Verified against official EU sources · last checked 20 days ago (13 Jun 2026)
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Overview
EIC Pathfinder Open funds visionary, high-risk research into the science behind future breakthrough technologies. It is one of the few schemes in Europe genuinely willing to back work that has no product, no market, and not yet any proof it can work. There are no predefined topics, so any radical idea is welcome, and it targets the earliest stages of research, roughly TRL 1 to 4, where the real question is whether a technology is even possible. The offer is a pure grant of up to €4 million per project (raised from €3 million in the 2026 Work Programme), covering 100% of eligible costs with no equity and no repayment. The default route is a consortium of at least 3 independent entities from 3 different EU or Associated Countries, though a single entity can apply. The 2026 call had a budget of €166 million and attracted a record 2,103 proposals before closing on 12 May 2026; evaluation results are expected around October 2026. The next annual call is expected in early 2027, though exact dates have not yet been published. What it funds is concrete, not abstract. Companies and teams like CEREBRIS, working on multi-agent AI for neurological disease, HeartVision, opening new paths in heart failure therapy, and EUROPA, a laser-driven accelerator for medical radioisotopes, all took this route. Winners can later move toward market through EIC Transition and Accelerator.
Is this for you?
Success rates — the honest picture
Roughly 1 in 50 applications gets funded. A sharp, evidence-backed proposal is what separates the funded from the rejected.
Eligibility
- 1The default route is a consortium of at least 3 independent legal entities based in 3 different EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries, and they must be genuinely independent of each other.
- 2A single legal entity (a startup, SME, university, or research organisation) can apply on its own, but it is the exception: in the 2025 round 48% of participants were universities, 27% companies, and 25% research organisations, and most funded projects were multidisciplinary teams.
- 3Your idea has to sit at TRL 1 to 4, the science stage where you are still proving a principle works, not building or scaling a product. Anything with an existing prototype or a clear route to market belongs in EIC Transition or Accelerator instead.
- 4There is no topic list. Pathfinder Open backs any field of breakthrough technology, so you are not competing inside a theme, you are competing against every radical idea in Europe for that round.
- 5The science must be high-risk, high-gain and genuinely novel. Incremental improvements on existing work, applied development, and 'we will optimise X by 20%' proposals get screened out fast.
- 6Associated Countries (such as the UK, Norway, Switzerland under current terms, Israel, and others) count toward the 3-country rule; check your country's exact association status for the 2026 call before you build the consortium around it.
How to Apply
- 1
Build the consortium early. Three partners across three countries is the bar, but evaluators reward a team that genuinely needs each discipline to make the science work. Partners bolted on for geography are easy to spot and they cost you on the team score.
- 2
Lead with the vision, then prove the science is plausible. Because there are no topics, the whole proposal stands or falls on one question: is this a credible long-term breakthrough, or just excellent incremental research dressed up as one.
- 3
Write to the three criteria as they are actually scored: Excellence (the scientific breakthrough and how high-risk-high-gain it really is), Impact (what changes in the world if it works), and Implementation (a research plan and team that can survive the risk).
- 4
Make the high risk explicit, not hidden. This is one of the few schemes that funds work that might fail. State the make-or-break assumptions and how you will test them early; proposals that pretend there is no risk read as not novel enough.
- 5
The 2026 call closed on 12 May 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time with a record 2,103 proposals. The 2027 call deadline has not yet been published; dates are typically announced by the EIC in autumn. Monitor the EU Funding & Tenders Portal for the next opening.
- 6
Plan for the wait and the odds. You hear the result about 5 months after the deadline and sign the grant roughly 3 months later, around 8 months total. With success near 2%, treat a rejection as the base case and have a resubmission or a Plan B ready.
Typical Budget Breakdown
Open Calls
Live opportunities from the EU Funding & Tenders Portal.
EIC Transition Open
16 Sept 2026HORIZON-EIC-2026-TRANSITIONOPEN · HORIZON EIC Grants · €100.0M budget · Open
Advanced Materials for Miniaturised Energy Harvesting Systems
28 Oct 2026HORIZON-EIC-2026-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-01 · HORIZON-EIC-LUMP-SUM · Forthcoming
Biotechnology for Healthy Ageing
28 Oct 2026HORIZON-EIC-2026-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-02 · HORIZON-EIC-LUMP-SUM · Forthcoming
DeepRAP: Deep Reasoning, Abstraction & Planning towards trustworthy Cognitive AI Systems
28 Oct 2026HORIZON-EIC-2026-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-03 · HORIZON-EIC-LUMP-SUM · Forthcoming
Funded Projects
44 projects funded · €140.5M in EU contribution · sourced from CORDIS.
CEREBRIS
€8.8MMulti AI-Agents to Revolutionise the Management of Neurological Diseases
🇺🇰 UNIVERSITY OF BATH · EIC Grants
SWIRFlex-DT
€4.1MAdvanced Organic Semiconductor Materials for Flexible SWIR Photodetection
🇪🇱 ETHNIKO IDRYMA EREVNON · EIC Grants
HeartVision
€4.0MIlluminating new paths in heart failure therapy
🇳🇴 UNIVERSITETET I TROMSOE - NORGES ARKTISKE UNIVERSITET · EIC Grants
EUROPA
€3.5MlasEr-driven Universal Radio-isOtope Production Accelerator
🇫🇷 INSTITUT MINES-TELECOM · EIC Grants
NEQIOS
€3.3MNeuromorphic Quantum-Inspired Optimization and Simulation
🇳🇱 UNIVERSITEIT TWENTE · EIC Grants
Fiber3D
€3.2MMulti-Process Strategy To Embed Optical Fibers In 3D-Printed Metal Parts
🇫🇷 CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · EIC Grants
PROPANTHERA
€3.1MRetrograde atrophy induction: a paradigm shift in prostate and pancreatic cancer prevention and therapy.
🇪🇸 FUNDACION SECTOR PUBLICO ESTATAL CENTRO NACIONAL INVESTIGACIONES ONCOLOGICAS CARLOS III · EIC Grants
CarboNcare
€3.1MCARBON-EFFICIENT BIOPRODUCTION OF CHEMICALS FROM METHANOL
🇩🇪 CHARITE - UNIVERSITAETSMEDIZIN BERLIN · EIC Grants
PHINDER
€3.1MPicosecond-scale Photonic Heterogeneous Integrated Neuromorphic Detector
🇸🇪 LULEA TEKNISKA UNIVERSITET · EIC Grants
HoloMorPh
€3.1MHolographic surface Morphing for ready-to-use planar Photonic components
🇮🇹 UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II · EIC Grants
MECH-QUBIT
€3.1MMECHanical QUBIT With Enhanced Coherence
🇪🇸 FUNDACIO INSTITUT DE CIENCIES FOTONIQUES · EIC Grants
ULTRAPURE
€3.1MINTEGRATED SOURCES FOR ULTRAPURE OSCILLATIONS FROM ACOUSTICAL TO LIGHT WAVES
🇩🇪 TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET BRAUNSCHWEIG · EIC Grants
Key Features
Frequently Asked Questions
Pathfinder Open is built for consortia: you need at least 3 independent legal entities from 3 different EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries. Eligible partners include universities, research organisations, startups, SMEs, and larger companies. The focus is the earliest stages of research, roughly TRL 1 to 4, where you are exploring whether a breakthrough technology is even possible.
The 2026 Work Programme raised the grant ceiling to €4 million per project, up from €3 million, with larger amounts possible if duly justified. Funding covers 100% of eligible costs, and the average 2025 award was around €3.7 million. It is a pure grant with no equity and no repayment, so it is fully non-dilutive.
Pathfinder Open is a collaborative scheme, so the default route is a consortium of at least 3 partners across 3 countries. A single legal entity such as one startup, university, or research organisation can apply in its own right, but the evaluation rewards multidisciplinary teams, and most funded projects are consortia. In the 2025 round, universities made up 48% of participants, companies 27%, and research organisations 25%.
The EIC Pathfinder Open 2026 call has now closed. The deadline was 12 May 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time, and the call attracted a record 2,103 proposals. Evaluation results are expected around October 2026. The 2027 call deadline has not yet been announced; dates are typically published by the EIC in autumn of the preceding year. Monitor the EU Funding & Tenders Portal for updates.
Very. The 2026 call attracted a record 2,103 proposals against a budget of €166 million. The 2025 call funded just 44 of 2,087 proposals — a success rate of about 2.1%, the lowest on record. Over the last five years the average has been roughly 5%, so you should plan for single-digit odds.
Expect the timeline to run in months, not weeks. Applicants are typically informed of the evaluation result within about 5 months of the deadline, and the grant agreement is then signed within roughly 3 more months, so around 8 months total from the May cut-off. For the 2026 call that points to grant signatures and first pre-financing landing around late 2026 or early 2027.
Pathfinder rewards genuinely novel science with clear breakthrough potential, not incremental improvements on existing work. Because it is open with no predefined topics, your proposal must stand on the ambition and credibility of the long-term vision, the strength of the multidisciplinary team, and a high-risk, high-gain research plan. With odds near 2%, evaluators now also expect a clear path to future impact and exploitation, not just excellent science in isolation.
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