EIC Work Programme 2027 Drafts: What Changes for Pathfinder, Transition and the Accelerator

Every year the European Innovation Council publishes a work programme. It contains all of the rules, the deadlines and the budgets for flagship programmes like the EIC Accelerator, EIC Transition and EIC Pathfinder, so everything you need to know about these programmes is in the work programme.

The work programme is published anew every single year. Usually in November or December the European Commission legally adopts it, and from then on it is the rule book for how these programmes will unfold the following year.

Drafts Are Now Published During the Year

The way it works is that a draft is in development throughout the year, and only once the final version is complete is it published. One of the issues with this used to be that it was very hard to get the early draft, so you had to wait until the end of the year to even know what was going to happen next year.

In the past, if you were a consultant with connections at the European Commission or at the EIC, you could unofficially obtain a draft. That has now been democratised. The European Commission publishes the working drafts throughout the year, and there is no more unofficial sharing of documents, which was unfair to applicants who were not in the loop and therefore relied more on consultants.

This is a good development: everybody can now see the drafts. Three drafts of the Work Programme 2027 have already been shared, for June, July and August, so we get an early look at how the work programme is likely to look. According to the draft, the 2027 EIC Work Programme is also the final work programme under Horizon Europe, and several of its measures are pilots that will inform the design of the EIC in the next Multiannual Financial Framework.

For the full programme-wide picture, see our EIC Work Programme 2027 guide. Below are the changes that stand out.

Change 1: EIC Pathfinder Open Becomes a Two-Stage Programme

EIC Pathfinder Open is going to be a two-step programme, meaning there will be two stages to the application. With many grants the process is a single stage: you hand in a proposal and that is it. The EIC Accelerator, by contrast, is famous for having three steps, and it has effectively become four, with multiple proposals and multiple interviews. EIC Pathfinder is now moving in the same direction.

The draft describes the new process as a short application, followed by a full proposal for shortlisted applicants, together with interviews and refined award criteria:

1. Short proposal (Stage 1 deadline in the draft: 25 February 2027)
2. Full proposal for shortlisted applicants (Stage 2 deadline in the draft: 16 September 2027)
3. Interview at the second stage

The draft allocates an indicative EUR 166 million to the Pathfinder Open call, with grants of up to EUR 4 million per project and only consortia eligible to apply. The thematic Pathfinder calls are covered separately in our EIC Pathfinder Challenges 2027 guide.

Change 2: EIC Transition Becomes a Single-Beneficiary Programme

EIC Transition is going to be a single-beneficiary programme. Instead of applying as a consortium with partners, the applicant will be a single entity. According to the draft, affiliated entities and subcontractors can still take part where they are needed to implement the project, and the application gains a video pitch.

That is a significant change, but it mirrors what is already expected in the EIC Accelerator, which comes after Transition in terms of technology readiness level. Transition funds projects from a completed TRL 3 towards completing TRL 5, while the Accelerator covers TRL 6 to 8, so aligning the two makes sense.

See the EIC Transition 2027 guide for eligibility details.

Change 3: A New EIC Accelerator Calendar

The EIC Accelerator also changes its calendar. There are still twelve Step 1 cut-offs: short applications are batched on the first Tuesday of every month at 17:00 Brussels time, and that stays the same.

Step 2 changes. In the current year, full proposals are batched on the first Wednesday of every second month, which makes six Step 2 deadlines. The 2027 draft reduces that to four, and instead of three interview sessions there will be two.

Deadlines / EIC Accelerator Cut-Off Dates 2027

• Step 1
  • Open now: Apply as soon as possible to be eligible for the next Step 2 submission deadline
    • Proposals are sent for evaluation on the first Tuesday of every month
• Step 2 (closing 17:00 Brussels Time)
  • 1^st cut-off 2027: February 3^rd 2027
  • 2^nd cut-off 2027: April 1^st 2027
  • 3^rd cut-off 2027: September 1^st 2027
  • 4^th cut-off 2027: November 3^rd 2027

So in 2027 it will be twelve deadlines in Step 1, four deadlines in Step 2, and two interview weeks for Step 3. The draft states that the budget will be distributed approximately equally over the jury interview sessions, batches and evaluation panels. For the full process, see the EIC Accelerator 2027 guide, and for the submission walkthroughs, how to apply for Step 1 in 2027 and how to apply for Step 2 in 2027.

Challenge Budgets Keep Shrinking

A few other points in the draft are interesting. The first is that the challenge budgets keep shrinking. If you look at the overall EIC Accelerator budget for next year, the challenges account for 26% of the total.

There was a time when the challenge share was more in the area of 50%. If you applied to an open call or to a challenge, the budget was roughly the same, which obviously made the challenge call more attractive: it is thematically more restricted but had the same budget as the open call, so there was a higher probability of getting funded.

With the challenges now at 26% of the budget, it is clear that the EIC is doing less picking of winners. Rather than saying these are the technologies we think are going to be big, important and strategic, it is doing less of that selection and keeping the programme open. Most of the budget, EUR 428 million, sits in the open call, which means anyone can apply: any industry and any technology has a shot. The four proposed 2027 challenges are covered in our EIC Accelerator Challenges 2027 guide.

A Redress Route for Step 1 Rejections

Another interesting addition is a note on redress. Usually, if you apply to the EIC Accelerator and something goes wrong, for example a very unfair evaluation, an evaluator who made a massive mistake in their judgement, comments showing the evaluator did not understand the proposal or got it completely wrong, or even an evaluator mentioning the wrong company in the Evaluation Summary Report (which does happen), there is little you can do.

If you try to complain, there is usually no one who will listen. You can file an official complaint, but there are cases where people tried that and never got a response, which is why we never recommend it. Usually the only solution is to apply again: if anything goes wrong, just apply again, because that is the only thing that works. (For background, see how the EIC eliminated the rebuttal process in 2024.)

The draft now contains a sentence on this: there is going to be a redress process if you are rejected at Step 1 and at least two of your four evaluators gave you a GO. At Step 1, a short proposal passes when at least three of the four evaluators give a GO, and it is rejected when at least two give a NO GO. So if you convinced two evaluators but the other two rejected you, you do not pass Step 1, but you will have a redress route if you think the outcome was unfair or wrong.

Still a Draft

All of these changes are still pending. We have to wait for the legal adoption at the end of the year, and more drafts are likely to be published before then.

Our other 2027 draft guides: EIC Advanced Innovation Challenges 2027 Stage 2, EIC STEP Scale Up 2027, EIC Pre-Accelerator 2027, and our analysis of the surprising climate focus of the 2027 Accelerator Challenges.

Summary

• The European Commission now publishes EIC Work Programme drafts during the year, so every applicant sees them, not only well-connected consultants.
• EIC Pathfinder Open becomes two-stage: short application, full proposal for shortlisted applicants, then an interview.
• EIC Transition becomes a single-beneficiary instrument with grants of up to EUR 2.5 million.
• The EIC Accelerator keeps 12 monthly Step 1 cut-offs but moves to 4 Step 2 cut-offs and 2 interview sessions.
• Challenges fall to EUR 150 million of the EUR 578 million Accelerator budget (26%), leaving EUR 428 million for the open call.
• A redress process is planned for Step 1 rejections with at least two GO votes.
• Everything remains provisional until the work programme is legally adopted at the end of the year.