The EIC Accelerator funding (grant and equity, with a blended financing option) by the European Commission (EC) and European Innovation Council (EIC) awards up to €2.5 million in grant and €10 million in equity financing per project (€12.5 million total) and is designed for startups and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME), often supported by professional writers, freelancers, or consultants.

This article investigates the evaluation process and the role of randomness in the success or failure of an application.

The EIC Accelerator is a notoriously complex funding program that has at least as many obscure rules as newcomers have questions when they first encounter this €12.5 million opportunity. Not only is it looking for a particular type of company and technology, but it is also seeking a specific kind of language to be used in its grant proposals.

Many great companies were rejected by the EIC because they failed in some obscure category that evaluators or jury members got hung up on. The old Chinese torture method of Linchi, or death by a thousand cuts, is put in reverse since the EIC Accelerator can be the

“Death by a single cut.”

Why? Because it is enough to fail in a single criterion to get rejected. A thousand cuts are not necessary to lose all chances of obtaining the €2.5 million grant and €10 million equity funding from the commission.

This might sound like bad news, but here is the good part:

A cut is subjective.

The Fractured Mind Of Evaluators

While EIC Accelerator applicants generally only know their own proposals and their own Evaluation Summary Reports (ESR, the written feedback obtained from evaluators) - consultants and professional writers generally read dozens or hundreds of them. This leads to the discovery of a shocking pattern that sucks all of the magic out of the EIC’s holy grail of funding opportunities and turns it into a circus of a pitch event.

The entire evaluation process seems at least as random as it is intentional. That means evaluations are often unpredictable since the selection of evaluators is random, and, as applicants are discovering, each evaluator will have a different point of view on the subject.

Just like judges convict criminals with harsher sentences if they have not had lunch yet, evaluators will have their own human biases that will impact the proposal evaluation. This much is unavoidable.

But it is not totally random, of course. There is a method to the madness. That is the idea, at least.

Too Many Cuts: Avoiding Rejection

One big takeaway that grant consultants, particularly for the EIC Accelerator, gain is that each proposal submission will receive a different set of criticisms while previously identified shortcomings suddenly evaporate, even without any changes to the proposal. This simple fact should make the EIC throw their hands up into the air and swear to fully revise the evaluation process as well as their evaluator briefings. But this has not happened in all the years the EIC has actively graded proposals and likely never will.

The process remains subject to an incredible level of randomness.

To be fair, the EIC has tried to innovate this process. It introduced the rebuttal system back in 2021, which allowed applicants to respond to the evaluators' comments instead of always having to deal with a new set of unpredictable criticisms.

This was a clever integration since it reduced the level of randomness and let evaluators focus on the initial rejection reasons instead of trying to dig up more dirt on the company and to reject them for a new set of reasons. It also allowed applicants to argue their case and made them feel heard instead of feeling like a small canoe trying to board a battleship at full speed.

The EIC did a great job integrating the rebuttal process by also giving their evaluators the ability to access the previous evaluator comments (i.e., ESR) and confirm the legitimacy of the responses. Well, the EIC did great until they suddenly removed the EIC Accelerator rebuttals in 2023 in the aftermath of their AI platform collapse (see AI For EIC Accelerator Grant Proposals).

The Human Context Window: Mind The Gap

Why the EIC removed the rebuttal function and ensured that evaluators have no access to previous submissions and can only see the current EIC Accelerator proposal is another curious case of non-transparent EIC leadership.

Was it leading to worse outcomes? Was it technically too difficult to manage the file access? Were evaluators hurt by the feedback (the irony)? Whatever the reason might have been, the application process did not improve because of it since it is now back to being an AI chat without a conversational history. Every single message is evaluated by itself and not in the context of the previous messages.

Yes, this saves computational resources (i.e., the context window is spared if old messages are deleted), but it greatly reduces the quality of the experience. If your next message cannot build on your previous messages, then this is not a conversation; it is just a string of statements.

Newcomer applicants carefully and thoroughly prepare their resubmissions after being rejected for the first time just to gain a completely new set of criticisms. Shocked by the new submissions result, they reapply with another set of improvements just to receive yet another round of new criticisms.

Then it starts to dawn on applicants. Here is what's happening: Every evaluator just looks at part of the project through their biased lens, and no evaluation is actually thorough. Even worse, every proposal change that involves replacing old text to address the new criticism risks triggering even more criticisms (i.e., “I would have liked to get more information on…”) since the parts that were removed to adhere to the page limitation might cause the next evaluator to complain.

Anchoring The Evaluators: An Inherent Flaw

The EIC made efforts to instruct their evaluators to read the rebuttals first and to view them as more important than assessing the proposal by itself. That is how strongly the EIC weighted this new process that placed the history of the submissions into the context window of the evaluation.

When the EIC removed the rebuttal feature, it was a clear sign that they did not stand behind their own evaluations. Why? Because the only reason the rebuttal made sense was if the first evaluation had merit and was representative of the EIC’s assessment. It constituted the basis of how the project is viewed by the EIC, and any further assessment must build on it.

But that approach was bound to fail. No evaluation is thorough, and no evaluation can ever be representative of the entire project. Each assessment looks only at parts of the project, which means that the first evaluation will overlook critical aspects by design. Thus, building on a flawed assessment process was bound to fail, unfortunately.

Although hope remains that they will revise the concept and integrate it once again.

The Magnificent 3 (And Sometimes 4)

The Step 1 evaluations of the EIC Accelerator are generally done by 4 evaluators, while 3 evaluators are consulted for Step 2 (i.e., 4 evaluators in Step 2 in case of close rejections). But why these numbers? Actually, these numbers are very telling when considering the selection process.

For Step 1 applications, 3 out of 4 evaluators must approve the project for a successful submission (i.e., the threshold was raised from 2 in 2024). This is akin to a percentage of 75%, meaning the EIC has determined that the evaluators should be 75% certain that it is a good project (use ChatEIC to apply for Step 1).

For Step 2 applications, 3 out of 3 evaluators must approve the project for a successful submission. This is akin to 100% certainty for project quality with no room for errors. Additionally, if one evaluator rejects the project by a narrow margin while the others give their approval, a fourth evaluator will be added to rescue the applicant and allow them to proceed to the Step 3 interviews.

Now, why were these numbers chosen, and why are the rules so specific? The most obvious conclusion is not flattering.

Our Evaluators Are Not Scalable

Step 1, with its 75% certainty ratio, is reasonably scalable. One could imagine that the result of using 40 evaluators would be very similar to using 4 evaluators, since it will always come down to reaching the 75% threshold. If anything, the quality of the evaluation would likely be better using more evaluators, since it would reduce the level of randomness from a statistical perspective.

Step 2, with its quality threshold of 100%, would be a bloodbath at scale. Can any professional EIC Accelerator grant writer imagine the despair of submitting a Step 2 proposal to 30 evaluators and having to reach 100% approval from each? It would be a nightmare, and one EIC jury member would be enough to confirm that no one participated in the interviews once again and close the door on their way out.

Even the 4^th rescue evaluator who steps in for close rejections in Step 2 is a sign that even three evaluators are adding too much randomness into the process. There is a reason why the EIC uses 4 evaluators in Step 1 and only 3 evaluators in Step 2, with the option of kicking out one of the Step 2 evaluators if a fourth one disagrees.

The Step 2 evaluation process is neither consistent nor scalable.

A Bucket Of Flaws, A Bag Of Knives

But why is the evaluation process so random and problematic? Well, it is because every project application can be viewed as being littered with flaws. These flaws do not have to be bad things, but this is how they could be perceived by evaluators. A flaw could be that a particular chemical was not identified in the process description. A market report used years that did not perfectly match the financial projections. The past industry experience of the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) was not explicitly spelled out for the evaluators (i.e., avoid flaws via ChatEIC).

Many of these points are not necessarily mistakes; they are just points that require further inquiry. They do not have to be bad; they are simply lacking in detail. Of course, this is also part of the EIC Accelerator's problematic design since, by restricting the proposals to a certain limit, some details are bound to be missing. If a company had nothing else to add, there would be no need for a limit.

These are just examples, but there are thousands of tiny things that could be picked up by evaluators. Most of these will never be mentioned or criticized, but a few of them will be. The problem is that the proposal will be subject to the viewpoint, taste, and mood of the particular evaluator.

Dodging The Laserbeams, Blindfolded

The truth is this: Every EIC Accelerator winner has flaws. Using the metaphor of "death by a single cut,” every single project has at least a few flaws that they got away with. That is the simple truth that every professional writer and consultant knows.

Some EIC Accelerator winners might have had many, and some might have had few, but they all have flaws nonetheless. They simply managed to avoid the cuts. Does that mean that any company can win? No, of course not. There is still a method to the madness where the companies that do win have significant merit, while some of the losers—but not all of them—have not met the threshold.

To a consultant, a good EIC evaluator is the one who does not criticize flaws, and a good EIC jury member is the one who is impressed by the team. The ones that are negative are bad evaluators and jury members, respectively. There is obviously a financial incentive to think that way.

Conclusion: How Do You Succeed Then?

The EIC evaluation process is akin to a beauty pageant held in a dark room. Yes, it is possible to achieve a consistent and high-quality outcome, but it is not the reality. Every EIC Accelerator applicant who has been to the EIC jury interviews more than once knows that even the expert jury members who are specifically selected to have a high level of expertise are… random.

Yes, even the ESRs obtained after the jury interviews are random. Criticisms are always new, and reasons for rejections or funding decisions are inconsistent. If not even 5 expert jury members can remove the randomness of the process, then maybe it is unfixable.

But here is another truth that everyone who successfully makes the journey through the EIC's maze of obstacles knows:

"You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take."

Every year, nearly €1 billion is distributed among companies. While the process is random, the impact of up to €12.5 million for a company struggling to scale is certain.

How do you succeed? Give it your best shot and grit your teeth.

Reach out to an expert here: Contact or use ChatEIC.

These tips are not only useful for European startups, professional writers, consultants and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) but are generally recommended when writing a business plan or investor documents.

Deadlines: Post-Horizon 2020, the EIC Accelerator accepts Step 1 submissions now while the deadlines for the full applications (Step 2) under Horizon Europe are listed below. The Step 1 applications must be submitted weeks in advance of Step 2. The next EIC Accelerator cut-off for Step 2 (full proposal) can be found here. After Brexit, UK companies can still apply to the EIC Accelerator under Horizon Europe albeit with non-dilutive grant applications only - thereby excluding equity-financing. Switzerland has resumed its participation in Horizon Europe and is now eligible for the EIC Accelerator.

Contact: You can reach out to us via this contact form to work with a professional consultant.

AI Grant Writer: ChatEIC is a fully automated EIC Accelerator grant proposal writer: Get it here.

Eureka Network: The Eureka Network delivers various international collaborative R&D initiatives such as Network Projects, Clusters, Eurostars, Globalstars, and Innowwide, providing funding from €50K to €6.75M per project based on the specific initiative. This network emphasizes market-driven innovation and deep-tech advancement across multiple technology sectors including ICT/Digital, Industrial/Manufacturing, Bio/Medical Technologies, Energy/Environment, Quantum, AI, and Circular Economy. Eligible participants include SMEs, large enterprises, research organizations, universities, and startups, with Eurostars particularly focused on R&D-performing SMEs. Get Started

EIC Transition: EIC Transition delivers up to €2.5 million in funding to overcome the 'valley of death' gap between laboratory research and market deployment, emphasizing technology maturation and validation. The initiative supports single legal entities or small consortia of 2-5 partners including SMEs, start-ups, spin-offs, and research organizations. Key technology domains include Health/Medical Technologies, Green/Environmental Innovation, Digital/Microelectronics, Quantum Technologies, and AI/Robotics. Get Started

EIC STEP Scale-Up: EIC STEP Scale-Up delivers significant equity investments of €10-30 million for established deep-tech companies prepared for hyper-growth and large-scale expansion. The initiative targets SMEs or small mid-caps with up to 499 employees who have obtained pre-commitment from qualified investors. Primary focus areas include Digital & Deep Tech (Semiconductors, AI, Quantum), Clean Technologies for Net-Zero objectives, and Biotechnologies. Get Started

EIC Pre-Accelerator: EIC Pre-Accelerator represents a 2025 pilot initiative delivering €300,000-€500,000 in funding for early-stage deep-tech development and preparation for the EIC Accelerator program. This program is exclusively accessible to single SMEs or small mid-caps from 'Widening countries' to foster regional innovation development. The initiative encompasses deep-tech innovations across physical, biological, and digital domains. Get Started

EIC Pathfinder: EIC Pathfinder delivers up to €3 million for Open calls and up to €4 million for Challenge-based calls to support early-stage research and development with proof-of-principle validation. The initiative requires research consortia with a minimum of 3 partners from 3 different countries, including universities, research organizations, and SMEs. Primary technology focus areas include Health/Medical, Quantum Technologies, AI, Environmental/Energy, and Advanced Materials. Get Started

EIC Accelerator: EIC Accelerator delivers flexible funding options including blended finance (€2.5M grant + €0.5M-€10M equity), grant-only (up to €2.5M), or equity-only arrangements for scale-up and market deployment of breakthrough innovations. The initiative targets SMEs, start-ups, and small mid-caps with up to 499 employees, with MedTech/Healthcare representing 35% of funded projects. Additional technology areas include Biopharma, Energy, AI, Quantum, Aerospace, Advanced Materials, and Semiconductors. Get Started

Innovation Partnership: Innovation Partnership enables collaborative innovation between public and private sectors with typical funding of €1-5 million per project. The initiative supports cross-sectoral strategic technologies through public-private partnerships and consortia. Projects concentrate on addressing societal challenges through collaborative innovation approaches. Get Started

Innovation Fund: The EU Innovation Fund delivers substantial funding of €7.5 million to €300 million for large-scale demonstration of innovative low-carbon technologies. The initiative targets clean energy, carbon capture, renewable energy, and energy storage technologies to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. Eligible participants include large companies, consortia, and public entities capable of implementing large-scale demonstration projects. Get Started

Innovate UK: Innovate UK delivers various programs with funding ranging from £25K to £10M depending on the specific initiative, supporting business-led innovation, collaborative R&D, and knowledge transfer. The organization funds projects across all sectors with particular emphasis on emerging technologies and supports UK-based businesses, research organizations, and universities. Programs are designed to drive economic growth through innovation and technology commercialization. Get Started

Industrial Partnership: Industrial Partnership delivers €2-10 million in funding for industrial research and innovation partnerships focusing on manufacturing, industrial technologies, and digital transformation. The initiative supports industrial consortia and research organizations in developing collaborative solutions for industrial challenges. Projects aim to strengthen European industrial competitiveness through strategic partnerships. Get Started

Eurostars: Eurostars represents a joint EU-Eureka initiative delivering €50K-€500K for international R&D collaboration specifically led by SMEs. The program adopts a bottom-up approach, accepting projects from all technology fields without predefined thematic restrictions. R&D-performing SMEs must lead the consortium and demonstrate significant R&D activities. Get Started

LIFE Programme: The LIFE Programme delivers €1-10 million in funding for environmental protection, climate action, and nature conservation projects across the European Union. The initiative supports environmental technologies, climate adaptation strategies, and biodiversity conservation initiatives. Eligible participants include public authorities, private companies, NGOs, and research institutions working on environmental and climate challenges. Get Started

Neotec: Neotec represents a Spanish initiative delivering €250K-€1M in funding for technology-based business creation and development, supporting the growth of innovative Spanish SMEs and start-ups. The program covers all technology sectors and aims to strengthen Spain's technology ecosystem. Funding is specifically targeted at Spanish technology-based SMEs and start-ups to enhance their competitiveness and market presence. Get Started

Thematic Priorities: EU Thematic Priorities encompass various programs aligned with EU strategic priorities including green transition, digital transformation, health, and security initiatives. Funding amounts vary based on the specific program and call requirements, with projects designed to address key European challenges. Applicant eligibility varies by specific program and call, with different requirements for different thematic areas. Get Started

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