The European Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Mariya Gabriel, unveiled, on Wednesday 9 February, the €1.7 billion work programme for 2022 of the European Innovation Council (EIC), an initiative designed to diversify and deliver disruptive technological innovations under the Horizon Europe framework programme.
“The work programme is another stone added to the construction of the European Innovation Council, with the ambition of making it Europe’s unicorn factory”, said Ms Gabriel. Our challenge, she said, is to get unicorns through the “valley of death”, the period when these technology start-ups can die because they lack the funding to reach a critical mass.
Since the pilot phase of the EIC under the Horizon 2020 programme, Europe has funded “more than 5,000 companies and supported 4 unicorns and more than 90 centaurs” and now accounts for 33% of global investment in start-ups, very close to that of the United States (35%), the Commissioner said.
Ms Gabriel listed the new features of the 2022 work programme: - the ‘EIC scale-up 100’ initiative aims to identify 100 start-ups with the potential to become unicorns; - the EIC Accelerator will enable companies working on technologies of European interest (quantum computing, artificial intelligence, etc.) to apply for EIC investments of more than €15 million.
Other initiatives will be undertaken to help build a pan-European innovation ecosystem. The Commissioner spoke of increased support for current EIC activities such as the Artificial Intelligence Assessment Tool and the Marketplace, a virtual space that stimulates cooperation between European innovators. Objective: to develop synergies with national and regional programmes to support innovation across the EU.
Synergies with ‘Start-up Europe’ and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) will also be strengthened by targeting start-ups that have received support from the EIC.
“We need more women at the helm of technology companies”, said Ms Gabriel, while venture capital investment in women-founded companies has fallen from 2% in 2020 to 1.1% in 2021. The ‘Women TechEU’ initiative will be allocated €10 million in 2022 (compared to €2 million in 2021) with a view to supporting start-ups founded by women with grants of up to €75,000 each (see EUROPE 12761/27).
A gender equality and diversity in innovation index will be set up to identify and address imbalances and gaps.
Finally, several measures will aim to simplify, on the basis of experience, the processes of the EIC Fund and the Accelerator (calls for projects launched in March/June/October). In addition, the ‘EIC challenges’ approach will provide funding opportunities of over €500 million “for start-ups to develop green technologies and build strategic autonomy in areas such as quantum, space and new medical technologies”, the Commissioner noted.
For more information on the EIC work programme: https://aeur.eu/f/99
Participation of third countries in Horizon Europe. Asked about the open letter from British and Swiss researchers calling for an unblocking of their countries’ participation in the Horizon Europe programme, Ms Gabriel said the European Commission had done everything possible to ensure that researchers from these countries could close projects launched under Horizon 2020 and/or participate in calls for proposals under Horizon Europe.
However, she recalled, in order to benefit from financial support, the third country must be effectively associated with the Horizon Europe programme at the time the project is signed. “This is a deadline that is getting closer”, noted the Commissioner. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)