While Covid-19 is unfolding the most serious healthcare crisis of the last 100 years in front of our eyes, all components of our economic infrastructure are at risk. The European Working Group of Innovation Consultants (EWGIC), which the PNO group is a member of, has therefore formulated a position paper to support the most fragile of these components: the SMEs. It calls on the European Commission to protect them, via the Horizon 2020 EIC Accelerator programme.

The position paper calls on the EU Parliament and Commission to take immediate action and work together with the Executive Agency for SMEs (EASME) in charge of administering the EIC Accelerator programme on an  “EIC Accelerator Airdrop” that offers liquidity to start-ups and innovative SMEs affected by the current crisis.

The position paper summarizes the most urgent problems to solve, with regards to the EIC Accelerator programme:

1. oversubscription will have serious adverse effects on the programme unless the effort is made to increase budgets or curb the number of submissions,
2. evaluation criteria must be clarified to ensure fair treatment of all proposals,
3. running EIC projects must be protected, with additional pre-financing and simplified periodic reporting and
4. it’s time for an EICAirdrop.

The EWGIC concluded: “The EIC programme is the ideal vehicle to quickly provide emergency funding to the best European deeptech start-ups, and prevent many unnecessary bankruptcies. However, using this tool properly requires swift and decisive action!”

Read the EWGIC position paper here and share it widely.

Statistics on the most recent EIC call applications