities, and small consortia (2–5 organisations) |
Accelerator | 6 | 8 | €2.5m (£2.1m) | 70% | SMEs and individuals intending to launch a startup |