EIC Accelerator submission deadline extended due to platform transition: Know more

The European Innovation Council (EIC) announced on Friday, June 2 that it is migrating to an Electronic Submission System to be hosted on the Funding and Tender Opportunities portal.  

The portal is available immediately for future and ongoing applications to the EIC Accelerator.

The move comes as the EIC’s current Artificial Intelligence (AI) Platform for applying to the EIC Accelerator becomes inaccessible due to a contractual dispute effective June 2, 2023. 

As an emergency measure, the European Innovation Council has restructured the application forms on the Funding and Tender Opportunities Portal. It will continue to improve them in response to user feedback.

From EIC AI Platform to the Electronic Submission System

Since its launch under Horizon Europe, the EIC has relied on the EIC AI Platform for application submission to the EIC Accelerator calls. 

The platform was developed within a short time-frame to accommodate updated features not available on the Funding and Tender Opportunities portal at that time. 

It provides diagnostics, AI tools, and a structured methodology to assist applicants in developing their business plans.

Despite continuous improvements to the EIC AI Platform since 2021, feedback from applicant companies, EIC jury members, expert evaluators, and investors indicated that the platform remained overly complex. This demanded excessive time and effort from applicants.

In response to this feedback, the European Innovation Council Board published a statement on March 21, 2023, calling for major and rapid improvements to the EIC AI Platform. 

The statement emphasised the need to shorten the application form, align it more closely with business cases used for other investment purposes, and enhance the user experience.

Implications for applicants

Companies that have already begun working on their full (Step 2) proposals for the EIC Accelerator cut-off on June 7, 2023, will receive their draft application documents by email.

They will be able to continue their application process on the Funding and Tender Opportunities Portal immediately, utilising the portal’s application forms. 

“To guarantee equal treatment in the evaluation, companies already having submitted a full (Step 2) application on the EIC AI Platform will also need to re-submit their proposal. These companies will also receive their application submitted on the EIC AI Platform by e-mail,” says European Innovation Council. 

To accommodate these changes, the submission deadline for the June 7, 2023 cut-off has been extended by two weeks to June 21, 2023 17:00.

Temporary suspension of short (Step 1) applications

Short (Step 1) applications will not be submitted on the Funding and Tender Opportunities portal, but on a separate EISMEA IT Platform that is to be in place. 

A separate IT Platform for Step 1 proposals is needed due to its specific requirements (a short form, slide deck, and video pitch). 

Companies preparing short (Step 1) applications will have to wait until the new IT Platform is operational. This is expected to be ready by July 2023. 

EISMEA ( European Innovation Council and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Executive Agency) aims to complete the evaluation of all short (Step 1) applications within four weeks, after which successful applicants have up to one year to prepare their full (Step 2) applications. 

For companies that already submitted their short (Step 1) applications but have not yet received the (positive) results of the evaluation, there will not be sufficient time to prepare full (Step 2) applications in time for the (delayed) cut-off on June 21. 

These companies will be notified about the results of their evaluation in due course. They may apply for the following cut-off (October 4, 2023) or cut-offs in early 2024.