The European Commission has adopted the 2027 work programme of the European Innovation Council (EIC), unlocking €1.8 billion to support Europe's most promising deep tech entrepreneurs and researchers. It is the final EIC funding package under Horizon Europe, the EU's research and innovation framework for 2021 to 2027, and it is designed to carry breakthrough research through to market-ready products.

Announced on 5 November, the programme spreads the money across six main schemes, from early-stage research to large-scale growth capital. The largest single scheme is the EIC Accelerator, with €578 million for startups and small and medium-sized firms developing innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones. It offers grants below €2.5 million and investments of between €0.5 million and €10 million.

Early research is covered by EIC Pathfinder, worth €248 million, which funds multidisciplinary teams pursuing visionary research with grants of up to €4 million. EIC Transition, worth €92 million, helps turn research results into commercial opportunities, with grants of up to €2.5 million. The Advanced Innovation Challenges scheme, worth €25 million, supports high-risk, demand-driven deep tech with lump-sum grants of €300,000.

For companies ready to grow, the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Scale Up scheme provides €290 million in additional equity funding for firms in critical areas, with investments of €10 million to €30 million aimed at helping them secure larger private rounds of €50 million or more. A separate STEP Scale Up Defence call, worth €100 million, offers up to €30 million in direct equity financing to speed up industrial capacity in areas including air and missile defence, drones and counter-drone systems. The Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by the investment firm EQT, provides €400 million in equity investments above €30 million, rising to several hundred million euro for the largest deals.

The 2027 programme also completes funding commitments introduced in 2026: €1 billion for the Scaleup Europe Fund, €200 million for defence investments and €25 million for the Advanced Innovation Challenges pilot. The Commission says the new programme makes EIC support simpler, faster and more targeted, reflecting feedback from the EIC Board and member states.

One of the clearest changes is in support for women-led firms. The redesigned Women TechEU programme doubles individual grants to €150,000 per startup, and the Commission has created a new European Prize for Women Innovators in Quantum, alongside the existing EU Prize for Women Innovators. The programme also introduces dedicated help for EIC-backed companies to test their technologies with public and private buyers, giving them a route to first customers.

Other administrative changes include a two-stage evaluation process, with interviews for shortlisted proposals, to manage the high volume of Pathfinder applications. The Transition scheme will now support individual teams and companies rather than consortia, and its scope is being expanded to cover dual-use and defence technologies.

Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva, who holds the startups, research and innovation portfolio, has presented the package as the operational core of the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy, which sits within the wider Competitiveness Compass policy framework. The EIC has a budget of more than €10 billion for the 2021 to 2027 period. Its investment arm, the EIC Fund, has already deployed close to €2 billion across more than 375 deep tech startups, attracting about 3.5 times that amount in co-investment from private and institutional investors. Since its launch, the scheme has supported more than 800 companies and nearly 700 research projects.

What happens after 2027 remains open. The 2027 work programme is the closing cycle of the current Horizon Europe framework, and the Commission has not yet set out how the EIC's structure and funding model will evolve under the next research and innovation framework. For now, though, the message to Europe's deep tech founders is that the final round of this seven-year programme is open, with money available from the laboratory bench to the stock market.