EIC Accelerator 2026 - Short proposal
Horizon Europe · Grant topic
Summary
A Polish company can use this call for R&D.
Supports SMEs and startups developing breakthrough innovations through grants and investment, with restricted investment support also available to small mid-caps.
- Who can apply
- Companies can lead: SME, startup, large company.
- Amount
- €2.5M per project
- Deadline
- 04 Nov 2026 01:00 CETin 11 days
- Status
- Openopened 6 Nov 2025
Machine-classified from the call text; check eligibility at the source.
Description
Scope:
The EIC Accelerator supports companies (principally SMEs, including start-ups) to scale up high impact innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones. The EIC Accelerator provides a unique combination of grant and investment funding and Business Acceleration Services (see Section VII of EIC Work Programme 2026).
The EIC Accelerator focuses in particular on innovations building on scientific discovery or technological breakthroughs (‘deep tech’) and where significant funding is needed over a long timeframe before returns can be generated (‘patient capital’). Such innovations often struggle to attract financing because the risks and time period involved are too high. Funding and support from the EIC Accelerator is designed to enable such innovators to attract the full investment amounts needed for scale up in a shorter timeframe.
The EIC Accelerator supports the later stages of technology development as well as scale up. The technology component of your innovation must therefore have been tested and validated in a laboratory and other relevant environment (e.g., at least Technology Readiness Level 5 completed). The EIC Accelerator looks to support companies where the EIC support will act as a catalyst to crowd in other investors necessary for the scale up of the innovation.
Applicants to EIC Accelerator can submit proposals through:
• EIC Accelerator Open - which has no predefined thematic priorities and is open to proposals in any field of technology or application
• EIC Accelerator Challenges - in predefined areas of emerging and strategic technologies.
For further information please see the EIC Work Programme 2026.
Who can apply, in detail
- Applicant types
- SME, Startup, Large company
- Purpose
- Research and innovation
- R&D relevance
- 3 of 3
- Poland eligible
- Yes
- Country limit
- EU Member States and Horizon Europe associated countries; small mid-caps face restrictions on available support.
- Region
- Any
- Consortium
- Single applicant
- Readiness level (TRL)
- —
- Per project
- €2.5M
- Topics
- Deep technology
- Prototyping
- Technology demonstration
- Regulatory testing
- Innovation scale-up
Machine-classified from the call text; check eligibility at the source. 23 Oct 2026
Conditions
Typed facts extracted from the source documents by Scindu's grant-data review. Each value keeps its own conditions. Unknown means unstated, not zero or unlimited.
- Applicant type
- Eligible applicants include a single SME established in a Member State or Associated Country; a single small mid-cap (up to 499 employees) in either geography only for investment-only support or, exceptionally, blended finance for rapid scale-up; and natural persons or legal entities under specified establishment, investment, or relocation routes.
The natural-person/legal-entity route has distinct conditions in subparagraphs (a)-(c), including establishment by grant or investment-agreement signature for one route and effective establishment by full-proposal submission for a non-associated-country relocation route. See the cited page and verify General Annex 2 for full admissibility/eligibility conditions.
- Application restriction
- After three unsuccessful submissions of the same or improved proposal by the same legal entity to EIC Accelerator Open or Challenges, at any stage and for any form of support, the entity may not apply again under Horizon Europe.
Counts unsuccessful submissions of the same/improved proposal by the same legal entity; also applies to Fast Track/Plug In applicants according to the immediately preceding sentence.
- Eligible project scope
- The grant component supports innovation activities including demonstration in the relevant environment, prototyping and system-level demonstration, R&D and testing for regulatory and standardisation requirements, intellectual-property management, and marketing approval; it is intended for TRL 6 to 8 activities.
- Other condition
- The EIC Accelerator investment component is EUR 1,000,000 to EUR 10,000,000; it is a separate investment component (usually equity or quasi-equity), not the grant-component ceiling.
- Other condition
- Four EIC expert evaluators assess short proposals. At least three GO decisions lead to success and invitation to prepare a full proposal; at least two NO GO decisions mean rejection, with resubmission subject to the applicant submission limits.
- Other condition
- Short proposals may be submitted at any time through the Funding & Tenders Portal and are batched for evaluation on the first Tuesday of each month at 17:00 Brussels time. The short application includes a 12-page form, a pitch deck up to ten slides, and a video pitch up to three minutes with up to three core team members.
- Other condition
- The Accelerator targets later-stage technology and scale-up; the technology component must have been tested and validated in a laboratory and another relevant environment, with at least TRL 5 completed (all aspects of TRL 5 validation in a relevant environment).
- Expected project duration
- 24
Expected/normal duration, not an absolute maximum; longer durations may be justified.
Amounts and costs
- Call allocation
- €220,000,000
Indicative allocation across EIC Accelerator Challenges; challenge-level breakdown is elsewhere in the Work Programme.
- Call allocation
- €414,000,000
Indicative allocation to EIC Accelerator Open, not a per-project amount.
- Call allocation
- €634,000,000
Total call allocation; indicative, divided between EIC Accelerator Open and Challenges.
- Funding intensity, maximum
- 70
Maximum reimbursement rate for eligible grant-component costs. Grant component ceiling is EUR 2,499,999; blended-finance grant may exceed that ceiling only in exceptional, well-justified cases.
- Own contribution, minimum
- 30
Applies to work packages covered by the grant component; beneficiary finances this co-funding from own resources.
- Project funding, maximum
- €2,500,000
Grant-only component; one award per legal entity during Horizon Europe 2021-2027. Not a universal amount or blended-finance grant ceiling.
Source documents
Call facts
- Opens
- 6 Nov 2025
- Programme
- Horizon Europe · 2021 - 2027
- Call
- HORIZON-EIC-2026-ACCELERATOR-01 · EIC Accelerator 2026 - Short application
- Types of action
- HORIZON EIC Accelerator
- Keywords
- STEP-Digital/deep tech
- Source
- ec.europa.eu
- Checked
- 24 Oct 2026
- Portal updated
- 15 Oct 2026
- Review status
- Partial review
- Reviewed
- 22 Oct 2026
This is a summary of the source page, not the official text. Eligibility, conditions and the submission system are at the source.