EIC Transition Open - the Basics

EIC Transition Open is a new funding scheme under the Horizon Europe programme. It is intended to validate early-stage novel technologies. As part of the programme’s guidelines, such early-stage novel technologies must build on the results of previous ERC Proof-of-Concept, EIC Pathfinder (including EIC pilot Pathfinder, Horizon 2020 FET-Open, FET-Proactive) and FET Flagship projects (including ERANET calls under the FET work programme). All such schemes share a leading characteristic – their groundbreaking and innovative nature, typically reflected by a low TRL, making them premature for the market environment. Thus, as a leading goal, EIC Transition Open aims to further develop early-stage innovations achieved under H2020/Horizon Europe towards deployment in the market and is therefore designed for technologies with considerable business potential.

Being that it is based on previous findings of the above-mentioned projects, the EIC Transition Open grant is very specific in terms of requirements, participation criteria and options, applications and evaluation process. In this article, we will explore and review EIC Transition Open’s properties, eligibility criteria, and funding opportunities. In the follow-up article, we will thoroughly review the evaluation processes. All to better understand this unique scheme.