1. Admissibility conditions: To be an eligible applicant to EIC Accelerator, you must apply as one of the following eligible entities:

• a single company classified as a SME and established within a Member State or an Associated Country (see Annex 2 of the EIC Work Programme 2023); or
• a single company classified as a small mid-cap (up to 499 employees) established in a Member State or an Associated Country, but only for exceptional cases for rapid scale up purposes ; or
• One or more natural persons (including individual entrepreneurs) or legal entities, which are either:
  
  

a. From a Member State or an Associated Country intending to establish an SME or small mid-cap (as defined above) in a Member State or Associated Country by the time of signing the EIC Accelerator contract or, in case the equity only is awarded, at the latest when agreeing on its investment component;

b. Intending to invest in an SME or small mid-cap in a Member State or an Associated Country and who may submit a proposal on behalf of that SME or small mid-cap, provided that a prior agreement exist with the company. The contract will be signed with the beneficiary company only; or

c. From a non-associated third country intending to establish an SME (including start-ups) or to relocate an existing SME to a Member State or an Associated Country. Your company must prove its effective establishment in a Member State or an Associated Country at the time of submission of the full proposal.

The standard admissibility and eligibility conditions are detailed in Annex 2 of the EIC Work Programme 2023.

There are limitations on the number of times you can submit a proposal described in section in section IV (Table 8) of the EIC Work Programme 2023 on resubmission limits.

If you are currently a participant in an eligible project funded by Horizon Europe or Horizon 2020 then you may be able to apply through your existing project under the Fast Track scheme (see Annex 3 of the EIC Work Programme 2023). This scheme is managed by the funding body responsible for the existing project and applies to funding bodies listed in Annex 3. Applicants may also be able to apply if they have a project financed by an eligible programme managed by a Member State or an Associated Country under the pilot Plug-in scheme. The Plug-in scheme to apply to the EIC Accelerator is detailed in Annex 4 of the EIC Work Programme 2023.

Proposal page limits and layout: You must prepare your application (Short and Full application) on the EIC artificial intelligence-based IT platform via on-line forms, by answering a series of questions:

Short applications:

• An on-line form where you must summarise your proposal and respond to a set of questions on your innovation, your potential market and your team;
• A pitch-deck of up to ten (10) slides in pdf format;
• A video pitch of up to three (3) minutes where the core members of your team (up to three people) should provide the motivation for your proposal

Full applications:

• An on-line form that follows a methodology embedded in the EIC artificial intelligence-based IT platform that generates a full and detailed business plan with information on you company’s finances and structure;
• A pitch-deck to be used if invited to the interviews

2. Eligible countries: described in Annex 2 (General conditions for proposals) of the EIC Work Programme 2023.

Applicants from the United Kingdom can apply to the EIC Accelerator, but can only request and receive funding in the form of “grant only”. The signature of any grant agreement will be subject to the positive conclusion of the association negotiation with the United Kingdom.

3. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex 2 (General conditions for proposals) of the EIC Work Programme 2023.

• Award criteria, scoring and thresholds: described in section IV of the EIC Work Programme 2023

• Submission and evaluation processes: described in section IV of the EIC Work Programme 2023

• Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in section IV of the EIC Work Programme 2023