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How to get the attention of the European Innovation Council

The European Innovation Council is the new kid on the block when it comes to EU-level research and innovation funding. After a pilot in the Horizon 2020 R&D programme, the fully fledged version launched in March 2021 as part of Horizon Europe, the EU R&D programme for 2021-27.

With a budget of more than €10 billion, the EIC’s remit is to get innovations to market. It funds projects from proof of concept and technology transfer through to the scale-up of start-ups and small and medium-sized businesses.

One of the council’s main characteristics is having a hands-on approach to managing the projects it backs, and it does this via programme managers who help set the direction for EIC funding and link up portfolios of projects across topic areas.

Francesco Matteucci, one of four EIC programme managers, covers materials for energy and environmental sustainability. He worked as a materials researcher and a corporate R&D manager in the field of renewable energy production and storage technology for more than 20 years before taking up his role with the council in October.

The role involves three core tasks: being an ambassador for the EIC, taking a hands-on approach to project management and developing topics for ‘challenge-driven’ funding calls.

The EIC has five such calls open under its Pathfinder programme, which supports early stage development of future technologies. The total budget for the calls is €132 million, with grants worth up to €4m each. The EIC hopes to receive applications from researchers in universities and institutes, as well as those working in industry. The deadline for proposals is 27 October.

Value chain

Matteucci’s challenge is to develop novel ways of producing hydrogen using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, and the EIC is planning to fund between five and seven projects in this area. He says that the key to applying to the EIC is to properly understand the innovation process, even if the technology being developed is at a very early stage.

“You have to know the whole value chain that will bring your research to exploitation,” he says, “and understand where you position yourself on this path.”

This means getting up to speed with the parts of the value chain beyond your own and knowing how the final application of the technology will be integrated into this. As Matteucci explains, outlining the value chain of green hydrogen, “Once you produce it, you may need to store it, to transport it, to use it directly as a fuel, or use it as a feedstock for chemicals or for the steel industry, and so on.”

Even if you don’t know the other parts of the value chain fully, Matteucci says that prospective applicants should at least show a willingness to find out more. Programme managers are there to help link projects up with other stakeholders. “We try to facilitate the innovation journey of the ongoing projects, working both with researchers and entrepreneurs,” he says. This includes connecting them with other parts of a project’s value chain.

Firm proposal

For Matteucci, a good proposal resembles “a talk where you are convincing us that we have to bet on you”. Although applicants are pitching research projects, they can benefit from modelling their applications on business pitches to investors. “When you pitch to an investor, you have to show that you [will] manage the best team,” he says, “and that you know the market and how to overcome
its challenges.”

While programme managers are not directly involved in the evaluation of bids, they do have a role to play in the selection process. Proposals are first evaluated against the standard Horizon Europe criteria of excellence, impact and implementation by external evaluators before going in front of a selection committee. Matteucci and his fellow programme managers give advice for this second stage based on how well projects fit within their portfolios, but they do not have any voting power.

Extra opportunities

Matteucci points out that proposals that score highly but ultimately do not triumph in the challenge-driven calls can have another chance for success via the annual EIC Pathfinder Open call. 

Indeed, one of his responsibilities is to help connect projects from different funding routes. These can be projects funded by other arms of the European Commission, as well as by national or regional funders. 

If a proposal does not fit within a specific challenge-driven call, it may well fall into an alternative portfolio.

Within the EIC alone, Matteucci says that there are between 300 and 500 projects related to energy and the environment. Around 10 to 20 are in green hydrogen, while another 20 to 40 are in energy storage.

Right now, he and his fellow programme managers are kept busy working on the 2022 programme, ahead of the next round of challenge-driven calls. They have interviewed around 50 stakeholders already—including venture capitalists, scientists and entrepreneurs—and have identified four potential topics for inclusion. He expects these to be fully defined by the end of the summer. 

This is an extract from an article in Research Professional’s Funding Insight service. To subscribe contact sales@researchresearch.com