Juries and the EIC Work Program

The last two weeks were very engaging, as more than 100 companies had to present their proposals for the accelerator before the EIC Juries. The juries had to decide on a go or no-go, knowing that there were budgetary restraints, limiting the awarded companies, slightly lower than previous rounds, which were all above. Budgets are now lower, and are likely to remain lower. Hence the reflection is this edition not only on what makes a proposal successful, but also for the EIC Board on what to learn in advising on the work program for 2025 and beyond.

The success factors are strategic and tactical. Tactically it is of utmost importance to train the interviews in a thorough way, so for at least 20 hours. Please take it serious so prepare on time, and do not take any risk to be stuck and traffic jams and to do the interview from the road-side. Assure yourself that an external reviewer has found the weak parts and test that well for the interview. And rather have once a response “we do not know yet”, than improvise something.

What makes a good proposal

What remains strategic is four things. Consider those even before applying in the first stage. In the first place you innovation needs to be deeptech, here supported by evidence from literature. It is preferably your deeptech: you are the writer of the scientific base. So milling and grinding is in itself not deeptech, unless recipes involve deeptech. In the first place you need substantial patents before starting, and a secure freedom to operate. So both your own patents (please more than 2, of which you are applicant, inventor or licensee) and there road to further patenting must be clear and well assessed compared to other patents in the same technology, or in other technologies that solve comparable problems. Third the road to commercialisation and industrialisation must be clear, with a clear preference for strong control over both (rather than licensing) and a deployment in Europe (rather than in the USA). Fourth and finally all elements in the application have to be coherent. Especially the level of financial support needs to be credible with commercial (turnover expected) and industrial (CAPEX required) ambitions.

These considerations will also shape the thinking of the EIC Board for the next work programs. In each jury round I have attended, and also in each full review of the full proposal there were ventures of which the reviewers/jury said: they should never have got so far. I myself, was often stricter than the juries themselves, but in seasons cases 1/3 of the proposals should not have reached the jury stage, being less convincing on all the criteria above. One third were very impactful proposals but not deep-tech. They deserve funding, but not in an instrument like the accelerator - which is really for deeptech. One third were very good proposals, but one of them (in each round) missed conviction on a few arguments and were not selected for funding.

The Innovators Journey

With limited budgets, doing nothing means that success rates go down. Hence we explore routes to reduce the number of applicants, and by bringing more focus in the work programme. The concept is that while we have to be sympathetic to the innovators journey, that journey is not only the journey of the 5-6% successful ones. It is evenmore the journey of 95% non successful one, and they deserve a framework that enable to think twice (or even more) before applying. They also deserve lessons to do as best as possible. They also deserve that member states, regions, private capital have alternative funding for the very good ones that were just not excellent. They also deserve that once funded they do not face exorbitant regulatory constraints from national or European regulation.

Towards a Scope for the Work Program

The EIC Board is currently working on a scoping note for the EIC Work Program. Suggestions are welcome till March 11th here on LinkedIn or through mail to [email protected]