General conditions

1. Admissibility conditions: Applications must be submitted before the call deadline. Applications must be submitted electronically via the Funding and Tenders Portal electronic submission system. 

Applications must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:

• Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the applicant organisations (to be filled in directly online)
• Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the application (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded
• Applicants must support their application with an inspiring video message lasting no more than 90 seconds, describing themselves and their achievements. The video cannot exceed 100MB and should be uploaded to the Submission portal as a .zip file in annex.
   
  

Proposal page limits and layout: 15 pages. It is described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System

2. Eligible countries: applicants must be established in an EU Member State (including overseas countries and terroritories) or in countries associated to Horizon Europe programme. 

3. Other eligibility conditions: In order to be eligible, the applicant must be:

• a woman
• legally established in one of the following eligible countries:
  
  

a. EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories, OCTs)

b. countries associated to the Horizon Europe programme

• The applicant must be the founder or co-founder of the company or organisation
• The company or organisation must be established in an EU Member State (including overseas countries and territories, OCTs) or a country associated to Horizon Europe, and registered or incorporated at least two years before the call year
• Applicants who have already received an EU or Euratom prize cannot receive a second prize for the same activities

In addition to the above, those applying for the EIC Rising Innovators category must be aged under 35 at the start of the call year .

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes

• Award criteria, scoring and thresholds: 

1. Award criterion 1: Breakthrough innovation: The company or organisation founded or co-founded by the applicant is pioneering a breakthrough and disruptive innovation within the EU or countries associated to Horizon Europe. In presenting their innovation, the applicant should demonstrate what makes this product or service breakthrough and disruptive in relation to other existing solutions.

2. Award criterion 2: Impact. This innovation addresses a real need or challenge, with significant benefits for people and/or the planet. The applicant will demonstrate how the organisation’s current performance and growth is driving this positive impact. The applicant should support their answer with numerical data such as performance measures and indicators.

3. Award criterion 3: Inspiration. The applicant is an inspiring leader, who has played a pivotal role in the success of the company or organisation. The applicant is a role model who inspires and empowers other women and girls.

• Submission and evaluation processes. There will be one jury for the EIC Women Innovators and Rising Innovators categories, and one for the EIT category. The jury members may be the same in the three categories.

  If there are more than 300 applications in either category, there will be a pre-selection to select the best 300 above threshold to pass to jury review. Otherwise, all applications will pass directly to jury review.

  The pre-selection panel and jury usually have a different composition, but jury members may participate in the pre-selection panel. The pre-selection panel/jury will evaluate each application against the award criteria. 

• Indicative timeline for evaluation: Q3 2023 to Q2 2024

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes