In the frame of European funding initiatives for the development of technologies and products close to the market with a high degree of innovation, and given that the H2020 Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) instrument is no longer available, two instruments currently stand out:
 
EIC Accelerator:
The European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator is designed to support ambitious companies with radically new ideas to develop and commercialize innovative products, services and business models that shape new markets and drive economic growth. Ideally, bringing the Innovation to market which can have high societal and/or environmental impact.

The EIC Accelerator programme, and its previous version, the SME Instrument, aims to promote those small and medium-sized companies that want to lead in their sector in Europe with an idea with great potential for innovation and growth. This instrument is one of the most successful calls in Europe thanks to its financing conditions: SME Instrument fund the 70% of the project budget of SMEs (up to 2.5 million euros). In addition, this program allows a CAPEX contribution of up to 15 million Euros in Equity format (dilutive funding) after the completion of the development project. This equity phase is designed to support RD & I intensive SMEs in scaling, internationalisation, and access to large markets to guarantee their competitiveness and guarantee a return on investment

The EIC Accelerator Pilot is for individual, non-bankable European SMEs with breakthrough innovations. Support from the EIC Accelerator is supposed to bring these innovations to the European (and global) markets, bigger and faster. By doing so, this should help to drive economic growth in Europe and lead to the creation of new R&D jobs.

As regards the readiness of the Innovation, the grant component only applies to activities with a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 5/6 to 8. The technology should at least be validated in an industrially relevant environment (TRL 5), and during the project it should demonstrate the technology (TRL 6), improve and optimize the prototype in an operational environment (TRL 7) in order to complete and qualify the system (TRL 8). Activities above TRL 8 can only be funded as equity through blended finance option.
This instrument is structured in three phases:

1-Short application: a 5 pages document plus a 10 slides deck and 3 minutes video evaluated remotely. If at least two evaluators positively evaluate all the criteria, the proposal is invited to full application stage. This stage has been implemented in order to select the best applications and avoid oversubscriptions in the full application phase.

2-Full application phase; a 30 pages document plus a pitch deck and financial annex which are remotely evaluated by three evaluators. All criteria from the three evaluators must be positively evaluated by each of them.

3-Pitch. Only the applicants with the highest overall assessments are finally invited to pitch to a panel of jury experts. The panel consists of around 15% business angels, 20% entrepreneurs, 20% venture capitalists, with other experts coming from larger corporates, innovation hubs and accelerators. The pitch consists in a face-to-face or online interview in English and which lasts 30 -minutes.
 
EUREKA EUROSTARS:
EUROSTARS is a funding programme to support R&D-intensive SMEs in the development of market-oriented transnational projects. This funding program counts with the participation of up to 34 European countries that are members of the EUREKA network, and since 2016, Canada and South Africa have participated. The EUROSTARS budget for the 2014-2020 period were 1,150 million Euros, of which 25% corresponds to the contribution of the European Commission, and the remaining 75% corresponds to contributions from the EUROSTARS countries through their corresponding funding agencies.

Since 2014, more than 1,400 R&D&I projects have been funded for more than 200 million euros, with a success rate of near 28.5%. Regarding the type of participants, up to 72% correspond to R&D&I intensive SMEs, with universities, research centres and large companies being able to participate, with a minimum participation in a consortium of at least two partners from two countries of the EUREKA network.

As regards readiness of the Innovation, the grant component only applies to activities with a TRL of 5/6 to 8. The funding rates per country varies from 25 to 60%, depending on the nature of the applicant organization (SME, large industry, RTD) and the corresponding national funding agency.
The project preparation process consists of the following steps:

1- Submission of applications, including the technical report segmented into the sections of excellence, implementation and commercialization and market uptake, together with administrative and financial documentation required by the EUREKA secretariat and the national funding agencies.

2- European evaluation phase, including a technical evaluation carried out by an international panel of experts and an evaluation of the financial capacity of the companies.

3- After passing the European evaluation phase, each partner will apply to its corresponding national financial agency, for the financing of its corresponding part in the consortium's budget.

Article courtesy of EAIC Member, Euro-funding

​If you have already been coordinating or participating in an EU Research or Innovation collaborative project, you are probably aware of the complexity of such a task.
Over the years and throughout the various framework programmes, some elements and processes have been simplified. For instance, from 2021 and with the new Horizon Europe programme but also with other EU programmes, there will be a single method of calculating the cost of personnel, which will simplify the life of many accountants and financial officers within the beneficiaries of funded projects.
However, despite some simplifications, the rules remain rules and fulfilling them is extremely important to ensure you properly justify how you are spending European public funds. This is where the professional management of EU-funded projects comes in.

Professional management of projects
Professionally managing a project requires

• Knowing the legal rules and ensuring all partners are aware of them and comply with them,
• Ensuring a constant financial follow-up of the project to make sure the project stays on track with the available grant,
• Having a deep understanding of knowledge management, Intellectual Property rights and how these should be addressed if your project is going to generate future commercial products,
• Following-up closely on the activities and warning the granting authority of any deviation to make sure it is accepted on time or that they are properly notified through an amendment to the grant agreement,  
• Regularly communicating with the EC or its agencies and gaining the project officer(s)’ and reviewer(s)’ trust and confidence …

The European Commission and its executive agencies consider that project coordinators should be knowledgeable about how to manage an EU project, how to use the participant portal, which elements should appear in a consortium agreement or how to prepare an amendment. However, understanding all the nitty-gritties of the functioning of the participant portal or EU project jargon might be a complex exercise, which requires experience, expertise and time.

Therefore, many beneficiaries of EU funds request the support of EU innovation consultants for their expertise in project management. Thanks to their vast experience and the variety of projects and cases they encounter, they have, through time, set clear procedures to professionally support the partners in the various phases of the project from the negotiation, to the project management until its closure. When a project involves over 20 partners from 10 countries, guidance is essential. Although experienced companies or research centres working with EU projects may have internalised the experienced resources; however, newly established companies that perhaps work with EU projects on a lesser scale, might want to hire professional consultants with the required experience to advise them.

EAIC member companies can offer valuable support to EU projects
Within the EAIC, a large number of members offer this service of project management support. Today, management of EU projects cannot officially be subcontracted; it must either be subcontracted unofficially through a company’s budget or request these consultants to step on board or joint projects as a partner. This prohibition to subcontract such activities is stipulated in the new Grant Agreement Model in Article 7. It says the following, with regards to the obligations of the coordinators:
“The coordinator must
(i) monitor that the action is implemented properly (see Article 11)  
(ii) act as the intermediary for all communications between the consortium and the granting authority, unless the Agreement or granting authority specifies otherwise, and in particular:

• submit the pre-financing guarantees to the granting authority (if any)
• request and review any documents or information required and verify their quality and completeness before passing them on to the granting authority
• submit the deliverables and reports to the granting authority
• inform the granting authority about the payments made to the other beneficiaries

(iii) distribute the payments received from the granting authority to the other beneficiaries without unjustified delay (see Article 22).
The coordinator may not delegate or subcontract the above-mentioned tasks to any other beneficiary or third party (including affiliated entities).”
​
Few exceptions now exist in Horizon Europe: public entities can delegate the role of an intermediary for communications or the distribution of payments to some affiliated entity; sole beneficiaries benefit from more flexibility as well.
Hence coordinators are the ones who must take care of the tasks listed above, which often refrains some experienced companies or industries from daring to coordinate as they don’t see themselves in the position to have an in-house expert able to perform or dedicate time to all these tasks in a professional manner. An alternative to ensure that industry is leading EU-funded projects is to obtain assistance from consultancies or other partners to support the management of the project. 

Our Manifesto to support Professional project management in Horizon Europe has the following objective: it aims to alert the EC about the proper consideration of project management for the Horizon Europe Framework Programme. When we launched our Manifesto in 2019, while Horizon Europe’s rules were being defined, we were seeking for a better recognition of the impact of real expertise in management - whether this expertise be internal or external, public or private:
- By allowing the participation of other partners, not just the coordinator, in Project Management activities.
- By allowing the subcontracting of management tasks to professional experts with proven track records.

​Today, with the launch of Horizon Europe and the publication of the Common Model Grant Agreement, we feel our first request was partially heard; however, we continue to insist on the essential role innovation consultants can play, particularly in making EU framework programmes more attractive to EU industry.
Today more than 270 people have signed our Manifesto: your signature to show your support to our initiative can help raise our voice. You can read the full manifesto and sign it here: https://www.eaic.eu/manifesto.html.

Article courtesy of EAIC member, ZABALA Innovation

We're pleased to welcome two of our newest members:

artica Ingeniería e Innovación (Spain) is a technical consulting and engineering service company with over 25 years of experience, reinforced by a staff of over 45 professionals. artica+i provides continuous engineering solutions for the improvement of different processes, working on specific aspects of industrial companies: process technology and productivity, digitalisation and 4.0, energy efficiency and renewables, to name a few.

CRIDO Business & Innovation Consulting (Poland) cooperates with companies from different sectors, such as Life Science, ICT, Automotive & aviation; Chemistry; Manufacturing; Food and Agriculture; Environment; Transport & Logistics. CRIDO offers support services at the stage of project implementation and settlement, linked to innovation or high-risk research and development.

​View our full list of members here.

Today, the European Association of Innovation Consultants is releasing its first collective report “A Guide to Next Generation EU for industry to better understand and seize its opportunities.”

The pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has led to an unprecedented health and economic crisis in our society. Companies of all sizes and entire sectors have been impacted by the pandemic. To overcome this crisis, strengthen and transform our economy, making it greener, more digital and more resilient, creating new opportunities and more jobs, the Commission has launched a temporary instrument, called “Next Generation EU,” which raises the European Union's budget to €2.018 trillion in current prices, the largest economic stimulus ever funded by the EU.

Women make up about half of the population and voters in the EU, but they are still under-represented in high-level positions, whether in elections, public administration, corporate boards or academia. The European Commission has committed itself to promote gender equality in research and innovation (R&I). Horizon 2020 was the first framework programme to make gender a cross-cutting issue, and one of the key objectives was to integrate the gender dimension into R&I content. With Horizon Europe, the Commission has promised to reaffirm its commitment to gender equality in R&I.
 
Horizon Europe sets gender equality as a crosscutting principle and aims to eliminate gender inequality and intersecting socio-economic inequalities throughout R&I systems, including by addressing unconscious bias and systemic structural barriers. By considering sex and gender dimension in the whole research & innovation process we can prevent for example gender or racially biased AI products due to a lack of diversity in the AI training data.
 
Anne Pépin, Senior Policy Officer from European Commission presented the key aspects and novelties regarding gender equality in Horizon Europe in a webinar on 21 April 2021. There are three levels with three different aspects that should be taken into account when preparing a proposal for Horizon Europe.

1. Eligibility: Gender Equality Plan (GEP) is required for calls with deadlines in 2022 and onwards. Having a GEP will be an eligibility criterion for all public bodies, higher education institutions and research organisations wishing to participate in Horizon Europe.
2. Award Criteria: Integration of the gender dimension into R&I content is an evaluation criterion evaluated under the excellence criterion for Research and Innovation Action (RIA) and Innovation Action (IA), unless the topic description explicitly specifies otherwise.
3. Ranking Criteria: increasing gender balance throughout the programme is another objective, gender balance among research teams set as a ranking criterion for proposals with the same score. Another target is to have 50% women in Horizon Europe related boards, expert groups, and evaluation committees.

 
When sex, gender and intersecting factors are all considered in the design and delivery of R&I, it can leads to added value of research in terms of excellence, societal relevance, creativity and business opportunities. It creates in-depth understanding of all people’s needs, behaviours, and attitudes, and with this understanding it is easier to make goods and services that are better suited to the needs of all people.
 
“In business, politics and society as a whole, we can only reach our full potential if we use all of our talent and diversity. Gender equality brings more jobs and higher productivity – a potential which needs to be realised as we embrace the green and digital transitions and face up to our demographic challenges.” – EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025

Article courtesy of EAIC member, Spinverse.

Horizon Europe, the long-awaited successor to Horizon 2020, and the world’s largest transnational research and innovation programme, is finally ready to take off!
 
The programme is designed to support European competitiveness by creating new growth and jobs based on scientific knowledge and technological development, all the while tackling societal challenges and helping to sustain European socio-economic models and values.
 
So, how does it work concretely?
 
The programme has been built on three main Pillars, each of them having a different objective:

• Pillar I - Excellent Science: aims to increase the EU’s global scientific competitiveness. It supports frontier research projects driven by top researchers through the European Research Council, funds fellowships for experienced researchers, doctoral training networks and exchanges through Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and invests in world-class research infrastructures.
• Pillar II - Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness and Innovative Europe: supports research relating to societal challenges and reinforces technological and industrial capacities through thematic clusters. It sets ambitious goals for EU missions. It also includes the Joint Research Centre which supports EU and national policymakers with independent scientific evidence and technical support.
• Pillar III - Innovative Europe: aims to make Europe a frontrunner in market-creating innovation via the European Innovation Council. It also helps to develop the overall EU innovation landscape through the European Institute of Innovation and Technology which fosters integration of the knowledge triangle of education, research and innovation.

Beyond accumulating new knowledge, developing new technologies or increasing European competitiveness, Horizon Europe aims to achieve tangible benefits for European citizens related to the main challenges addressed by the programme (Digital transition, Ecological transition (Green Deal), Health resilience, Economic resilience and recovery).

Horizon Europe is evolving into an impact-driven framework programme, based on a new holistic monitoring approach.

This new Horizon Europe programme will be monitored as a virtuous circle to design (Intervention logic at the level of clusters, destinations, missions), implement (at the level of strategic Plan, Work Programme Proposal template, Project reporting) and assess the programme’s impacts (through Monitoring Key Impact Pathways, Management & Implementation Data, Interim and ex-post evaluation).

For maximising impact at the level of the programme, new features have been introduced, among them, enlarged international cooperation, an in-depth open science policy, missions orientation and citizens’ involvement, to name a few.

The Horizon Europe Legislation has defined 3 types of impacts, tracked with key Impact Pathways (KIP).
​
The impact logic of the programme is framed by Key Impact Pathways (KIP) detailed in the figure below and defined by Horizon Europe legislation. 

The Research and Innovation days will open tomorrow, marking the long-awaited launch of the first Horizon Europe 2021 calls. Thousands of companies, research centres and SMEs with existing experience in collaborative European Research and Innovation (R&I) projects, as well as other applicants, new to this programme, are in the starting blocks. European Innovation Consultants as well.

This week will see the opening of the first calls under Pillar II of the Horizon Europe Programme. Horizon Europe’s total budget for the next 7 years amounts to the record amount of €95.5 bn, of which half will address global challenges and European industrial competitiveness. Over 700 topics (collaborative projects to be funded by the European Commission) will be published in the next 2 years, funding thousands of projects involving various partners (industrial partners, research centres, SMEs, or non--profit organisations, etc.) for several years. Each project will require excellent coordination and management skills to ensure public funds provided by the Commission are spent efficiently to develop novel solutions. From a maturity point of view, projects will span from basic research to applied innovation, ready to be commercialised when the project is finalised. Ambitious exploitation strategies (i.e. what will happen with the research and innovation beyond the project lifetime) will have to be included in funding applications to convince evaluators.

In 2019, Innovation Consultants across Europe decided to strengthen their collaboration through EAIC, the European Association of Innovation Consultants. The purpose of the association is to allow for better recognition of their work and contribution to the support of many actors, such as industry and research organisations, who are willing to be part of EU projects to develop breakthrough innovations but have limited expertise and/or time to access these funding instruments. Consultants advise them on how to develop their innovation process as well as on how to access public funding needed to bring their innovation to market.

With the new Horizon Europe collaborative calls now opening, Innovation Consultants are ready to support projects based on their previous experience and track records with the previous framework programme. EAIC now includes  more than 40 members across the EU with a vast experience in R&I programmes but also in  alternative funding opportunities for the private and public sectors in Europe.

Under Horizon 2020, the predecessor of Horizon Europe for (2014-2020), the average success rate of 11% has decreased in the last years of the programme as budgets ran out and consortia competed for the remainder of the funding. Many companies and research centres have used the support of innovation consultants, to increase their chances of success , to drive the proposal writing process under time pressure, to find the right partner and  support them in the professional management of projects when approved.

The members of EAIC have decided to sign a code of conduct which is a prerequisite to be part of the association, which ensures that they respect deontological principles, such as impartiality, e.g. they cannot write proposals and be part of the evaluation committee at the same time.

On 21st June, EAIC elected a new board of members composed of 12 company representatives; you can find the composition of the new board here: https://www.eaic.eu/about-eaic.html

Consult the full list of EAIC members here: https://www.eaic.eu/members.html

View the Horizon Europe calls that have already been announced through the official Work Programmes of the EC here.
 
About EAIC
The European Association of Innovation Consultants (EAIC) gathers active Innovation Consultants in the field of European research and innovation projects. The group aims to facilitate the exchange and promotion of best practices and success stories, as well as to uphold professional skills and expertise in European RDI projects. Today, the group gathers 46 members, active in more than 24 countries around Europe.
 
www.eaic.eu

​During the Horizon Europe Virtual Summit, 31 May - 4 June, EAIC Members, Louis Papaemmanuel (My EU Consulting), Silver Toomla (Invent Baltics), Nadège Grabowski, Xavier Aubry (Zaz Ventures) and Lucie Guilloteau (Euronovia) shared their expertise through speeches on creating winning EIC Accelerator, Pathfinder and Transition applications, as well as tips and best practices for MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships.

More about the event

The Horizon Europe Virtual Summit is an online event featuring world-class experts in European Research & Innovation. The free event aims to increase the success rate of the Horizon Europe proposals and is organised over 5 days, with 30+ Masterclasses, Interviews and Training Sessions from top Horizon Europe experts. 

Read more about the event here.

We are delighted to announce that the European Association of Innovation Consultants continues to grow, with BOR&BAR (Germany) having joined us this month.

BOR&BAR offers a wide array of consulting services to help clients optimise their strategic engagement with grant funding programmes. We know its expertise will be invaluable in meeting the association's objectives and we're excited about this new chapter. - Welcome to the EAIC!

Expand your networks and check out our full list of members here.

We are offering a part-time Secretary General position with a freelance status or equivalent. The mission will last 6 months. We expect to extend the mission beyond this period in case of successful collaboration, and to increase the position to a full-time role in the future.

Deadline for applications: 20 June 2021
Please send your application to the following address: jobs@eaic.eu

Download the PDF below for the full job description.

We are pleased to announce that the European Association of Innovation Consultants (EAIC) is a partner of the SMARTSPEND project’s high-level online conference and matchmaking event on “Access to Risk Finance for Clean Energy Technologies” that will be held on 25-27 May, 2021.

This conference will showcase the EU’s funding and financing offers for clean energy demonstration projects and will allow private financing providers to present their involvement in new energy technologies. It will also provide matchmaking opportunities to clean energy technology developers, investors and funding experts.

Who should attend the conference?

• Clean energy solution providers from research & private sector that develop new technical solutions to enable the clean energy transition in Europe
• Public funding programme authorities in the clean energy sector who propose public funding schemes, through grants or loans, in the clean energy sector at the EU, national or regional level
• The private cleantech finance sector ready to fund clean energy technology solutions with high potential.

The conference’s 4 main sessions include the following topics, amongst others:

1. The EU’s funding and financing offer: new tools for a new decade
2. National/regional funding opportunities: exploitable synergies to accelerate the clean energy transition
3. Unlock Private Funding for clean energy demonstration projects
4. How to successfully access funding schemes to achieve clean energy transition and the EU 2030 climate targets?

​
For more information and registration, visit this link.

In its 10th edition, the EU Prize for Women Innovators celebrates the women entrepreneurs behind game-changing innovations. In doing so, the EU seeks to raise awareness of the need for more female innovators, and create role models for women and girls everywhere.

The prize is awarded to the most talented women entrepreneurs from across the EU and countries associated to Horizon Europe, who have founded a successful company and brought innovation to the market. The prize is managed by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, and the winners are chosen by an independent expert jury.

Meet our newest member, Accelopment, based in Germany and Switzerland.
 
Accelopment is specialised in proposal writing and project management for Horizon Europe, EIC Pathfinders, MSCA Doctoral Networks, Heath, Energy, Eurostars, as well as other EU and national funding programmes.

Among its other activities and services, Accelopment offers grant advice, writing, preparation and finance support, strategic grant planning and the communication, dissemination and exploitation of projects.

Its team has over 25 years of experience assisting clients from all over Europe, but also in other parts of the world such as North America and Iceland.

This week, we are pleased to welcome Exeq and Lira, our newest members:

Exeq, Poland
Exeq assists clients in obtaining public and private funding for research, development and innovation projects and technologies in every stage of development. Its team of consultants has in-depth knowledge of potential sources of funding in Poland and throughout Europe, with a clear focus of expertise: science and technology related funding, as well as the knowledge and competence of domain experts upon which Exeq relies.
It has clients active in the areas of ICT, computer science, medicine, biotechnology, energy and environment.

Lira, Ireland, England, Croatia, Italy
Founded in 2018, Lira is redefining the way high potential start-ups and scaleups raise funding through a combination of grants, equity and debt financing.
Lira’s team of experts is specialised in the following sectors: Fintech, Aerospace, Medtech, Greentech, AI, Manufacturing, Biotech and Agritech.
 
We look forward to getting acquainted with them in our monthly meeting today and are glad to have them join us.

We are pleased to announce that the European Association of Innovation Consultants (EAIC) is  a partner of the Science|Business public annual conference “R&I in recovery: what can Horizon Europe deliver?” to be held on February 22-23, 2021.

“It is our pleasure to support Science|Business in bringing industry together with policy-makers and the research community," said Pekka Koponen, President of the EAIC, "More innovation is needed for European recovery, and members of the European Association of Innovation Consultants are happy to join to increase industrial innovation, applied research, international co-operation and professional project management.”

This virtual conference will address some of the following questions, among many others:

• Can the Commission establish genuine synergies between Horizon Europe and other flagship programmes?
• How will the European Green Deal be embedded across every aspect of Horizon’s structure and activities? 
• Will mission-oriented approaches inspire deep change in science and technology development?
• How will success and impact be determined for the future recipients of Horizon funding?

During this event, Margrethe Vestager (Executive Vice President of the EC), Mariya Gabriel (Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Youth, Education and Culture) and Martin Kern (EIT Director) will deliver speeches, along with many other key R&I figures.
Other partners of the event include the EIT, Sanofi, the ATTRACT project, the TRESCA project and the EIB.

About Science|Business

The Science|Business Network is one of universities, companies, and research and policy organisations, and acts as a forum for driving innovation forward. Reaching Europe's most influential innovators and policymakers, Science|Business' expertise and knowledge of European policy making contributes to making a difference.

Read more about the conference here.
Read more about Science|Business here.

For this third edition of the European Research and Innovation Days, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation has announced that the event will be held virtually on 23 and 24 June 2021.

As seen throughout the past year, cooperation in research and innovation is essential for Europe’s recovery; the annual flagship event, which coincides with Horizon Europe’s launch, will have a special focus on new initiatives to strengthen the European Research Area.

With the aim to foster collaboration and encourage the debate among policymakers, researchers, entrepreneurs and the general public, the European R&I Days also intend to pave the way to a greener and more digital future.

Last year’s edition gathered over 35 000 registered participants from 188 countries.

We expect this year's edition to be instrumental in facing the challenges of tomorrow.

Read more here.

We are thrilled to announce that 3 new members have joined our team. We look forward to getting to know them better in our upcoming General Assembly, scheduled next week.
 
iplus | F, France & Spain
iplus | F offers services related to public financing, European public R&D funding, tax deductions and innovation strategy. Its team of economists, engineers, physicists, and experts in innovation and finance has vast experience at both national and international levels.
 
KiNNO, Greece
KiNNO offers knowledge and innovation support services that aim to strengthen the innovation capacity of SMEs, private firms and Research & Technology Organisations (RTOs) and also supports industry players, investors, business actors and public bodies seeking to exploit new technologies, systems and ideas, bridging the gap between research and innovation.
 
OECON, Greece & Bulgaria
OECON, established in 2003, is specialised in providing Business Development Consulting Services that concern a wide range of activities, from Export Management and International Business Relations to National Funding programmes.
 
At EAIC, we are excited about this new collaboration and we are pleased to know that they share our vision of innovation.

Are you interested in joining our team of Innovation Consultants? Check out our membership application form.

To mark the beginning of this new year, we are celebrating the arrival of 2 new members:

DORUCON, Germany
DORCUN offers services related to economic and technical topics, supports H2020 application processes, as well as tech funding and innovation consulting. Its team is composed of technical and innovation enthusiasts: physicians, engineers and business economists.

Project Management Solution (PMS), Romania
PMS provides professional information and consultancy about financing opportunities from Romanian and European sources, through complete management solutions. Its mission is to bring added-value to clients' projects and activities to obtain visible changes in the economic environment in the region.

We are pleased to have them on board - welcome to EAIC!

​View our full list of members here.

We are pleased to announce that 7 members have joined us this month! We would like to introduce you to

• Blue Room Innovation, Spain
• Culmentor, Finland
• Impulso, Spain
• Inncome, Spain
• Nubica, Spain
• Responsum, Lithuania
• Sustainable Innovations, Spain

Like all EAIC members, they have committed to our Code of Conduct, which aims to promote best practices, mutual respect and basic competition rules among EU Innovation Consultants. We currently count over 178 Manifesto signatures and 49 members from over 19 European countries.

Looking forward

Now that 2021 EU budget negotiations have progressed, we are hopeful that R&I funding programmes will be launched in a timely manner, and we particularly look forward to the launch of Horizon Europe. The next couple of weeks will be decisive for the EU’s long-term budget 2021-2027 and recovery package, which we will be monitoring closely.
​
Despite the uncertainty we face, 2020 has us convinced, more than ever, of the importance of R&I, particularly in addressing the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and in the EU’s socio-economic recovery.