The European Commission has officially adopted the 2026 European Innovation Council (EIC) Work Programme, setting aside €1.4 billion to accelerate Europe’s deep-tech innovation ecosystem. The programme aims to simplify access to funding and enhance collaboration opportunities for Europe’s most promising innovators, researchers, and entrepreneurs.

The EIC work programme 2026 details the funding in five main schemes, each targeting different stage of innovation:

• EIC Pathfinder (€262 million) for multi-disciplinary research teams to undertake visionary research with the potential to lead to technology breakthroughs (grants up to €4 million).

• EIC Transition (€100 million) to turn research results into innovation opportunities, following up on results generated by EIC Pathfinder, European Research Council Proof of Concept, Horizon Europe Pillar 2 (societal challenges) collaborative projects and Research Infrastructures projects (grants up to €2.5 million).

• Advanced Innovation Challenges (€6 million) to support high-risk, demand-driven deep tech innovation with transformative potential especially in areas where there is extensive research but lack of commercial uptake (€300,000 lump sum)

• EIC Accelerator (€634 million) for start-ups and SMEs to develop and scale up innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones (grants below €2.5 million, investments from €0.5 to €10 million).

• The EIC Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Scale Up (€300 million) , which will provide additional equity funding to promising companies (SMEs, start-ups, spin-offs and small mid-caps) driving innovation in critical areas to help them secure larger private co-investment rounds of €50 million or above for further scaling their businesses (investments from €10 to €30 million).

Key highlights of the 2026 EIC Work Programme

1. Simpler and faster EIC Accelerator Process

The EIC Accelerator, the EU’s flagship funding instrument for high-potential startups and SMEs, application process will be simpler:

• Application forms will be reduced from 50 to 20 pages;

• Evaluation rounds will take place every two months (instead of biannually) ;

• The process will include stronger technology assessments to streamline investment due diligence.

Since its launch under Horizon Europe, the EIC Accelerator has attracted more than 15,000 applications and supported over 300 innovative companies through equity investments and blended finance.

2. Advanced Innovation Challenges (Pilot Phase)

Inspired by the U.S. ARPA model, the EIC will launch Advanced Innovation Challengestargeting high-risk, high-reward research areas. These challenge-driven calls will fund bold, mission-oriented projects in strategic sectors such as AI, climate adaptation, and critical raw materials.

Projects will receive staged funding, initially supporting multiple approaches to a given challenge, followed by larger grants for the most promising solutions to prototype and test with end users.

3. Support for the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy

The 2026 programme will also strengthen initiatives under the Startup and Scaleup Strategy, including:

• The European Corporate Network, expanding on successful EIC corporate days;

• Enhanced services for internationalisation and market access;

• A Gender Index to monitor and promote women's participation in innovation ecosystems.

Additionally, the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) call, offering investments of up to €30 million per project, will continue in 2026 following strong uptake in 2025.