FAQs - EIC Advanced Innovation Challenges

Yes. The EIC Advanced Innovation Challenges are theme focused. For the 2026 pilot, there are two predefined challenge topics:

• Accelerating Physical AI: Embodied Intelligence for the Next Frontier of AI-Powered Robotics
• Translating Disruptive New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) into Practice

Each Challenge has its own scope, objectives, and eligibility requirements.

You can apply for EIC Advanced Innovation Challenge Stage 1 under this WP 2026 as: A single legal entity established in a Member State or an Associated Country (‘mono-beneficiary’) if you are a start-up, SME or research performing organisation (university, research or technology organisation, including teams, individual Principal Investigators and inventors). Larger companies (i.e. which do not qualify as SMEs) are not eligible to apply as a single legal entity. Specific entry requirements are mentioned in the Work Programme text of the two Challenges (Accelerating Physical AI: Embodied Intelligence for the Next Frontier of AI-Powered Robotics; Translating Disruptive New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) into Practice):

1. Applicants must demonstrate the interest of potential stakeholders in the proposed solution through a letter of intent.
2. The proposed solution should have reached TRL 4
3. The applicant must have access to an appropriate infrastructure for data collection and testing

For the EIC Advanced Innovation Challenges pilot Stage 1, successful applicants receive a €300,000 lump sum grant for a duration of up to nine months to validate and benchmark their solutions. There is no need to include a detailed budget table. Instead, the applicant needs to indicate the budget allocation per work package and briefly describe it. For details, please see the application template.

Stage 2 is expected under the 2027 EIC Work Programme, offering up to €2.5 million lump sum in funding for a duration of up to 2.5 years to further develop and test the most promising solutions of Stage 1 in real-world environments.

Each Advanced Innovation Challenge is managed by an EIC Programme Manager, who is responsible for shaping the challenge scope, overseeing the portfolio of funded projects, and guiding teams throughout both stages.
Programme Managers ensure alignment with EU policy priorities, promote cross-project learning, and support synergies among participants and users to maximise impact and portfolio coherence.

Benchmarking means that your solution is compared to the state-of-the-art solution. The results of the benchmark should show the breakthrough character of your solution. 

There is possibility of forming consortia for Stage 2.

New partners may join at Stage 2 if they bring complementary expertise or user involvement necessary for testing, scaling, or regulatory validation. However, note that the legal entity participating in Stage 1 must either participate directly in Stage 2 or transfer rights to use the relevant technology and results to the new consortium.

All Stage 2 proposals must remain within the limit of three independent legal entities and comply with standard Horizon Europe eligibility rules.

Eligible costs will take the form of a fixed lump sum of 300,000€. The lump sum is prefixed by the call (lump sum type 1a). Your budget must hence equal (add up to) the prefixed total. There is no detailed budget table to be completed. Subcontracting costs can be part of the foreseen costs as part of the fixed lump sum, though subcontracting may cover only a limited part of the action (standard obligation for all EU grants). See for details the proposal template. For further details on Lump Sum see, the “How to manage your Lump Sum grants”.

Programme Managers play a proactive and hands-on role throughout the Advanced Innovation Challenges. They provide strategic guidance, facilitate collaboration across projects, and organise activities such as user workshops and cross-project learning sessions.

Each funded team is expected to allocate at least one person-month to such portfolio activities. Programme Managers also contribute to the portfolio-based selection for Stage 2, ensuring balanced coverage of technologies, use cases, and policy relevance.

The User Workshop is designed to enhance user engagement in line with the ARPA approach and will be designed in collaboration with the selected portfolio project needs. 

Unlike for Pathfinder Challenges, there is no Challenge Guide for the AIC. 

During the Stage 1, which is a mono-beneficiary call, new entities such as a spin-offs cannot be added to the Grant Agreement. For Stage 2 that would be possible in principle, pending Work Programme 2027 details to be published and provided eligibility conditions remain fulfilled.

The Seal of Excellence is not awarded in Stage 1 of the AIC.

Yes. All three criteria's scores will be summed up without weight factors.

There is no official definition of New approach methodologies (NAM) but as described in the Work Programme human organoids or microphysiological systems (e.g. organ-on-chip, disease-on-chip), in chemico methods, digital twins, virtual patient simulations, AI-enhanced predictive models, mechanistic or integrated in silico platforms, 3D advanced human tissue models are in scope.

As described in the Workprogramme and as per e.g. the proposal template section 1.2 and letter(s) of intent.

The demand side is expected to be involved in both stages. The role is to be defined by the applicant(s). As per the WP: "they should be involved from the outset" (in both stages)."  It is not compulsory that they are part of the consortium in stage 2.

The size of the end user is unspecified in the Work programme but it needs to be big and mature enough to allow the proposed project to have a credible impact with potential commercial traction.

This is not an eligibility question as such, but the evaluation criteria clearly mention that there should be potential for wider adoption and scale-up

Both challenges require access to infrastructure to carry out planned activities (e.g. benchmarking, data collection). This can be demonstrated in various ways, including via a letter of intent, a contract or another type of reference, depending on each applicant's situation. The proposal template asks to substantiate it.

The standard IP conditions for Horizon Europe apply. The applicant must have the ownership of the IP and/or the necessary rights to commercialise the results. IP transfer from e.g. a university to a spin-off is acceptable provided the access to results for the purpose of future commercial exploitation is fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.

Innovations must have reached TRL4, which includes both those at TRL4 and those where all TRL4 activities have been completed (i.e. transitioning to or at early TRL5 level). The validation and benchmarking activities expected during Stage 1 of the call are best suited to this maturity level.

The defence omnibus introduces this possibility only for Accelerator. There is no specific reference to dual use in the Work Programme hence the general Horizon Europe regulation applies, i.e. proposals must have an exclusive focus on civil applications, even if the research results could later have applications with defence or security relevance. Proposals cannot have a primary military character nor be designed primarily for defence purposes. Moreover, the exact domains are specified in the challenge text.