It is very well-known that we Europeans are struggling to translate research into innovation. Aiming to fill this gap, the European Innovation Council (EIC) has established the EIC Transition program, a funding initiative that provides grants of up to €2.5 million to advance market readiness and evaluate and showcase inventions in application-relevant settings.
This programme aims to support: a) the maturation and validation of novel technologies in the lab and in pertinent application environments; and b) the development of a business case and (business) model towards the innovation’s future commercialization. EIC Transitions funds innovation activities that go beyond the experimental proof of principle in the lab. In terms of Technology Readiness Level (TRL), projects are expected to start at TRL 3/ 4 and achieve TRL 5/ 6 by project close.
The results from the latest EIC (European Innovation Council) Transition call have been recently announced:
Regarding the EIC Transition Open call, there has been a relevant increase of 19.13% in the number of applications received in this cut-off (162 in contrast to 131 in the April 2022 cut-off):
- From 162 applications submitted, 12 projects have received funding (7.4% success rate),
- The average grant is €2.5M.
In the case of the EIC Transition Challenges:
- From 95 applications received, 15 projects have received funding (15.78% success rate). This represents an increase by 46% in the number of applications received (49 applications were received in the April 2023 call),
- The average grant is €2.5M.
Results of the September 2023 Call
The top three countries are Germany (22%), Belgium (18.5%) and Italy and the Netherlands (11% each). The table below shows the number of awarded projects per coordinator’s country:
Figure 1. Winners per country.
9 out of the 27 approved applications (33.33%) have been submitted by an RTO as coordinator, that is, either by universities or research centers, while the remaining 18 applications have been submitted by a company as coordinator (66.66%).
Figure 2. Share of projects by coordinator type.
The table below shows the full list of winners:
| Proposal Title | Coordinating Organisation | Country Coordinator | Duration (months) | Recommended Budget |
| ACU-SERS | Automated Clinical Platform For Personalized Antibiotherapy In Critical Units Based On Surface Enhancement Raman Spectroscopy | 36 | DK | DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET |
| AMICA | Adaptive microcombs for innovative connectivity in datacenter applications and optical clocks | 36 | SE | CHALMERS TEKNISKA HOGSKOLA AB |
| AQLAS | Advanced lasers for quantum technologies | 36 | IT | ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI RICERCA METROLOGICA |
| BeeOmetrics | BeeOmetrics: an AI-powered predictive platform based on wild bee activity for targeted environmental management. | 36 | BE | BEEODIVERSITY |
| COCOPOP | Coherent Comb for Co-Packaged Optics | 36 | IE | PILOT PHOTONICS LTD |
| Coati-X | New generation of bioactive coating for intravenous catheters and implantable medical devices to prevent infections and thrombosis | 36 | BE | CMD-COAT SA |
| Dypha | Dypha: adding the dimension of time to cell culture | 36 | NL | DEMCON sync biosystems B.V |
| FASS | Fast and Accurate Solubility for Sustainability | 30 | DE | EUROPEAN INFRASTRUCTURE OF OPEN SCREENING PLATFORMS FOR CHEMICAL BIOLOGY EUROPEAN RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE CONSORTIUM (EU-OPENSCREEN ERIC) |
| GAIA | Graphene-based Artificial Iris for Active light management in a smart contact lens | 36 | BE | Azalea Vision |
| HYPERCELL | Magnetic Resonance at the Scale of a Cell | 30 | DE | NVISION IMAGING TECHNOLOGIES GMBH |
| OptoWavePro | Near natural hearing restoration through waveguide-based optical cochlear implants | 36 | DE | UNIVERSITAETSMEDIZIN GOETTINGEN – GEORG-AUGUSTUNIVERSITAET GOETTINGEN – STIFTUNG OEFFENTLICHEN RECHTS |
| OxyBatt | High-temperature oxygen batteries for Industrial Internet of Things | 36 | ES | FUNDACIO INSTITUT DE RECERCA DE L’ENERGIA DE CATALUNYA |
| PROFUSE | A Revolutionary Tech for Exceptionally Efficient Natural Muscle Tissue Growth in Cultivated Meat Applications | 24 | IL | ProFuse Technology Ltd. |
| Penphomet | PEN photoporation for the genetic engineering of therapeutic mesenchymal stromal cells and T cells | 36 | BE | TRINCE |
| QlibriNANO | The world’s most sensitive absorption microscope | 36 | DE | QLIBRI GMBH |
| RAMAN | Rapid Affordable Microbiota Analysis at the point of Need | 24 | FR | BFORCURE |
| RESPONSE | Early detection of treatment response in breast cancer | 36 | DK | DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET |
| ReLiV | Real time Liver disease early diagnosis through exhaled Volatile Organic Compounds sensing | 36 | IL | NANOSE MEDICAL LTD |
| SCOPE | Leveraging CRISPR-Cas for fast and accurate point-of-care diagnostics | 24 | NL | Scope Biosciences B.V. |
| SKYTALE | Real-time quantum decoders for reliable quantum computing | 36 | UK | Riverlane Ltd |
| TREM2MEDS | Towards the clinical implementation of TREM2 Microglia Engineering for treating DementiaS | 36 | IT | UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA |
| Vasc-onDemand | Prefabricated Mature Blood Vessels and Tools for Vascularized 3D Cell Culture | 36 | DE | UNIVERSITAETSKLINIKUM WUERZBURG – KLINIKUM DER BAYERISCHEN JULIUS-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAT |
| Welinq | Industry-grade Quantum Memory Links enabling the Quantum Internet | 24 | FR | WELINQ SAS |
| entropIC | Anticounterfeiting solution based on integrated circuits implementing high-entropy physical unclonable functions | 36 | IT | QUANTAVIS SRL |
| femto-iCOMB | Integrated femtosecond laser based frequency comb and photonic microwave oscillator | 36 | DE | Cycle GmbH |
| iSENS | Integrated needle-free injection and sensing using opto-microfluidics | 36 | NL | FlowBeams BV |
| proposal Bart Kuyken | MOde LOcKing for Advanced Sensing and Imaging | 36 | BE | UNIVERSITEIT GENT |
