The European Commission has adopted the 2027 work programme of the European Innovation Council, unlocking 1.8 billion euros to support deep tech entrepreneurs and researchers from early research through commercialisation and scale-up. It is the final EIC funding package under Horizon Europe, the 2021 to 2027 framework in which the EIC has a budget of more than 10 billion euros.
The largest single element is growth capital. The programme completes the European Union’s 1 billion euro commitment to the Scaleup Europe Fund, launched in 2026 and managed by EQT, which aims to attract at least 4 billion euros from other investors and write investments averaging more than 100 million euros into European technology companies. It also finalises 200 million euros for defence investments and 25 million euros for the Advanced Innovation Challenges pilot, both launched in 2026.
Below the scale-up tier, the programme continues the Pathfinder scheme for breakthrough research and the Transition scheme for individual teams and companies, and revamps the Women TechEU programme, doubling grants to 150,000 euros per startup.
The design is industrial policy in grant and equity form: Europe’s stated problem is not a shortage of research but a shortage of domestic late stage capital, and the EIC’s final Horizon Europe year concentrates money at exactly that gap. What replaces it after 2027 depends on the next framework programme negotiations.