European Commission - Directorate General for Energy

12/13/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 12/13/2024 03:16

European Innovation Council to provide opportunities for MSCA researchers in 2025

In 2025, the European Innovation Council (EIC) will provide over €1.4 billion across 4 main funding schemes to support deep tech research and high-potential start-ups.

Several opportunities could be of interest for MSCA researchers.

EIC Pathfinder calls in 2025

If your research has potential to develop into a future technology that could make a real difference to our lives, the EIC Pathfinder -with grants of up to €4 million - could be for you.

The EIC Pathfinder is a funding programme under Horizon Europe that offers support to research teams by

  • funding research to develop the scientific basis to underpin breakthrough technologies
  • supporting the earliest stages of scientific, technological or deep-tech R&D
  • aiming to build on new, cutting-edge directions in science and technology to disrupt a field and a market or create new opportunities
  • realising innovative technological solutions to identify, develop and scale up breakthrough technologies and disruptive innovations in Europe

There will be 2 calls in 2025.

EIC Pathfinder Open

to support projects in any field of science, technology or application without predefined thematic priorities.

The deadline for this call is 21 May 2025.

Learn more about EIC Pathfinder Open.

EIC Pathfinder Challenges

to support coherent portfolios of projects within predefined thematic areas to achieve specific objectives for each challenge.

The deadline for this call is 29 October 2025.

Learn more about EIC Pathfinder Challenges.

In 2025, the predefined areas for EIC Pathfinder Challenges are

  • Biotech for climate resilient crops and plant-based biomanufacturing
  • Generative-AI based agents to revolutionize medical diagnosis and treatment of cancer
  • Towards autonomous robot collectives delivering collaborative tasks in dynamic unstructured construction environments
  • Waste-to-value devices: circular production of renewable fuels, chemicals and materials

InnoNext internship scheme open to MSCA fellows

The InnoNext project provides opportunities for researchers supported under specific European programmes to carry out internships in highly innovative companies supported by the EIC and the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT).

The scheme is open to doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers in MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships , Doctoral Networks and COFUND projects. The internship will be undertaken as part of a new secondment in the MSCA project.

The internships will enable researchers and aspiring innovators to develop their entrepreneurial mind-set and allow innovative start-ups to gain access to new ideas and insights from the cutting edge of research.

Visit the project's website to find out more about the scheme, sign up and explore potential internship offers.

MSCA researchers will need the approval from their project (host organisation/supervisor and project coordinator, if different) to participate in the internship.

In addition, this new secondment should be formalised via a project amendment with the approval of the responsible REA project officer.

Facts & figures: links between MSCA and EIC projects

Available data from funded MSCA and EIC projects highlight important links between the two programmes.

So far

  • 125 companies have participated in both the MSCA and the EIC
  • at least 187 MSCA projects have involved companies also participating in EIC project(s) - out of which 106 projects have been MSCA doctoral programmes and 45 staff exchanges
  • the MSCA have tended to be the first engagement for most companies (82 out of 125 companies)
  • companies most typically are moving from MSCA projects into an EIC Pathfinder (62 out of 125 companies)