EIC Accelerator 2023

Support and accelerate the preclinical validation and/or clinical phase 1 work carried out by innovative SMEs (including start-ups, spinouts) and small midcaps to develop novel predictive, prognostic and companion diagnostic assays to guide cancer treatment.

Specific Objectives:

• Develop novel companion diagnostic assays, including through liquid profiling to identify who, among cancer patients, is more likely to benefit from a given treatment (guided treatment);
• Develop novel predictive biomarker-based assays to identify who, among patients with potentially precancerous lesions, is more likely to develop cancer;
• Develop novel prognostic assays including through liquid profiling to identify who, among the cancer patients who underwent treatment, is more likely to recur;
• Develop novel companion diagnostic assays, including through liquid profiling to identify who, among the cancer patients receiving treatment, is more likely to develop side effects as a result of the treatment and,
• Develop novel monitoring biomarker-based assays to effectively monitor the clinical course of the disease.

Indicative budget: €65m

Development and commercialisation of technological solutions facilitating social interaction in the context of pandemic emergencies, by means of one or more of the three following approaches:

Specific Objectives:

• Full systems for high-efficiency aerosol capture, pathogen deactivation and air circulation management in closed-environments (e.g., office space, in-flight, retail stores, etc.), including advanced air-filtering architectures and dynamic air circulation optimisation.
• Next-generation face mask technologies with smart filtration materials to exceed N95 performance at low airflow resistance, with improved retention/rejection of sub-micron particles.
• Rapid surface decontamination devices beyond state-of-the-art UV-C irradiation systems and biocidal agent dispersion.

Indicative budget: €65m

Strategic for the REPowerEU plan, transforming the EU into a resource-efficient economy, ensuring increasing Europe's energy independence from unreliable suppliers and volatile fossil fuels, facilitating the development of social innovations and promotion of participative approaches for a fair energy transition, increasing awareness for a rationale use of energy, while preserving Europe’s natural environment and tackling climate change.

Specific Objectives:

• Store electric and /or thermal energy at low cost, high density, high charging /discharging efficiency and enhanced durability.
• Design technological approaches (chemical, electrical, electrochemical, mechanical, thermal) for energy storage at different scales (centralised at large industrial facilities premises or distributed and at small scale level – mobile electronics), duration (short – millisecond to day, medium – days to month and long term – months to seasons) and uses (from stationary to mobile).
• Develop technologies that, without using critical raw materials or ensuring the maximisation of their recycle/reuse, minimise their carbon footprint measured through a life-cycle analysis (including cost and social impact evaluation). The integration of technologies in products and services shall embrace circular and life cycle thinking approach, and support the transition to a circular economy.

Indicative budget: €100m

To provide transformative digital products or digitally enabled solutions for the AEC sector that can help it achieve climate neutrality while striving to comply with or contribute to the human-centred quality values and principles brought forward by the New European Bauhaus.

Specific Objectives:

• Digital fabrication. This relates to ventures developing and commercializing large-scale fabrication products (or components or solutions for that) with a view on future economic industrialisation of the AEC value chain, for example 3D-printing products, such as “construction variants” of Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), Wire-and-Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM), Binder- Jetting (BJ), Stereolithography (SLA), or Digital Light Processing (DLP), robot assisted composites fabrication, factory and field robotics, automation products, digital moulds, solutions for distributed building factories. This includes innovative solutions to further progress the current Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) processing factories.
• Alternative materials. This relates to ventures active in the development, production, advanced application of alternative building materials, or building concepts, building elements, design coupled with fabrication concepts, such as stereotomy 2.0, based on advanced uses of alternative materials. This includes innovative applications of timber, timber derivatives such as CLT or Glulam, timber composites, curved CLT surfaces and high performance composed building elements. This also includes other natural materials such as fungal architecture, cork, bamboo, hemp, as well as locally sourced materials such as earth, clay and stone, as well as recycled and waste-based materials, as well as engineered composites of such materials.

Indicative budget: €65m

This Challenge contributes to the objectives of the Chips Act by supporting the development of critical technologies where start-ups and SMEs with disruptive innovations have the potential to scale up and help ensure the future open strategic autonomy of the Union.

Specific Conditions:

Applications to this EIC Accelerator Challenge may request an investment component of above EUR 15 million in duly justified cases.
In order to protect the strategic interests of the Union and its Member States, the contract may set specific conditions and milestones if this is necessary to ensure that technologies of a strategic nature for open autonomy are not directly or indirectly controlled by third countries not associated to Horizon Europe or by legal entities of non-associated third countries.
Any technology under this Challenge must be developed in a robust manner, paying specific attention to safety, security and ethics considerations in future applications.

• Fault-tolerant quantum computer(s) with:
•  Improved performance;
• Significantly simplified QPU (Quantum Processing Units) integration with control electronics;
• Scalable control systems (scalable to tens of thousands of qubits, needed for meaningful practical applications);
• Quantum sensing components to function in real/harsh environment for various application areas, such as ecotoxicology, pharmaceuticals, biomedical, space, corrosion detection in power plants, gas/oil tanks, raw material detection, medical imaging, automotive and many more.
• Quantum communication devices that can be deployed in a real environment such as quantum repeaters, devices for quantum-based encryption etc.

B. Semiconductor chip development:

The aim of this Challenge is to support the design and development of innovative semiconductor components and intellectual property for analogue and digital integrated circuits and systems including memory, logic, optical components, and sensors, in relevant technology fields such as: Artificial Intelligence, edge computing, Internet of Things, electric and autonomous vehicles, 5G/6G communication, cybersecurity, health and wellness, environmental sustainability. The scope also includes innovative design approaches that address combination of different functionalities such as computing, RF, power, memory and sensing. Moreover, this Challenge should support advanced chips design in order to keep Europe in the front line of the semiconductor industry in the coming years as the industry thrives for higher performance and greater circuit integration.
The proposing entities should demonstrate ground-breaking innovation in the respective applications fields and high potential for commercial deployment in important EU industry sectors such as automotive, industry automation, information and communication, healthcare, aerospace, security, energy.

Indicative budget: €100m

Groundbreaking innovations that will lead to a radical transformation beyond the state-of-the-art of the current fertilisation, crop protection, irrigation and soil management practices. From a food system point of view, they will take into account strategies for climate adaptation, and a life cycle approach. Consideration should be also given to possible effects of such innovations on the food supply chain. From an environment point of view it is expected they will help to ensure healthier and richer biodiversity and more resilient ecosystems.

Specific Objectives:

• Development and scaleup of interdisciplinary solutions for regenerative agriculture and soil health in the areas of
• Sustainable fertilisation;
• Crop protection under principles of Integrated Pest Management with a
  focus on mechanical/physical and biological measures;
• Irrigation;
• Soil management, protection and restoration;
• Crop and livestock management.
• Novel processes, materials, equipment, management practises and microorganisms adapted to harsh environments, climate adaptation needs and resource scarcity, including diversification of crops, mixed farming systems, interseasonal cropping and technologies to increase crops adaptation to climate changes.

Indicative budget: €65m

Ensure Europe is able to service and protect its own Space infrastructure, avoiding the risk of losing its strategic autonomy, and enhance the competitiveness of its space industry by encouraging the emergence of innovative, interoperable, scalable, and autonomous “customer-driven” innovative space technologies and services.

Specific Objectives:

• To have the means to inspect spacecraft in orbit, to augment satellite capabilities and resilience;
• To develop autonomous and in-space collision avoidance capabilities e.g., use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)/ Machine Learning (ML) for collision avoidance manoeuvres, space debris positioning data and develop in-space mobility propulsion capabilities;
• To further mature assembly and manufacturing in orbit with different applications (e.g., in-orbit, cis-lunar exploration, Earth observation, space debris inspection, space situational awareness, etc.);
• To collect space debris with a view for recycling, recovering and transforming purposes (e.g., microgravity platforms);
• To design and construct a R&I low Earth orbit unmanned platform assembled in orbit and to host in-orbit microgravity experiments or collect/re-use space debris considering and make use of a sustainable, modular concept for the platform and its operation;
• To scale up disruptive innovations for space situational awareness (SSA), in- space logistics, Earth observation, navigation, satellite communications (SATCOM), and others.

Indicative budget: €65m