EIC Accelerator Jobs

In 2021, the EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) has completed its first year under the new application framework (read: Application Process). With 2 cut-offs in 2021 (June and October), it presented a steep learning curve for Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME), professional writers and the European Innovation Council (EIC).

A new online process for EIC Accelerator applications was rolled out and it was continuously improved in parallel to the first grant submissions which presented unique challenges to the way the EIC and consultants communicated towards potential applicants.

Deadlines were shifted, leaked information was more reliable than official EIC press releases and the comments provided by the evaluators led to some controversy. While more transparency is generally a positive step, especially for a public institution funded through the citizen’s taxes, it can backfire if it exposes significant inconsistencies.

This article aims to explore some of these inconsistencies.

The Application Steps

The European Innovation Council and SME’s Executive Agency (EISMEA), European Commission (EC) and EIC have come up with a new application process that involves 3 distinct steps (note: these are unrelated to the Phases of 2020). This new process heavily relies on the use of an online submission form and has phased out most of the PDF/Document-type formats that applicants used prior to 2021. In summary, the current steps are:

• Step 1: A mini-application (text, video, pitch deck). At least 2 out of 4 evaluators must approve of the application to succeed.
• Step 2: A long application (text, support documents, pitch deck). At least 3 out of 3 evaluators must approve of the application to succeed.
• Step 3: A remote or in-person interview. All jury members must approve of the application to succeed.

Startups have to successfully pass all three steps in the designated order to receive the EIC Accelerator financing. Each attempted step, successful or not, will likewise receive detailed comments from the evaluators or jury members.

Note: Through the fast-track program implemented by the EIC, some companies can skip certain steps if the respective conditions are met.

Step 1

Step 1 is designed to pique the evaluator’s interest as the EIC has stated. It is a very short version of a business plan and provides no detailed information on finances, the planned workpackages or other critical parts of the innovation project. Even the pitch deck is reduced to a 10-slide document that will be read and not actually pitched.

The Step 1 success threshold is very easy to pass since only 2 out of the 4 remote evaluators must provide a favourable review which will allow an applicant to move towards Step 2 (see success rates).

Step 2

Step 2 is a very in-depth presentation of the proposed innovation project since it requires the creation of a business plan which almost exclusively consists of text, provides very little visual data and asks the applying SME’s to answer many detailed questions. These include the value chain, product descriptions, technical backgrounds, market analyses, commercial strategies and many more details.

This Step has proven to be the most selective and also the most work-intensive stage of the EIC Accelerator.

Step 3

Step 3 is a remote or in-person interview which consists of a 10 minute pitch and a 35 minute Q&A session. The interview will be based on the submitted Step 2 application and pitch deck but the jurors might not be intimately familiar with all of the provided content.

Linear Progression Between Steps

While the new process for EIC Accelerator applications looks and feels modern, it has added a new layer of problems that is interlinked with its 3-Step structure.

When generating an application process that screens companies over multiple months, it is important to make sure that each evaluation step presents a linear progression from its predecessor. If the assessments of Step 1 and Step 2 are too different then this will inevitably lead to wasted effort for both the applicants and the reviewers.

To be transparent about this fact, the EIC should publish quality control data where the results of all three steps, if available for each applicant, are correlated to identify if a section was evaluated consistently across multiple steps. If all evaluators approve a very detailed business model in Step 2 but the jury members unanimously question its quality in Step 3 then the process would be flawed.

Based on the first applications in 2021, it is clear that the three steps have different degrees of depth, a different focus and they use different evaluator pools which inherently leads to significant limitations. As a result, the process is not fully linear.

Conflicts Between Evaluations

A linear application process would see a project with a perfect score in Step 1 do well in Step 2. A project which has presented dozens of pages on the commercial strategy and has received a perfect score by evaluators in Step 2 should not have this review be reversed in Step 3. While the difference in quantity between Step 1 and Step 2 is significant and can lead to shifts in the perceived quality, the difference between Step 2 and Step 3 should be minuscule.

In a linear process, there should never be a case where a revenue model was graded perfectly in Step 2 only to be rejected with poor reviews in Step 3. But such cases do occur frequently since an approximate 50% of applicants will be rejected in Step 3 with the top reasons being commercial aspects. If the project has not changed in between the two steps then how is it possible that the Step 2 evaluators grade a project so differently from the Step 3 Jury?

The Step 2 application is presenting an unprecedented level of detail compared to earlier years so a lack of content would be a poor reason for the discrepancy. It is also unlikely that an applicant will intentionally submit false information or act fraudulently so how can such a result be explained?

EIC Jurors vs. Remote Evaluators

The final decision-makers for the grant and equity financing are the EIC jury members but these will only be exposed to the project in the very last step. Step 1 and Step 2 use a pool of thousands of remote evaluators but none of them will be included in Step 3 – the most important step. Step 3 jurors consist of venture capitalists, angel investors, heads of local accelerators and other business experts of varying degrees. Since there is only a handful of such business experts available to the EU, the EIC must rely on remote evaluators.

Due to time constraints, the jury members cannot participate in the large scale evaluations in Step 1 and Step 2. One could also argue that it is impossible to assess a project without an in-person pitch but the submitted business plans are extremely detailed and it should be possible to assess a project accurately.

When seen through this lens, changing the evaluation process from a two-step process in 2020 into a three-step process in 2021 might have been premature. What has been achieved is that the most important decision-makers of the EIC Accelerator grant are only part of 33% of the Steps and are only exposed to approx. 10% of all applications.

The current EIC Accelerator process can be a rollercoaster ride for applicants who received high praise from the evaluators in Step 1 and 2 but sharp criticism from the Step 3 jury. The same can be said of companies which would have succeeded in Step 3 but never got through the evaluators criticisms in Step 1 and 2.

The Future of the EIC Accelerator

The challenge to be addressed is significant: How to find a needle in a haystack without too much effort?

The EIC knows that their budget is limited and that there are excellent companies out there – but how can they find them?

Using a more structured and automated evaluation process (i.e. the EIC Platform and AI Tool) is a good first step. Here are additional functions that could be implemented to further improve the process:

The End in Mind

The final evaluations are executed by the jury members in Step 3 who have a very different level of expertise and focus compared to the remote evaluators. These jury members only see a fraction of all the applicants which means that the EIC is allowing an approximate 90% of applicants to be rejected based on questionable assessments.

Since the remote evaluators clearly misjudge even the very detailed Step 2 applications, there should be a mechanism to either include the jury in the early steps or to further enhance the pool of remote evaluators based on performance data. The problem with the former approach is that the number of remote evaluators is highly limited while the latter approach would require significant data analysis.

Changing the Thresholds

Based on the accumulated data from 2021, it can be assessed if the current thresholds are suitable for this type of financing. If successful applications receiving 2 out of 4 positive assessments in Step 1 never make it to Step 3 or pass this step then the threshold could be increased (i.e. 2/3 or 3/4).

This would reduce the workload for Step 2 applications and could make room for jury members to participate to some degree (i.e. only viewing the pitch decks or a special 3-pager). An approach could be to select Step 2 candidates with a 2/3 or 3/4 threshold and to then have jury members perform the final selection based on a 3-pager or pitch deck even before interview invitations are issued. Requiring perfect consensus among remote evaluators who do not exhibit the same level of expertise as the jury members can be avoided with this approach.

Changing the Type of Evaluation

Depending on the feedback received in Step 3, the evaluation criteria in Step 1 and 2 could be changed if the main reason for rejections is highly consistent among failing applicants (i.e. insufficient business plan, lack of disruption). The current Step 1 acts as a teaser for the project, team and innovation but it might be better to focus on i.e. the business case, competition and product-market-fit if that was what most Step 3 rejectees were lacking.

The same is true for Step 2 where applicants have to prepare a large quantity of information but, if 50% of applicants are still rejected in Step 3, it is meaningless to require so much detail. If the funding rate in Step 3 was 90% then it would validate the high information density requested in Step 2 but it clearly does not seem to provide any extra value compared to 2020 applications outside of presenting a work-load barrier for applicants. Reducing the amount of text provided in Step 2 by half could be a sensible approach.

Analyzing the Pool of Evaluators

All EIC Accelerator applicants have been provided with detailed comments regarding their application, including both positive and negative remarks. This has allowed startups to gain a more transparent look at the internal evaluation process but it has also revealed the flawed system that the EIC is utilizing. If, in Step 2, two evalutors praise the excellent business model, the proposal can still be rejected if the third evaluator disagrees. The explanation given by the EIC is that one has to convince all evaluators and it is insinuated that the two positive assessments might have missed what the third assessment criticised.

But there are obvious problems with this approach and reasoning. The perspective of the evaluators highly depends on their background and experience. Clearly, there are both highly knowledgeable evaluators and those who lack expertise in certain areas. If the evaluators were the right judges for an EIC financing decision then there would be no need for a jury since all Step 2 winners are equally suitable for funding. Or the remote evaluators could participate in a pitch event as Jury members but that is not the case.

Presumably, the EIC is aware of the insufficiencies of its evaluator pool but it has not communicated how it will intervene. Unfortunately, this pool of evaluators is handled in a very non-transparent way.

Analyzing the Pool of Evaluators: Step 1 & 2 Evaluator Score

A solution to that could be to use data based on the thousands of evaluations performed in 2021. Since gradings are given for each key section of the application and consensus between evaluations is a key factor, the EIC can segment evalautors based on the accuracy of their results. If one evaluator consistently gives negative grades then that evaluator might not be suitable to conduct such assessments which is also true for those who consistently grade projects in a positive way.

Going further, AI data analysis can be used to identify the general reasons for rejections and contrast them with the other evaluations as well as the background and track record of the respective evaluator. If an evaluator with a scientific and University background criticises the business model while two entrepreneurial evaluators praise it, then the former should not be weighted in the final result and vice versa.

The EIC can ask their evaluators to fill out questionnaires such as:

• Have you founded a company before?
• Have you held a CEO position?
• What is the largest financing you have raised from investors to date?
• How would you rate your scientific knowledge in the field of Chemistry?
• …

This can then be used to better understand what a rejection or approval of an evaluator means for a project.

Analyzing the Pool of Evaluators: Step 3 Confidence Score

As an extension, the EIC can introduce Confidence Scores for evaluators which indicates how accurately an evaluator assesses a project based on the jury confirmation.

To achieve this, one can use the scoring by Step 3 jury members who are the final decision-makers as a reference and correlate which Step 2 evaluators were unable to identify what a good business model or innovation would be. This method can work in excluding some of the evaluators that did not judge the project accurately but, unfortunately, it will only exclude the evaluators who err on the positive rather than the negative.

The evaluators who reject suitable candidates because of poor judgement will be less likely to be filtered using this approach since the rejected projects do not make it to Step 3 (unless the suggested Jury-involvement is implemented). To supplement this, re-submissions can be used as a data source. If a project has been rejected in Step 2 and subsequently been re-submitted just to successfully reach Step 3 then the original Step 2 evaluators who rejected the project can be filtered out.

A limitation to this approach is that a re-submission to Step 2 might have implemented substantial changes that have cleared previous insufficiencies thus rendering the initial rejection accurate. But which a substantial dataset size, such cases can be identified.

Based on the collected data, which uses Step 3 assessments as a reference, evaluators can be graded and the high-ranking ones can be used in Step 2 while the low-ranking ones can be used in Step 1 or removed from the pool. Applicants spend a significant amount of time on Step 2 submissions and re-submissions which is why the EIC should work on avoiding contradictory assessments in Step 1, 2 and 3.

---

The articles found on Rasph.com reflect the opinions of Rasph or its respective authors and in no way reflect opinions held by the European Commission (EC) or the European Innovation Council (EIC). The provided information aims to share perspectives that are valuable and can potentially inform applicants regarding grant funding schemes such as the EIC Accelerator, EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition or related programs such as Innovate UK in the United Kingdom or the Small Business Innovation and Research grant (SBIR) in the United States.

The articles can also be a useful resource for other consultancies in the grant space as well as professional grant writers who are hired as freelancers or are part of a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME). The EIC Accelerator is part of Horizon Europe (2021-2027) which has recently replaced Horizon 2020. Previously, the EIC Accelerator was named SME Instrument Phase 2 whereas Phase 1 was discontinued in 2019. It should also be noted that the current Steps of the EIC Accelerator application do not correspond to the Phases that were available in 2019 but only act as additional evaluation thresholds for the project's assessment.

Are you interested in hiring a writer or applying for grants in the EU or elsewhere?

Please feel free to reach out here: Contact

Are you looking for a freelance job or would you like to join Rasph as a writer?

You can reach out to us here: Join

The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) has made significant changes in 2021 and has successfully passed its first submission- and approval-cycle for new beneficiaries (read: Re-Inventing the EIC Accelerator).

Out of over 1,500 startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) that have applied since April 2021 (read: AI Tool Review), 65 have now been selected for funding since they have successfully passed Step 1 (short application + video), Step 2 (long application) and Step 3 (VC-type in-person interview).

Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) in 2021

While many changes have been made, one of the changes most relevant to prospect applicants, professional writers and consultants are the Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). An analysis of the previous iterations of the TRL’s can be found here:

• Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) for the EIC Accelerator (SME Instrument)
• How the EIC Accelerator Funds Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) (SME Instrument)

Since 2021, their new definitions are as follows:

1. Basic Research: Basic principles observed
2. Technology Formulation: Technology concept formulated
3. Needs Validation: Experimental proof of concept
4. Small Scale Prototype: Technology validated in lab
5. Large Scale Prototype: Technology validated in relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies)
6. Prototype System: Technology demonstrated in relevant environment (industrially relevant environment in the case of key enabling technologies)
7. Demonstration System: System prototype demonstration in operational environment
8. First Of A Kind Commercial System: System complete and qualified
9. Full Commercial Application: Actual system proven in operational environment (competitive manufacturing in the case of key enabling technologies; or in space)

The Starting-TRL for the EIC Accelerator

For the EIC Accelerator, it is recommended to start with a TRL of 5 or 6 since this is generally the prototype level that warrants further grant financing and subsequent equity investments for the scaling of operations. Since the EIC Accelerator also allows equity-only applications, the upper limit for the starting point of an EIC application is TRL8. The specific rules for this process are outlined in the Work Programme published by the European Commission and the EIC:

The EIC Accelerator supports the later stages of technology development as well as scale up. The technology component of your innovation must therefore have been tested and validated in a laboratory or other relevant environment (e.g. at least Technology Readiness Level 5/6 or higher).

This extract indicates the starting point for technologies financed under the EIC Accelerator. All innovations must have reached TRL5 at least.

Differences Between Equity and Grant Financing

Up to EUR 2.5 million grant component for technology development and validation (TRL 5/6 to 8); EUR 0.5 – 15 million investment component for scaling up and other activities.

This means that the grant component is strictly targeted at all activities that end at TRL8 or lower. The equity component does not have any restrictions and can be applied towards the whole life-cycle from TRL5 to TRL9.

You may request a grant component only or grant first (i.e. maximum EUR 2.5 million to cover TRL 5/6 to 8 and without requesting an investment component for TRL 9) if you have not previously received EIC Accelerator grant-only support.

If only a grant is requested (and no equity) then the end of the project will be TRL8 as far as the EIC is concerned. Further justifications on how TRL9 is reached must be included by the applicants.

If the proposal receives a GO and is recommended for funding, the jury may recommend lowering the grant amount if activities above TRL 8 are detected

The TRL8-rule for the grant financing is strictly enforced so no applicant should aim to circumvent this (i.e. by trying to finance TRL9 activities through a grant).

[Equity] is intended to finance market deployment and scale up but may also be used for other purposes (including co-financing or even fully financing innovation activities)

It is clearly stated that the EIC Accelerator’s equity financing is also applicable to activities between TRL5 and TRL8 (innovation activities).

Summary

In short, the respective funding provided by the EIC for an EIC Accelerator project is separated into:

• Equity (by the EIC Fund): Finances TRL5 to TRL9 activities
• Grant (by the European Commission): Finances TRL5 to TRL8 activities

When applying to the financing, requesting both grant and equity is possible (i.e. blended financing) while either is optional since an applicant can also request one without the other (i.e. equity-only, grant-only or grant-first).

---

The articles found on Rasph.com reflect the opinions of Rasph or its respective authors and in no way reflect opinions held by the European Commission (EC) or the European Innovation Council (EIC). The provided information aims to share perspectives that are valuable and can potentially inform applicants regarding grant funding schemes such as the EIC Accelerator, EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition or related programs such as Innovate UK in the United Kingdom or the Small Business Innovation and Research grant (SBIR) in the United States.

The articles can also be a useful resource for other consultancies in the grant space as well as professional grant writers who are hired as freelancers or are part of a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME). The EIC Accelerator is part of Horizon Europe (2021-2027) which has recently replaced Horizon 2020. Previously, the EIC Accelerator was named SME Instrument Phase 2 whereas Phase 1 was discontinued in 2019. It should also be noted that the current Steps of the EIC Accelerator application do not correspond to the Phases that were available in 2019 but only act as additional evaluation thresholds for the project's assessment.

Are you interested in hiring a writer or applying for grants in the EU or elsewhere?

Please feel free to reach out here: Contact

Are you looking for a freelance job or would you like to join Rasph as a writer?

You can reach out to us here: Join

The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) has introduced a new stage to the application process in 2021 which acts as a mini-proposal termed Step 1 (read: Re-Inventing the EIC Accelerator). It includes materials such as a written grant application, a video pitch and a pitch deck which must be submitted to the European Innovation Councils (EIC) AI platform (read: AI Tool Review).

With this change, the EIC Accelerator now has three Steps that must be passed, namely Step 1 (short application), Step 2 (full application) and Step 3 (face-to-face interview) (read: Recommendations for the EICA) but many startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) are unsure what these Steps mean and what deadlines and timelines are associated with them.

As a short guide, applicants can refer to the following notes:

• Step 1 is a short application that can be prepared in less than 30 days and can be submitted any time without a fixed deadline (read: Pitch Video Workflow)
• Step 2 is a very long application that can only be submitted if (i) Step 1 has been approved and (ii) the EIC has published a fixed deadline. In 2021, there were two cut-offs, namely June and October. The minimum time to prepare the Step 2 application should be 60 days but more is recommended.
• Step 3 is a face-to-face interview that uses the pitch deck submitted in Step 2. It is only available to projects that have been approved in Step 2 and the dates for this Step are fixed to be right after the Step 2 evaluations are released (i.e. the pitch week). The preparation for this Step can be performed in 14 days.

What to Develop Alone and What to Outsource

There is no general rule as to when a consultant or professional writer should be hired or if one is needed at all. The official proposal templates, work program and guidelines (i.e. for the EIC fund and the AI tool) are publically available which means that every company is technically able to apply on their own.

Considerations must be made regarding the resources available and the timing of the grant writing. For Step 1, the effort is comparatively small:

Benefits of Developing Step 1 In-House

• Step 1 requires comparatively little time-effort
• Step 1 is relatively easy to develop
• No money is wasted in case the project is not suitable for the EIC Accelerator (i.e. some consultancies will onboard low-success cases)
• Full control over the outcome

Benefits of Hiring a Consultant

• A consultant can shape the project and make it more impactful as well as avoid red flags
• Being part of Step 1 will simplify the Step 2 process
• Optimize the automated scoring on the AI platform based on experience
• Time savings
• Close contact with the EIC to be prepared for unexpected changes
• Consultants will re-submit a proposal if rejected while a rejected project will have a difficult time hiring a consultant

The downsides of each approach are the reverse of each other meaning that what is a benefit of hiring a consultant will be the downside of preparing an application alone. For Step 2, the comparison would be as follows:

Note: The comparison for Step 2 assumes that applicants have successfully applied for Step 1 by themselves and are considering hiring a Step 2 partner.

Benefits of Developing Step 2 In-House

• Cost savings
• Full control over the outcome

Benefits of Hiring a Consultant

• A consultant can shape the project and make it more impactful as well as avoid red flags
• Organizing the project development and collaboration between the management team to meet the deadline
• Time savings
• Close contact with the EIC to be prepared for unexpected changes

There are a variety of considerations to be made alongside the general tradeoffs of hiring a consultancy listed above. One of these is the way companies assess their own capabilities and the way they judge their performed effort.

It is not uncommon for a consultant to be contacted by a client who wants to apply to Step 1 by themselves while casually mentioning that they have scored B or C in all AI tool segments even though the project is highly qualified for the EIC Accelerator. Just because Step 1 is relatively easy to prepare does not mean that it is a low hanging fruit. One must place significant effort into the preparation of the application regardless of its simplicity.

Yes, the EIC wants to make it easy for applicants to apply and wants to avoid them wasting their time on a long application if there is no chance for them to succeed. But this does not mean that evaluators will get a project with minimal input or read between the lines.

Companies that are very busy often think that preparing a quick application will be good enough but this does not apply to EIC grants. A company should be prepared to go the extra mile with the application and fill out every section with a maximum amount of attention and effort.

Conclusion

The best way to answer the question as to when a consultant should be hired would be to first decide if an in-house proposal preparation is an option at all (i.e. time availability, skilled staff). Secondly, the company should talk to consultancies to identify if the project has appropriate chances for success (i.e. multiple opinions are recommended since some consultancies are not selective enough).

Thirdly, the company must weigh the tradeoffs of in-house proposal writing which are the intense time requirements, especially for Step 2, but also the workload on the management team which might be better-advised focusing on business-relevant tasks instead of writing.

---

The articles found on Rasph.com reflect the opinions of Rasph or its respective authors and in no way reflect opinions held by the European Commission (EC) or the European Innovation Council (EIC). The provided information aims to share perspectives that are valuable and can potentially inform applicants regarding grant funding schemes such as the EIC Accelerator, EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition or related programs such as Innovate UK in the United Kingdom or the Small Business Innovation and Research grant (SBIR) in the United States.

The articles can also be a useful resource for other consultancies in the grant space as well as professional grant writers who are hired as freelancers or are part of a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME). The EIC Accelerator is part of Horizon Europe (2021-2027) which has recently replaced Horizon 2020. Previously, the EIC Accelerator was named SME Instrument Phase 2 whereas Phase 1 was discontinued in 2019. It should also be noted that the current Steps of the EIC Accelerator application do not correspond to the Phases that were available in 2019 but only act as additional evaluation thresholds for the project's assessment.

Are you interested in hiring a writer or applying for grants in the EU or elsewhere?

Please feel free to reach out here: Contact

Are you looking for a freelance job or would you like to join Rasph as a writer?

You can reach out to us here: Join

The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) allows all applying startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) to add keywords into the platform which will be used to select expert evaluators (read: AI Tool Review). In the past, this feature was a black box function since professional writers and consultancies did not know how different evaluators would grade an application or if it made a difference at all (read: Re-Inventing the EIC Accelerator).

The common approach was to select the most relevant keywords that reflect the project (i.e. battery technology, machine learning, biomass) and hope for the best. While this is still a proven way to follow, this article presents an opinion on how keywords could be selected to maximize the success chances of a submission.

Evaluator Pool and Keywords

The total evaluator pool contains thousands of experts who will be selected based on availability and, importantly, the keywords entered into the platform. These keywords are selected from a dropdown list whereas multiple parent keywords contain multiple child keywords while a total of 3 parent- and child-keyword-pairs are selected for a project in a specific order. In addition, free keywords can be added to supplement the initial keyword selection.

When selecting keywords, there are usually multiple options since an AI-battery startup can lead with Energy followed by Battery and then Machine-learning or could reverse this order. But what if the market is PropTech or real estate in particular since the project provides energy storage solutions for backup systems in commercial buildings? Then keywords could also focus on the real estate industry, certain customer segments (i.e. utility companies) or similar aspects.

There are many different options to choose from but, thus far, it was unknown how they would affect the evaluation of the application since trial and error were hindered by the non-transparent evaluations, the randomness of reviews and the scarce deadlines in 2020.

Evaluators’ Feedback

The European Innovation Council (EIC) has introduced a feedback feature into the evaluation process which allows reviewers to leave comments for the applicants in a very detailed manner. While their identity and background are unknown to the applicant, the specific comments of evaluators often reveal the angle from which an evaluator is looking at the innovation.

If it is someone who has a scientific perspective, a technical view or is embedded into the industry then comments will often focus on this aspect. For better or worse, the type of evaluator can have a significant impact on how the proposal is reviewed.

After having studied multiple Step 1 evaluations, it is evident that evaluators have very different perspectives. The same aspect of a project can be praised or criticised in the same review which makes the viewpoint, not just the project quality, critical.

From experience, positive Step 1 reviews were often praising the impact, feasibility and vision of the project if evaluators saw that there is a strong potential for disruption while critical reviews tended to be focused on isolated technical or commercial aspects.

A Different Approach

Instead of asking oneself: What keywords describe my project best? It seems to be a better approach to ask: What background does an evaluator need to be the most impressed?

Very often, a machine-learning scientist might not be impressed with a certain AI application while someone from the industry it targets would immediately see the benefit and have a positive view. But the opposite could also be true if the industry impact is more difficult to imagine than the cutting-edge nature of the technology which would make a scientist have a better impression compared to an industry participant.

The aim of selecting evaluators should be to pick experts who will understand the vision the company has and will view the innovation in a positive light. What should be avoided are thoughts such as:

• The back-end is sophisticated, follows a unique approach and disrupts a market but I do not think that it is cutting-edge enough from a scientific perspective
• The product is scientifically sound but how will you convince me to buy it?

Especially when it comes to software solutions, there can be purists who neglect the EIC’s focus on industry disruption and new business models just to criticise an isolated aspect of the project.

Conclusion

It makes sense to think deeply about the keywords one chooses prior to submission and to make sure that the potential background an evaluator will have matches the scope and focus of the application. This approach is not a proven method of getting good evaluators but can clearly impact what the evaluation result will be.

Every professional writer has seen applications with evaluations that are contradictory and lack consensus. Often, the reason as to why this is the case is very obvious from the evaluator’s comments and it always comes down to their perspective as defined by their background.

Unfortunately, this approach will likely be very short-lived. The EIC is already collecting keywords throughout Step 1 of the EIC Accelerator and manually selecting additional keywords does seem redundant at this stage. Still, as long as the selection of evaluators can still be influenced, it should be done carefully.

---

The articles found on Rasph.com reflect the opinions of Rasph or its respective authors and in no way reflect opinions held by the European Commission (EC) or the European Innovation Council (EIC). The provided information aims to share perspectives that are valuable and can potentially inform applicants regarding grant funding schemes such as the EIC Accelerator, EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition or related programs such as Innovate UK in the United Kingdom or the Small Business Innovation and Research grant (SBIR) in the United States.

The articles can also be a useful resource for other consultancies in the grant space as well as professional grant writers who are hired as freelancers or are part of a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME). The EIC Accelerator is part of Horizon Europe (2021-2027) which has recently replaced Horizon 2020. Previously, the EIC Accelerator was named SME Instrument Phase 2 whereas Phase 1 was discontinued in 2019. It should also be noted that the current Steps of the EIC Accelerator application do not correspond to the Phases that were available in 2019 but only act as additional evaluation thresholds for the project's assessment.

Are you interested in hiring a writer or applying for grants in the EU or elsewhere?

Please feel free to reach out here: Contact

Are you looking for a freelance job or would you like to join Rasph as a writer?

You can reach out to us here: Join

The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) has reinvented itself in 2021 with a new submission process, a larger budget and new success thresholds (read: AI Tool Review). The latter is significant since they directly define how much time companies will need to spend on an application and how much time would have been wasted in case of a rejection (read: Companies That Should Not Apply).

With the success rates having approximated 5% for many years and them having seen a steep decline in 2020 from 2.7% in January to <1% in October, it is likely that these success rates are now moving towards an all-time high.

A previously published article investigated the potential success rates and predicted workloads of the individual stages, namely Step 1 (short application), Step 2 (full application) and Step 3 (face-to-face interview). The analysis looked at the best outcomes for applicants since the analysis directly correlated the success rates with the workload imposed on applicants and concluded that the most selective barriers should be in the beginning rather than in the end to avoid months worth of wasted effort.

The 2021 Success rates

With many startups and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) having applied to the 2021’s EIC Accelerator either by themselves or via consultants and professional writers, it is now possible to draw conclusions on the overall distribution of the success rates (read: Re-Inventing the EIC Accelerator).

Since Step 1 is continually open for submissions, the approval rates are constantly changing but as of May 15^th 2021, 67% of companies have passed with 755 out of 1,114. This number is expected to remain relatively constant over the coming months since it is also the threshold the European Innovation Council (EIC) had targeted.

Step 2 results have only recently been published and they might not be representative for the coming cut-off’s since (i) the preparation time for applicants was less than 30 days, (ii) it was the very first call with a new application process and (iii) the feedback of the Step 3 interview juries might influence future Step 2 evaluations. Nonetheless, in June, 130 out of 801 applicants were selected for Step 3 which means that 16% of companies were successful in this stage.

Note: Out of the 130 interview invitations for the EIC Accelerator’s Step 3, 24 Swiss startups were deemed ineligible due to the recent decision of the Swiss authorities in relation to Horizon Europe (2021-2027). This would yield a 13% success rate in this Stage considering that only 106 companies will participate in the interviews in mid-September.

Combining the success rates of Step 1 and Step 2 yields a total success rate of 11% leading up to Step 3, and, considering that the success rates of the interview stage (Step 3) have historically been between approximately 50% in 2018/2019, it can be assumed that the overall success rate will regain a 5% total for the EIC Accelerator.

Note: While interview success rates were approximately 50% in 2018/2019, they have oscillated between 30% and 50% in Q4 2019 and throughout 2020. Due to the high budgets and the dropout of 24 Swiss applicants (18% of all invitees) after the Step 2 evaluations, Step 3 success rates could potentially reach 70%, yielding a 7%+ funding rate.

Conclusion

It remains to be seen how the actual success rates will unfold in Step 3 and how future changes in the submission forms, the official proposal template and in the evaluations (esp. with jury feedback) will affect these thresholds.

The budget of €1B for only 2 cut-offs in 2021 is likewise extremely high which means that this 2021 gold rush might be short-lived. One thing is for certain: The EIC Accelerator has never been as accessible as it is today with many great projects having higher chances to receive funding.

What remains to be seen is if the EIC stands by their commitment and does not rank proposals against each other but retains its individualised GO & NO-GO methodology. If this is the case then the EIC accelerator could stay as accessible as it is now for the entirety of Horizon Europe (2021-2027) since no amount of applicants or competition would impede an individual projects chances of success.

Even though this does seem like the ideal scenario, it remains to be seen if this is feasible. If the GO’s in Step 2 or 3 exceed the budgets then there are only three options: (1) Reject GO applicants based on discriminating factors (i.e. industry, costs, gender), (2) create a waiting list for approved proposals either in Step 2 or 3 (i.e. before the interview or after the interview) or (3) change the back-end evaluation prior to publishing the results to reject otherwise funded applicants retroactively (i.e. making the jury evaluation stricter).

One last thing to mention is that some government agencies are forced to completely spend their annual budgets since it is directly related to their allocated budget in the following year so the October 2021 cut-off of the EIC Accelerator might see a surprising number of funded companies if the June cut-off does not spend its available €500M.

---

The articles found on Rasph.com reflect the opinions of Rasph or its respective authors and in no way reflect opinions held by the European Commission (EC) or the European Innovation Council (EIC). The provided information aims to share perspectives that are valuable and can potentially inform applicants regarding grant funding schemes such as the EIC Accelerator, EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition or related programs such as Innovate UK in the United Kingdom or the Small Business Innovation and Research grant (SBIR) in the United States.

The articles can also be a useful resource for other consultancies in the grant space as well as professional grant writers who are hired as freelancers or are part of a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME). The EIC Accelerator is part of Horizon Europe (2021-2027) which has recently replaced Horizon 2020. Previously, the EIC Accelerator was named SME Instrument Phase 2 whereas Phase 1 was discontinued in 2019. It should also be noted that the current Steps of the EIC Accelerator application do not correspond to the Phases that were available in 2019 but only act as additional evaluation thresholds for the project's assessment.

Are you interested in hiring a writer or applying for grants in the EU or elsewhere?

Please feel free to reach out here: Contact

Are you looking for a freelance job or would you like to join Rasph as a writer?

You can reach out to us here: Join

The EIC Accelerator blended financing (formerly SME Instrument Phase 2, grant and equity) can be viewed as an entirely new funding program under Horizon Europe (2021-2027). It has not only changed its grant proposal submission process but also its evaluation which will likely see significant changes in the types of companies selected as beneficiaries (read: Re-Inventing the EIC Accelerator). This article aims to contrast the previous workflow of professional grant writers and consultants with this newest iteration of the European Innovation Councils (EIC) startup and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) funding arm (read: AI Tool Review).

Since innovation is on the minds of both writers and evaluators at all times, making necessary changes and adapting to a new and unpredictable environment comes as second nature. As such, even large consultancies have already adapted their workflow and have started to change their internal processes to retain efficiency and quality.

How Grant Proposal Writing Looked Like In 2020

In 2020 and the years under Horizon 2020 (2014-2020), the process of writing EIC Accelerator (or then SME Instrument) applications was rather straightforward. The collaboration would begin with a Kick-Off Meeting (KOM), the transfer of relevant files and then the writers would get to work – mostly autonomously.

Due to the limited space available and the lack of depth regarding the technology, there was little reason to have excessive input from the company themselves since the proposal focused on a short, narrative description over technical segmentations.

In 2021, this approach has changed since the application itself is structured differently. This article aims to highlight how the old way of proposal writing is now replaced by a more modern and nuanced approach that requires more collaboration, depth and sophistication.

Why The Old Approach Stopped Working

1. Text Requirements and Length

The 2020’s EIC Accelerator proposal was relatively long with 30 pages as the main document but the 2021 version has increased that number tremendously. This is due to the abundant text boxes of mostly 1,000 characters that must be filled throughout the application while some segments also amount to 5,000 characters, 10,000 or unlimited spaces. As such, descriptions are much more detailed and must often be developed for the proposal itself since companies do not always use certain types of segmentations. Examples are the features and use-cases, Technology Readiness Level (TRL) milestones, Total Available Market (TAM), Serviceable Available Market (SAM), Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) or the Technology Adoption Life-Cycle (TALC).

2. Technical Detail & Depth

Many sections in 2020 were rather surface-level and writers often struggled to allocate more than 1 DINA4 page for the technology description, including images, due to the strict limitations. With the new features and use cases model, one can easily set up 10 features with 7,000 characters each, yielding 70,000 characters for the technology description alone. Considering the need to describe the Freedom to Operate (FTO), the currently existing knowledge, bottlenecks and the added value for each feature, it is evident that there is an unprecedented level of depth that is required.

Assuming 140 words per 1,000 characters and 750 words making up a block of text on a DINA4 page (using the 2020’s EIC Accelerator margins without images), this would yield 13 DINA4 pages of pure text for the features alone. Comparing this to the previous single page which had to include images, the change is quite drastic and the 13 pages would not even cover the entire description of the solution since it must be described elsewhere as well. This level of depth is impossible to fill without strong collaborations with the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and sufficient research.

Considering that all sections that are covering the market, financials, commercial strategy and others have likewise increased in size, it is clear that the 2021 EIC Accelerator proposal has easily quadrupled in size compared to 2020.

3. More Scrutiny Towards Commercial Strategies

Commercial strategies and market analyses were usually quite limited due to the page restrictions of the 2020’s EIC Accelerator. With the now bloated Step 2 process, this has changed significantly. The market sections and especially the TALC require a detailed breakdown of how customers will be reached with specific market penetration expectations. As such, the strategy will require plans that exceed simplified notions like:

• We want to start in the European Union (EU) and then go global
• We have local distributors who can help us
• We expect to reach 100 customers in 3 years
• We will develop a customer network

The new template asks the applying startups and SME’s to define each penetration segment and even to give cash flows (operating, investing and financing) for each, including a timeline and Profit and Loss (P&L). Especially the P&L, even though the new spreadsheet is now simplified, will need an additional breakdown to account for the figures given in the TALC which can span 10+ years into the future while the P&L usually only views 5 years.

4. Other Sections

Outside of the Go2Market and the technical parts, there are a variety of figures and considerations that need more input from applicants since they were more surface-level in 2020. Especially the risk section, the investment needs and the competitors (i.e. pains and gains) require strong input from the companies management team.

How To Structure Project Development in 2021

As a result, the previous hands-off approach of outsourcing proposal writing to a consultant is impossible but it is replaced by a more collaborative approach where the company must be actively engaged in discussing the needed input and be brought in for the structuring of the entire application.

The greatest change in 2021 is the collaboration between consultants (or professional writers) and clients. Instead of drafting a business plan autonomously, the consultants have to bring their clients into the process and, since the management team of a scale-up is usually quite busy, display excellent project management throughout the process. These changes are still quite new but major improvements over the old methods could be:

Multiple Kick-Off Calls for Dedicated Sections

In 2021, it is insuffienct to have a single Kick-Off Meeting (KOM) for the entire project and especially Step 2 of the 2021’s EIC Accelerator should be segmented into relevant chapters with a specialised call for each. Additionally, the call should follow the official proposal template very closely since all applicants now have to answer explicit questions as opposed to following a loose structure during the writing process.

How to segment these chapters and how calls are structured is up to the writers and consultants but it is recommended to segment them by their themes (i.e. Market, Competitors, Technology, Strategy, etc.) to have small meetings with specialised experts. Additionally, all meetings should be recorded to have a fall-back document since the information density in Step 2 would be difficult to address otherwise (read: Pitch Video Workflow).

Planning and Involvement on a Need-to-Participate Basis

Management teams of start-ups and scale-ups are notoriously busy which means that a consultancies team must collaborate with the management team in a seamless manner. Just like many companies have a remote workspace amongst their employees, consultants and writers must have an embedded workspace with their clients to make communication and project developments as efficient and seamless as possible.

As such, the workload on the SME’s management team will be minimised and tasks can be assigned on a need-to-participate basis (i.e. the CTO for the technical aspects and the business developer for the market strategy). In 2020, this was not necessary to the same degree but this new and collaborative approach demands strong involvement of all relevant parties.

Shaping Over Reviewing

One of the things every consultant knows is that, very often, the management team (i.e. CTO, CEO, etc.) is too busy to make time for a 1-hour document review but they are happy to discuss their technology and business for 2 hours.

Meetings have a different time-allocation priority in the minds of most people compared to isolated editing work and it also requires a different level of dedication: Reviewing a document will bring up many questions that the reviewer needs to be answered immediately in order to make edits which can have many clients give up in the process.

Turning the old reviewing model into a collaborative building process where the management team is participating through multiple walkthroughs and interviews is much more efficient especially with the depth in the 2021 EIC Accelerator.

Transparency and Access to Documents

Lastly, it is important for the applicants to have transparent access to all documents for the EIC Accelerator not only to see the status but also to identify what input is needed from them. The previous black-box approach of creating an application and then delivering the final product to the client is now obsolete and a construction site approach seems much more efficient. With the client participating in the shaping of the application, even if only through calls and minor edits, they will significantly reduce their workload for final reviews.

There should be an overseeable number of master documents (i.e. the written part, the pitch deck, a spreadsheet, …) that remain intact throughout the entire development process. If there are multiple versions, fragmented editions, reviews or comments then there could be confusion as to where the application is at any moment in time which is not feasible with an excessively long Step 2 proposal.

Conclusion

Many tools such as Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams and others allow highly efficient collaboration capabilities and 2021 is the ideal time for professional writers and old-fashioned consultants to familiarise themselves with them. Due to the extreme workload of an EIC Accelerator application, especially in Step 2, efficiency is now at the forefront of proposal development.

Co-building an application, bringing in the right people and creating an efficient framework for a seamless proposal development is key.

---

The articles found on Rasph.com reflect the opinions of Rasph or its respective authors and in no way reflect opinions held by the European Commission (EC) or the European Innovation Council (EIC). The provided information aims to share perspectives that are valuable and can potentially inform applicants regarding grant funding schemes such as the EIC Accelerator, EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition or related programs such as Innovate UK in the United Kingdom or the Small Business Innovation and Research grant (SBIR) in the United States.

The articles can also be a useful resource for other consultancies in the grant space as well as professional grant writers who are hired as freelancers or are part of a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME). The EIC Accelerator is part of Horizon Europe (2021-2027) which has recently replaced Horizon 2020. Previously, the EIC Accelerator was named SME Instrument Phase 2 whereas Phase 1 was discontinued in 2019. It should also be noted that the current Steps of the EIC Accelerator application do not correspond to the Phases that were available in 2019 but only act as additional evaluation thresholds for the project's assessment.

Are you interested in hiring a writer or applying for grants in the EU or elsewhere?

Please feel free to reach out here: Contact

Are you looking for a freelance job or would you like to join Rasph as a writer?

You can reach out to us here: Join