The European Commission wants to harness the creativity and maturity of startups and SMEs with technologies and innovations and invites them through the EIC Acceleratorprogramme to provide innovative solutions and help with treatment, testing and monitoring, among other aspects, to tackle the coronavirus outbreak and to be applied to the next round of funding from the European Innovation Council.
The budget is set at €164 million and there are no predefined thematic priorities. It should be added that applicants with relevant Covid19 will have the same weight as other applicants and will therefore be evaluated in the same way, although the European Commission will aim to accelerate the award of EIC grants and combined financing as well as to facilitate access to other sources of financing and investment for projects related to Covid19.
The financial support available to startups through this programme is up to a total of €17.5 million in terms of grants and investment. €2.5 million in grants, while in terms of investment, it is possible to receive up to a maximum of €15 million.
The recipients of this program are all SMEs and startups in the European Union or that are part of the countries included in the Horizon 2020 strategy, i.e. Iceland, Norway, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Israel, Moldova, Switzerland, Faroe Islands, Ukraine, Tunisia, Georgia, Armenia.
The EIC Accelerator is already supporting different startups and SMEs with projects related to the coronavirus and that have already received funds from previous funding rounds such as EpiShuttle specialized in isolation units, m-TAP that provides solutions for virus filtering or MBENT.
Sources: Roberto Touza, European Comission
