European Innovation Council: EUR 1.2 billion for strategic technologies and business expansion

The Commission adopted the work programme of the European Innovation Council (“the ERC”) for 2024, which will offer funding opportunities worth more than €1.2 billion by 2024.

The bulk of this funding goes to SMEs and start-ups to develop and scale up their ‘deep tech’ innovations in critical areas such as generative artificial intelligence, space, critical raw materials, semiconductors and quantum technologies. This follows the Commission Decision completing the restructuring of the ERC Fund, which will receive a capital injection of €585 million to invest in selected ERC companies, mobilising more than €2 billion in new investments.

Investing in strategic technologies

While most ERC funding is open to all technology areas, €420 million of this funding is earmarked for novel technologies and SMEs and start-ups to address challenges to directly support the European Green Deal, REPowerEU, the Chips Act, the future AI Act, the Zero Net Emissions Industry Act and other EU policies, including the New European Innovation Agenda. In line with the Commission’s Economic Security Strategy, applications in critical areas such as AI and quantum will be considered for foreign ownership and investment safeguards to be applied by the ERC Fund.

The ERC’s 2024 work programme details funding in three main schemes:

• ERC Explorer (€256 million) supports multidisciplinary research teams to carry out visionary research with the potential to generate technological breakthroughs (with grants of up to €4 million).
• The ERC Transition (€94 million) aims to transform research results into innovation opportunities and to follow up on the results achieved by ERC Explorer projects and European Research Council proof-of-concept projects, and is open for the first time to the results of collaborative projects under Horizon’s Pillar II on societal challenges (grants of up to €2.5 million).
• The ERC Accelerator (€675 million) aims to help start-ups and SMEs develop and scale up innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones (grants of less than €2.5 million and investments of between €0.5 million and €15 million). 405 million is earmarked for investments to be managed by the ERC Fund, which will receive an additional €180 million to complement investments in companies selected in previous Accelerator calls.

The Commission has also completed the restructuring of the CIS Fund by transferring its shares to the European Investment Bank, and continues to guide the Fund’s investment policy. This, together with the measures introduced in the ERC work programme, will give the ERC Fund greater flexibility to manage the investment portfolio, which already includes more than 500 of Europe’s most promising start-ups and high-growth companies.

European Innovation Council Fund injects €331 million into European deep-tech companies

Simplification and other new features

Based on the advice of the ERC Committee, the work programme introduces a number of simplifications and improvements:

• The introduction of flat-rate funding in most ERC calls, which will eliminate financial reporting requirements for beneficiaries.
• The updating of specific rules on intellectual and industrial property in order to empower technology transfer offices, following the recommendations of the ERC Committee.
• The introduction of consensus meetings for ERC Accelerator applications to improve the robustness of the evaluation process.
• Flexibility for the ERC Fund to increase or delay investments in selected companies in order to better respond to company needs and market developments.
• The opening of ERC Transition funding to monitor the results of collaborative Horizon projects, in addition to the results of the ERC Proof of Concept, ERC Explorer and European Defence Fund projects.

More information: European Commission – Representation in Spain