The European Commission has adopted the European Innovation Council (EIC) work programme, allocating €1.4 billion to support Europe's most promising deep tech entrepreneurs and researchers. The new programme focuses on what European innovators need most: simplified access to substantial funding, investment and easier access to customers and partners across Europe and beyond.
Building on this support, the Commission is also preparing to launch the Scaleup Europe Fund, a market-based, privately managed and co-financed initiative under the EIC Fund. Created in partnership with private investors, the Fund will bridge the investment gap faced by Europe's deep-tech scale-ups and provide the late-stage growth capital needed to help them expand internationally while remaining anchored in Europe. Together, the 2026 EIC work programme and the new Fund form a stronger European framework for turning world-class research into globally competitive companies.
The new programme introduces key improvements, including a simpler, faster application process for the EIC Accelerator and the launch of pilot Advanced Innovation Challenges, inspired by the US Advanced Research Programme Agency (ARPA) approach.
The EIC Board played an important advisory role in shaping the 2026 work programme, providing strategic guidance and proposing improvements to make EIC support faster, more targeted, and better aligned with innovators' needs.
