About EEN2EIC

A new bridge between the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN)
& the European Innovation Council (EIC)

EEN2EIC (Enterprise Europe Network to European Innovation Council) is a Coordination and Support Action funded under the Horizon Europe programme. The project strengthens cooperation between the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) and the European Innovation Council (EIC) to support innovative SMEs and start-ups engaging with the EIC Accelerator.
EEN2EIC focuses in particular on:

women-led innovative companies
SMEs from Widening countries
Seal of Excellence (SoE) holders

Through the Enterprise Europe Network, the project contributes to strengthening participation in the EIC Accelerator, supporting Seal of Excellence holders in identifying alternative public and private funding opportunities, and improving the investment readiness of companies.

EEN2EIC Objectives

EEN2EIC overall objective is to make EU innovation support more efficient by improving the capacity of SMEs to apply to the EIC and by helping Seal of Excellence (SoE) holders finance their projects and to avoid overlapping with NCPs activities.

The project aims to develop a strong cooperation mechanism between the European Innovation Council and EEN in order to support innovation and scale up companies. The focus of EEN2EIC is to empower EEN network offices to support potential EIC applicants, increase the number of quality proposals to EIC calls with a specific focus in:

Widening countries (included all the associated countries to Horizon Europe with the equivalent characteristics in terms of R&I performance: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Morocco, Tunisia, Ukraine, Faroe Islands and the Outermost Regions as defined in Art. 349 TFEU)
Women-led innovative companies
Seal of Excellence

The identified focus groups will be assisted to access alternative sources of funding and get a strong and profitable exchange of best practice within EEN.

Problematics

Statistics over the course of the past years since the launch of the EIC Pilot in October 2019 has painted an overall picture with regards to participation and success rates. Whilst the success rate of proposals funded from total number of eligible proposals have averaged around 2%, the number of proposals from widening countries that are funded is less than 1%, with non-widening countries achieving between 2-4%. The number of submitted eligible proposals is on average 15% from widening compared to non-widening at 85%, whilst of the total of participants interviewed at jury stage, only 7% are from widening countries. EEN2EIC aims to address the gap between widening countries and non-widening in order to improve the quality of proposals in general but also to improve their participation and quality of the proposals being submitted.

The same impact should also be acknowledged for women participants, not only improving their participation but also improving the quality of their application. Of those awarded funding in 2020, over 20% had a female CEO, pointing towards an increasing number of women-led startups in the programme. Thus the concept of this action is to use the proven and established capacity of EEN to make EU innovation support more efficient by improving the capacity of SMEs to apply to the EIC and by helping SoE holders finance their projects. The concept of this action takes up successful elements of the KAM/EIMC service such as the 3-5 day one-to-one support packages, which illustrates the role of the Network to enhance the ability of SMEs to apply to the EIC, to spread excellence in consulting practice and enhance capacity within EEN.