EIC Transition

About the EIC Transition

EIC Transition covers the stage where a research result is real but not yet investable. It funds the maturation of a technology from roughly TRL 3-4 to TRL 5-6, which in practice means moving from "this works on the bench" to "this works in a relevant environment, and here is the case for the money that comes next". Funding runs up to €2.5 million over about three years. Unlike almost every other Horizon Europe instrument, a single entity can apply alone as a mono-beneficiary. Consortia are allowed but stay small, and they do carry a country rule: two entities must be established in two different Member or Associated States, and a three-to-five entity consortium follows the standard composition of at least one entity in a Member State plus two more, each in a different Member or Associated State. Eligibility is gated on where the technology came from. A project has to build on results from a qualifying earlier grant, principally an EIC Pathfinder project, an ERC Proof of Concept, or certain FET projects from Horizon 2020, with the exact list of qualifying sources set each year in the Work Programme. That gate matters more than any other rule here: EIC Transition is a follow-on instrument for work the EU already paid for, rather than an open call. Projects are expected to run two tracks in parallel rather than in sequence. One is technical: build the demonstrator, validate it in a relevant environment, secure the IP. The other is commercial: identify the users, size the real market, decide between licensing and a spin-off, and assemble the business case. Proposals that treat the commercial track as a final work package tend to score poorly, because the instrument exists to produce something investable, and a technology that only works does not clear that bar. Evaluation covers excellence, impact and implementation, with an interview stage for proposals that clear the remote review. Success rates have run higher than the EIC Accelerator, in the region of 15-20%, which follows from the much smaller pool of eligible applicants.

Who is eligible?

• •The project must build on results from a qualifying prior grant: an EIC Pathfinder project, an ERC Proof of Concept, or certain FET projects, with the exact list set in the year's Work Programme
• •Technology at TRL 3-4 at the start, targeting TRL 5-6 by project end
• •Single entity (mono-beneficiary) is allowed. A two-entity consortium must span two different Member or Associated States; a three-to-five entity consortium follows the standard rule of one Member State entity plus two more in different Member or Associated States
• •Established in an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe associated country
• •The prior grant does not have to still be running, but the link to its results must be demonstrable
• •Both a technology maturation plan and a commercialisation plan are required, a purely technical proposal does not meet the scope

How to apply

1. 1. Confirm your prior grant qualifies

   Check the year's Work Programme for the list of qualifying sources before anything else. This is a hard eligibility gate and the most common reason an otherwise strong idea cannot apply at all. A thematically related prior project is not enough, the results have to be the foundation.

2. 2. Decide whether you need partners

   Single-entity applications are genuinely accepted here, which is unusual for Horizon Europe. Adding even one partner brings the country rule with it, so add a partner only when they bring something you cannot: manufacturing capability, clinical access, a route to a specific market.

3. 3. Plan the technical and commercial tracks together

   Write the demonstrator plan and the business-case work in parallel, with dependencies between them. The strongest proposals let market findings feed back into technical decisions rather than presenting commercialisation as a closing work package.

4. 4. Settle the IP position

   Establish who owns the results of the prior grant, what freedom to operate exists, and how ownership will work across any partners. Reviewers treat an unresolved IP position as a direct threat to the investability the instrument is trying to create.

5. 5. Submit against a cut-off via the EU Funding & Tenders portal

   The call runs against a small number of cut-off dates published in the annual Work Programme, as a single-stage full proposal rather than a short-then-full sequence.

6. 6. Remote evaluation, then interview

   Independent experts score the proposal remotely, and proposals that pass go to an interview. Be ready to defend the commercial case as closely as the technology.

What sets winning proposals apart

• ✓Show the market work you have already done. A proposal that quotes conversations with named potential adopters beats one that promises to find them in work package five.
• ✓Define what validation in a relevant environment means for your specific technology, and commit to a measurable threshold. Reviewers need to know what TRL 5-6 looks like in your case.
• ✓Say what happens on day one after the project ends. Naming the investor conversation, licensee or spin-off you are heading for is what separates this from a research proposal.
• ✓Keep the consortium small and justified. Partners who exist to broaden the geography add coordination cost and no score.
• ✓Resolve the IP question before submission rather than promising to resolve it during the project.
• ✓Include a genuine go/no-go decision point. Committing to stop if the technology fails a defined test reads as commercial maturity, not weakness.

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