What is the EIC Pathfinder?

The EIC Pathfinder is one of the European Innovation Council’s main funding programmes under Horizon Europe. It supports early-stage, high-risk, high-gain research aimed at achieving radical technological breakthroughs.

It funds projects at low Technology Readiness Levels (TRL 1–4), helping to move an idea from scientific concept through to proof-of-principle. The aim is to lay the groundwork for entirely new technologies, markets, or industries that may later progress to the EIC Transition or Accelerator stages.

Two main strands: Open vs Challenges

The Pathfinder operates through two main types of calls. The Open call offers complete flexibility, while the Challenges call directs funding to strategic EU priorities. Budgets for each call are typically in the hundreds of millions of euros annually.

Eligibility and Consortium Requirements

✓   Applicants must be based in EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries.

✓   Projects must involve radical, high-risk / high-reward research with the potential to create entirely new technological paradigms.

✓   Research should remain within TRL 1–4, before industrial validation.

✓   For Pathfinder Open, the consortium must include at least three independent entities from three different eligible countries.

Project Size, Funding and Duration

Grant size:

– Pathfinder Open: up to around €3 million

– Pathfinder Challenges: up to around €4 million

Funding rate: typically 100% of eligible costs.

Project duration: usually between three and four years.

Expected outcomes: scientific breakthroughs, proofs of concept, laboratory prototypes, or intellectual property.

Pathfinder funding is designed to absorb early-stage risk and help teams prove the feasibility of a fundamentally new concept.

✓   For Pathfinder Challenges, applications may sometimes be made by a single entity, although most are consortium-based.

✓   Eligible organisations include universities, research institutes, start-ups, SMEs, and larger industrial players.

Evaluation and Selection

Proposals are evaluated by expert panels against three main criteria:

Excellence – the novelty, ambition, and scientific quality of the idea.

Impact – potential to open new markets, address societal challenges, or create European leadership in a new field.

Implementation – credibility of the work plan, quality of the consortium, and risk management.

For Challenge calls, evaluators often apply a portfolio approach to ensure a balanced mix of technologies and approaches across the topic area. Tie-break rules may consider factors such as gender balance, geographic diversity, and representation of smaller Member States.

Successful projects are invited to join EIC portfolio activities for collaboration, visibility, and guidance.

Links to Other EIC Instruments

The EIC is designed as a pipeline:

▸▸   Pathfinder supports radical early-stage ideas.

▸▸   Transition takes promising Pathfinder results and validates them towards higher TRLs.

▸▸   Accelerator helps small companies and start-ups scale, commercialise, and access equity investment.

Projects from Pathfinder can access a fast-track mechanism into later EIC instruments if they demonstrate strong progress.

Strengths and Challenges

Strengths

✓   Enables research too risky for private investment.

✓   Fully funds eligible costs.

✓   Encourages interdisciplinary and cross-border collaboration.

✓   Increases visibility and prestige for participants.

✓   Provides a stepping stone to the Transition and Accelerator schemes.

Challenges

⚠️   Highly competitive and selective.

⚠️   Requires a clear vision that combines scientific novelty with credible potential impact.

⚠️   Proposals must balance creativity and realism.

⚠️   Long project timelines with uncertain outcomes.

⚠️   Some projects may prove too mature or too applied to fit the Pathfinder scope.

Key Success Factors

To succeed in EIC Pathfinder calls, applicants should:

✓   Demonstrate a radical, paradigm-shifting idea.

✓   Clearly explain how the research could open new technological avenues or markets.

✓   Assemble a complementary, international consortium with clear roles and synergies.

✓   Provide a credible work plan with defined milestones and risk mitigation.

✓   Highlight European added value and societal benefit.

✓   Outline plans for intellectual property, dissemination, and exploitation of results.

If you have any questions relating to EIC Pathfinder or wish to discuss how Grant Funding might benefit your business, please get in touch with the ABGi Team and a representative will get back to you to discuss your unique needs and explain how we can assist.