EIC Accelerator Challenges: Biotech for Regenerating Agricultural Soils

EIC Accelerator Challenges: Biotech for Regenerating Agricultural Soils is sponsored by European Innovation Council (under Horizon Europe). This challenge focuses on scaling deep tech solutions that will improve soil health and the sustainability, efficiency, and resilience of the European agricultural sector, spanning food, feed, and biomass.

EIC Accelerator for highly innovative SMEs | Hezelburcht Grants Start-ups, spin-outs, SMEs and individuals from EU Member States High-risk/high-gain innovations and technologies Discover EIC Accelerator funding for your project Get in touch with our EIC specialists. The European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator programme targets innovations that build on scientific discovery or technological breakthroughs, so called ‘deep tech’.

The programme (previously known as the SME instrument) will be used to stimulate, scale-up and roll out marketable innovations and to cover the timeframe before returns can be generated. The EIC Accelerator is divided into two types of calls: Open and Challenges. The EIC Accelerator supports high impact innovations or deep tech EIC Accelerator Challenges 2026 Apply for EIC Accelerator Take your application to the next level!

The EIC Accelerator supports high impact innovations or deep tech The EIC Accelerator focuses on high impact innovations or technological breakthroughs (so called ‘deep tech’) for which significant funding is needed over a long timeframe before returns can be generated. Because of the risks involved and the long timeframe before returns can be generated, these innovations often struggle to attract financing.

Support from the EIC Accelerator is designed to enable innovators to attract the full amounts needed for scale up in a shorter timeframe! The EIC Accelerator supports market-creating innovations with a potential to scale up by grant-only or blended finance, in which grant and equity are combined. The Accelerator supports the later stages of technology development as well as scale up.

Your innovation must therefore be at least at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 or 6. EIC Accelerator Challenges 2026 The EIC Accelerator Challenges supports companies (notably start-ups and SMEs) to scale up high impact innovations with the potential to create new markets or disrupt existing ones in identified areas of strategic relevance. The overall budget in 2026 is € 220 million for EIC Accelerator Challenges.

The following topics are the ‘challenges’ of 2026: Advanced Materials for Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Systems Alternative Concepts and Key Enabling Technologies for Fusion Power Plants Biotech for Regenerating Agricultural Soils Boosting the European Critical Raw Materials value chain Deep Tech for Climate Adaptation For projects that don’t match the EIC Accelerator topics, the EIC Accelerator Open is open to proposals in any field of technology.

The overall budget for the EIC Accelerator Open in 2026 is € 414 million . The application process starts with a short application and once it receives a ‘GO’, you have 12 months to submit your full application. If your application is successful, you will then be invited to pitch your project in front of an EIC jury during an interview.

For 2026, the cut-off dates of full applications are: The EIC Accelerator will be open to start-ups, spin-outs, SMEs and individuals from EU Member States or Associated Countries who want to launch their start-up/SME with the ambition to scale-up. In exceptional cases even small mid-caps with less than 500 employees can apply.

Note: Applicants from the United Kingdom can apply only request and receive funding in the form of “grant only”. The signature of any grant agreement will be subject to the positive conclusion of the association negotiation with the United Kingdom. Are you working on an innovation and are you interested in applying for the Accelerator?

Then make sure your innovation is at least at Technological Readiness Level (TRL) 5 to 6. This means that it has been tested and validated in a laboratory or other relevant environment. Fast track scheme : the ‘Fast Track’ scheme provides a specific evaluation path for existing Horizon Europe or Horizon 2020 projects to the EIC Accelerator.

You may be eligible to follow this track if your technology is developed in a project funded by EIC Pathfinder or Transition (including under EIC pilot), ERC Proof of Concept, EIT, or Eurostars-2. Please contact us for more information. EIC Accelerator: are you eligible?

Contact us! The application of the EIC accelerator follows a two-stage process: Stage 1 : the short application has to be prepared in an online AI-portal and can be submitted at any time. The short application will be evaluated by four experts within 4 weeks.

It contains: A series of questions that correspond to a 5-page form, describing the innovation, the potential market and the team; A pitch deck of up to 10 slides; A video pitch of up to 3 minutes in which the core team motivates their application. Stage 2 : if your short application is successful, then you will be invited to submit a full application for remote evaluation within 12 months.

In this step you have to choose for the Open call or one of the Challenges. Also this application will be prepared in the online AI-portal and consists of a full business plan and detailed information regarding the company’s finances and structure. Within 5 weeks you will be informed about whether you will be invited to the face-to-face interviews with the EIC Jury.

These interviews will be held approximately 8-9 weeks after the cut-off date (for 2021 most probably in September and December). At the interview, you will be assessed by a panel of maximum 6 jury members. You will receive the final result of the selection process within 2-3 weeks.

Limit resubmission possibilities The EIC has initiated the following measures in order to increase the success rate by limiting the resubmission of applications: Stage 1 : If your short application is rejected, you may submit only once (taken into account that major improvements have been made). If rejected twice, you may not resubmit for 12 months. Thereafter, you may only submit a new or significantly improved proposal.

If your full proposal is rejected once you may resubmit directly to one of the following two cut-offs. Rejected twice, then you may only submit a new or significantly improved first-stage (!) proposal after a 12-months cool-off period.

If rejected after the face-to-face interviews with a potential Go of the jury, you will get one change to make the specific target improvements before one of the next two face-to-face interviews. If rejected a second time or first time without a potential Go, you have to start at the first-stage (!) again and may only submit a new or significantly improved proposal after a 12-months cool-off period.

The goal of the EIC is to fund bottom-up ideas in order to scale-up internationally. The programme supports innovative, high-risk/high gain ideas that have the potential to scale up internationally. The grant programmes are: EIC Pre-Accelerator (SMEs and deep-tech startups in Widening countries) Take your application to the next level!

Our team of specialists consists of consultants with high-quality backgrounds at either the MSc or PhD level. One of our roles is to provide grant advice regarding fundamental scientific research. Our specialists speak your language and their backgrounds match your research field.

Therefore, they are able to help you take your application to the next level! Are you interested in our services? Or would you like to get in touch with one of our specialists for advice?

Please do not hesitate to contact us via 088 495 20 00 or info@hezelburcht. com . Are you envisioning a project with radically new technology that can create new markets?

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Would you like to learn more about the EIC Accelerator? Feel free to contact us via 088 495 20 00 or info@hezelburcht. com for more information or an introductory meeting free of charge.

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