EIC Accelerator Step 1 Short Proposal Statistics: Country Success Rates, Sector Odds, Gender Data, and Application Volumes

The EIC Accelerator short proposal stage is the first competitive filter in the two-stage application process. It is faster than the full proposal and intentionally designed to be accessible, yet a significant share of applicants fail to advance. This dataset covers 17,590 short proposal applications across 83 countries, 15 sectors, and the period 2021 to 2026. Of these, 8,364 received GO and 9,226 received NO-GO, producing an overall success rate of 47.5%.

That is a markedly different landscape from the full proposal stage, where the success rate sits at around 22.8%. At the short proposal stage, roughly one in two applicants advances. But that aggregate masks very wide variation across countries, sectors, years, and gender groups. Iceland leads all countries with a 79.1% rate, while some countries produced zero GO decisions across the full observation period. The year-by-year trend tells a more concerning story: success rates that were above 58% in 2021 and 2022 have compressed sharply, falling to 21.7% in 2025 and 21.3% in the partial 2026 data.

Source: EISMEA. Success rates are computed as GO divided by GO plus NO-GO decisions.

Executive Summary

The short proposal stage is far more permissive than the full proposal stage. A 47.5% headline rate means the process is genuinely designed to let through a large portion of applicants — but the year-on-year compression is significant. Applicants entering in 2025 faced a success rate of 21.7%, compared to 63.4% in 2022. That is a 41.7pp decline in three years, driven partly by policy changes, partly by increased competition, and partly by evaluation methodology shifts across EIC rounds.

The strongest country-level success rates among countries with at least 10 applications are led by Iceland (79.1%), Norway (68.3%), Israel (68.1%), France (67.3%), and Sweden (61.9%). The highest-volume countries — Italy (2,133 applications), Germany (1,653), United Kingdom (1,766), and Spain (1,160) — all underperform their smaller-volume peers on success rate. Italy, in particular, is the largest applicant country by volume but posts only a 26.9% rate.

1. Year-by-Year Trends

The short proposal success rate has followed a pattern of early strength and progressive decline. The 2022 cohort achieved the highest rate at 63.4%, and 2021 was close behind at 58.8%. The sharp break came in 2024, when the rate fell to 33.3%, driven by a substantial increase in NO-GO decisions relative to GO. By 2025, the rate had compressed to 21.7%, and the partial 2026 data shows a rate of 21.3%.

This trend is not simply a function of more applications. The total volume of short proposals was actually lower in 2024 (2,637) than in 2021 (5,161) or 2023 (3,015). The compression reflects changes in evaluation criteria, round-specific funding availability, and the shift in the EIC's strategic focus across successive work programmes. Applicants and advisors who calibrate strategy based on historical rates from 2021 or 2022 will significantly overestimate their short proposal odds in the current environment.

¹ Success rate computed as GO divided by GO + NO-GO decisions.

2. Country Success Rates

The country-level data covers 83 countries or territories. Among those with at least 10 applications, success rates range from 79.1% (Iceland, 43 applications) to 0.0% (Kosovo, 40 applications). Iceland's rate is the highest in the dataset, but its sample is small enough that it should be read with caution. The most reliable signals come from countries with several hundred applications.

Among high-volume countries, the divergence is striking. Germany (1,653 applications, 54.4%) and France (1,114 applications, 67.3%) and Israel (1,091 applications, 68.1%) achieve well-above-average rates despite their volume. Italy (2,133 applications, 26.9%), the United Kingdom (1,766 applications, 39.5%), and Poland (778 applications, 38.0%) fall below the overall average. Spain (1,160 applications, 57.5%) performs strongly given its volume.

Top 10 Country Success Rates (≥ 10 applications)

Bottom 10 Country Success Rates (≥ 10 applications, with at least 1 GO)

Top 25 Countries by Application Volume

The five largest applicant countries — Italy, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and France — account for 44.5% of all applications (7,826 of 17,590). The top three alone (Italy, United Kingdom, Germany) represent 31.6% of the total applicant pool, a high concentration that reflects the maturity and size of these countries' EIC advisory ecosystems.

Countries with 0% Success Rate

A total of 29 countries or territories recorded zero GO decisions across the full dataset. Kosovo (40 applications) is the largest zero-GO entry. The pattern of underperformance in non-EU non-associated countries is consistent: without an established EIC track record, local ecosystem, or advisory infrastructure, applicants from these countries face a structurally harder path at the short proposal stage.

3. Volume vs Odds: The Scale Trap

A common assumption in EIC advisory work is that countries submitting more applications have learned to produce better proposals. The short proposal data does not support that assumption. High-volume countries do not systematically outperform low-volume ones on success rates. In fact, the relationship is roughly inverted among the top applicant countries: Italy (the largest applicant pool) has the lowest rate among high-volume countries, while France and Israel achieve rates well above the median despite also submitting large volumes.

The scatter plot reveals a cluster of mid-volume, high-rate countries (France, Israel, Norway, Sweden) that outperform both the low-volume niche applicants and the high-volume mass applicants. This suggests that ecosystem quality, proposal sophistication, and sector alignment matter more than raw submission frequency.

4. Sector Analysis

The sector breakdown covers 15 categories. Health is by far the largest sector with 3,926 applications and ties Biotechnology for the highest success rate at 58.9%. ICT is the second-largest sector (3,476 applications) but achieves only a 40.2% rate — one of the lower rates in the dataset. Biotechnology (58.9%), Earth and Environmental Sciences (56.4%), and Engineering and Technology (53.9%) also perform strongly on success rate while handling moderate volumes.

The weakest sectors by success rate are Consumer Products and Services (26.1%) and Public Sector Innovation (28.1%), both of which also have relatively modest application volumes. Education and Culture (29.6%) is the third-most-difficult sector. These sectors tend to attract proposals with weaker commercial scalability narratives — a dimension that EIC evaluators weight heavily at the short proposal stage.

The ICT sector deserves particular attention. With 3,476 applications and a 40.2% success rate, it is below the 47.5% average despite being a core priority for the EIC. The sector is highly competitive, attracts many proposals from non-specialist applicants who label general software or platform businesses as ICT innovations, and tends to generate evaluation feedback focused on insufficient breakthrough novelty. ICT applicants would benefit from anchoring their proposals more clearly to deep technology and systemic innovation rather than digital product differentiation.

Sector Application Trends by Year

The eight largest sectors show varying patterns of volume change across the 2021–2025 period. Health dominated application counts in 2021 (1,241 applications) and has remained the leading sector in every subsequent year, though with lower absolute volumes after 2021. ICT followed a similar decline from its 2021 peak of 1,086 applications but has partially recovered in 2025 (715 applications). Engineering and Technology peaked in 2021 and then dropped sharply in 2023 before recovering in 2025.

Consumer Products and Services shows the clearest declining trend across the entire period — from 286 applications in 2021 to just 115 in 2025 — a 60% decline. This likely reflects both strategic discouragement in a sector with persistently low success rates and a broader shift in applicant awareness about EIC eligibility criteria, which favour breakthrough technologies over consumer-facing products.

5. Gender Analysis

Female applicants represent 18.4% of total short proposal submissions (3,230 out of 17,590) and achieve a success rate of 43.8%. Male applicants submit 79.6% of applications and achieve a 48.3% rate. The overall gender gap at the short proposal stage is 4.5 percentage points in favour of male applicants. This is a smaller gap than one might expect given the large representation imbalance, and it reflects the fact that female applicants who do submit are generally as competitive as male applicants across most sectors.

¹ Success rate computed as GO divided by GO + NO-GO decisions.

The NA group (339 applications, 54.6% rate) is an explicit source-data row for applications where gender is not reported. It is not treated as a separate applicant gender category. The Non-Binary group (22 applications, 9.1% rate) has a sample far too small to draw meaningful conclusions.

6. Gender Gap by Sector

When the gender gap is broken down by sector, significant variation emerges. The largest gap is in Engineering and Technology, where male applicants achieve a 55.9% rate versus 42.6% for female applicants — a 13.3 percentage point gap. Consumer Products (7.8pp), Construction (7.6pp), and Food and Beverages (6.9pp) also show substantial male advantage. At the other end, Biotechnology is the only sector where female applicants outperform male applicants, with a 60.6% female rate versus 58.5% male rate — a 2.1pp female advantage.

The Engineering and Technology gap is the most persistent and largest in this dataset. It likely reflects both selection effects (female applicants in this sector may face earlier-stage barriers that affect which proposals reach submission) and evaluation effects. For advisors working with female founders in engineering-intensive domains, the gap underlines the importance of rigorous narrative construction around technological breakthrough and market leadership — the criteria where the gap is most sensitive.

7. Application Volume Growth: 2021 to 2025

Application volumes at the short proposal stage have shifted substantially since 2021. The United Kingdom is the standout growth case, with applications growing from 302 in 2021 to 576 in 2025 — a +90.7% increase. Switzerland (+22.7%) and Estonia (+7.0%) also grew. Every other country in the top applicant group saw volume decline from 2021 to 2025, in some cases severely.

Italy saw the steepest absolute decline: from 973 applications in 2021 to 241 in 2025 — a drop of 732 applications or −75.2%. Israel fell by 71.2% (from 358 to 103 applications), France by 54.4%, and Spain by 52.7%. These are large countries that were significant contributors to the 2021 applicant pool but have since dramatically reduced their short proposal activity. This likely reflects a combination of discouragement from low success rates in recent rounds, advisor strategy shifts, and changes in the EIC's communication of eligibility expectations.

The United Kingdom's growth trend stands apart from all other countries. Having left the EU, the UK re-associated with Horizon Europe under the Windsor Framework in 2023, and UK-based companies became fully eligible for EIC Accelerator support from that point. The sharp growth in UK short proposal submissions is therefore primarily a catch-up effect following re-association, not evidence of an especially strong UK innovation ecosystem performance in relative terms.

8. Applications per Year: Top 10 Countries

The year-by-year submission data for the top 10 countries by total applications reveals how differently individual national ecosystems have responded to EIC policy changes across rounds. Italy's peak of 973 applications in 2021 was not replicated in any subsequent year. The United Kingdom, by contrast, shows a consistent upward trajectory from 2021 through 2025. Poland's 2022 spike to 245 applications (from a 2021 base of 150) stands out as an outlier and was not sustained. Israel's steep decline from 358 in 2021 to 103 in 2025 is particularly notable given its consistently high success rate — this suggests strategic rather than performance-driven withdrawal.

9. Geographic Diversity and Concentration

The 83 countries or territories in the dataset are not evenly distributed by application volume. The large majority of applications come from a small number of countries, while most participating countries contribute only a handful of submissions.

The 29 large countries account for 95.3% of all short proposal submissions (16,767 of 17,590). The remaining 54 countries together contribute just 4.7%. This extreme concentration has a practical implication: the overall success rate statistics are almost entirely driven by the behaviour of the large applicant group. Changes in success rates for smaller and medium countries have essentially no effect on the headline figure.

The top three countries — Italy, United Kingdom, and Germany — account for 31.6% of all applications (5,552 of 17,590). At this level of concentration, changes in evaluation policy, call structure, or applicant behaviour in any one of these three countries can measurably shift the aggregate statistics. Italy's dramatic volume decline from 2021 to 2025, for example, had a visible dampening effect on the overall application count even though the other top countries remained relatively active.

10. Rejection Analysis and Extreme Years

The total number of NO-GO decisions in the dataset is 9,226, representing 52.5% of all short proposals submitted. The three largest absolute contributors to rejections are Italy (1,560 NO-GO decisions, a 73.1% rejection rate), United Kingdom (1,068 NO-GO, 60.5% rejection rate), and Germany (754 NO-GO, 45.6% rejection rate). Italy's rejection rate is particularly high relative to its volume: despite being the largest applicant country, nearly three out of four Italian short proposals did not advance.

Looking at the year extremes, the data shows that 2022 was the best year for applicants, with GO decisions representing 63.4% of all applications submitted that year (1,761 GO out of 2,778 total). Among complete years, 2025 was the hardest year, with GO decisions representing just 21.7% of all 2025 applications (732 GO out of 3,378 total). The partial 2026 subset is lower at 21.3%, producing a 42.1 percentage point gap from the 2022 peak when partial-year data is included.

Key Takeaways for Applicants and Advisors

The short proposal data carries several actionable implications. First, the headline 47.5% rate is historical and does not reflect current conditions. Applicants submitting in 2025 or 2026 should benchmark against the current rates of 21–22%, not the peak rates of 2021 and 2022. Using historical rates to set applicant expectations creates a systematic planning error.

Second, country of origin is a meaningful predictor of short proposal performance. Countries with deep EIC ecosystems — France, Israel, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands — consistently outperform the average. These countries have advisory infrastructure, track records, and institutional knowledge that compounds proposal quality. Applicants from lower-performing countries are not necessarily weaker in technology, but they often lack the application-specific expertise that evaluators reward at the short proposal stage.

Third, sector choice signals risk tolerance and positioning. Health (58.9%) and Biotechnology (58.9%) offer the most favourable short proposal environments among large sectors. ICT (40.2%) and Consumer Products (26.1%) are the most competitive relative to their volume. Applicants positioning in lower-rate sectors should expect to invest proportionally more in proposal precision and differentiation at the short proposal level.

Fourth, the gender gap at the sector level is real and uneven. Female applicants in Engineering and Technology face a 13.3pp disadvantage. This is not universal — Biotechnology shows female outperformance — but advisors should be aware that certain sector contexts require additional emphasis on specific framing and evidence to close the gap at evaluation.

Fifth, volume decline in many established markets is a signal worth watching. The sharp drop in applications from Italy, France, Israel, and Spain since 2021 suggests either strategic repositioning (more applicants skipping the short proposal and entering at full proposal), market discouragement, or a deliberate de-emphasis of EIC Accelerator in those ecosystems. The United Kingdom's exceptional growth is the only major counter-trend, and it is explained by structural policy rather than comparative ecosystem improvement.