Skip to main content
Research and innovation
News article11 May 2020Directorate-General for Research and Innovation

European Innovation Council awards €114 million to 35 cutting-edge technologies and appoints its first programme manager

The European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder Pilot has selected 35 projects set to develop cutting-edge technologies to receive a total of €114 million following the latest round of applications for funding. The funding comes from Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation programme.

At the same time, Iordanis Arzimanoglou - expert in genetics and cancer research as well as biotechnology and AI-based medicine - has been appointed as the first EIC Programme Manager. The role of programme managers is to develop visions for technological and innovation breakthroughs and bring about synergies across the EIC project portfolio to transform these visions into reality.

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth said:

With the EIC Pathfinder, we translate game-changing technology research projects into innovative businesses focused on sustainability, digitalisation and deep technology. Today, we see concretely how the EIC – by encouraging researchers from different disciplines to work together and helping commercialisation of research projects – provides strong support to innovation across Europe.

22 of the selected projects come from the top-down element of the EIC known as Pathfinder Proactive, which encourages researchers from different disciplines to work together on new technologies in the following domains: human-centric artificial Intelligence, implantable autonomous devices, breakthrough zero-emissions energy generation for full decarbonisation (average budget per project is €4 million). The remaining 13 applied for Transition to innovation activities funding, which supports the successful result of a mature research project to commercialise their activities (average budget is €2 million).

In the Enhanced EIC Pilot (2019/2020), five programme managers will be appointed - each with profound expertise in their field and experience managing multidisciplinary teams. Further appointments are expected in the fully-fledged EIC in Horizon Europe (2021-2027).

More information

Call for expression of interests for Programme Managers

Call for expression of interests for ‘green’ Programme Manager

Details

Publication date
11 May 2020
Author
Directorate-General for Research and Innovation