Short proposal

General conditions 1. Admissibility conditions: Proposal page limit and layout To be an eligible applicant to EIC Accelerator, you must apply as one of the following eligible entities: a single company classified as a SME, and established within a Member State or an Associated Country (see Annex 2); or a single company classified as a small mid-cap (up to 499 employees) established in a Member State or an Associated Country, but only for “investment component only” support or for “blended finance” in exceptional cases for rapid scale up purposes; or one or more natural persons (including individual entrepreneurs) or legal entities, which are either: a. from a Member State or an Associated Country intending to establish an SME or small mid-cap (as defined above) in a Member State or Associated Country by the time of signing the EIC Accelerator grant agreement or, in case the equity only is awarded, at the latest at the date of signature of the investment agreement; b. intending to invest in an SME or small mid-cap established in a Member State or an Associated Country; they may submit a proposal on behalf of that SME or small mid-cap, provided that a prior agreement exists with the company. The grant agreement and/or the investment agreement will be signed with the beneficiary/ final recipient of funding company only, subject to the "Approach in specific cases relating to a parent or holding company and an operating company" (see below); or c. from a non-associated third country intending to establish an SME (including start-ups) or to relocate an existing SME to a Member State or an Associated Country. The company must prove its effective establishment in a Member State or an Associated Country at the time of submission of the full proposal. The standard admissibility and eligibility conditions are detailed in Annex 2 of the EIC Work Programme 2027. There are limitations on the number of times you can submit a proposal described in the section Application submission limits of the EIC Work Programme 2027). If you are currently a participant in an eligible project funded by Horizon Europe or Horizon 2020 then you may be able to apply through your existing project under the Fast Track scheme (see Annex 3 of the EIC Work Programme 2027). This scheme is managed by the funding body responsible for the existing project and applies to funding bodies listed in Annex 3 of the EIC Work Programme 2027. Applicants may also be able to apply if they have a project financed by an eligible programme managed by a Member State or an Associated Country under the Plug-in scheme is detailed in Annex 4 of the EIC Work Programme 2027. Concurrent submissions to the EIC Accelerator, the EIC STEP Scale Up call and the EIC STEP Defence Scale Up call-before the evaluation feedback has been provided for the earlier submission - are not permitted; in the event of multiple submissions, only the proposal submitted most recently will be evaluated, and it will be assessed according to the merits and evaluation criteria of its respective call. 2. Eligible countries Described in Annex 2(B. Eligibility) of the EIC Work Programme 2027 3. Other Eligibility Conditions Described in Annex 2(General conditions for proposals) of the EIC Work Programme 2027 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion Described in Annex 2(C. Financial and Operational Capacity) of the EIC Work Programme 2027 5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds Described in section IV of the EIC Work Programme 2027 5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes Described in section IV of the EIC Work Programme 2027 5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement Described in section IV of the EIC Work Programme 2027 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants Described in Annex G of the HE Main Work Programme 2026-2027 – 15. General Annexes Specific conditions Described in Section IV.1, Section IV.2.3 and Section IV.2.4 of the EIC Work Programme 2027