The European Union leads globally in sustainable and climate technologies, yet maintaining this leadership necessitates ensuring broad accessibility across all Member States for GreenTech, AgriTech, and ClimaTech innovators. Despite significant potential, disparities persist in gender inclusivity and resource distribution, risking the exclusion of certain regions and stakeholders without intervention. The WE-RISE project addresses these challenges by empowering underrepresented female entrepreneurs in GreenTech, AgriTech, and ClimateTech. Through a strategic blend of funding and tailored support, the consortium aims to amplify the market presence of high-potential women-led startups, particularly from emerging European economies. The project's pillars include amplifying market presence through targeted funding and investor matchmaking, integrating startups into the ecosystem through cross-border acceleration activities, and providing a holistic growth program. By prioritising inclusivity, diversity, and systemic change, WE-RISE seeks to enhance the impact and visibility of Green-Women-led startups, contributing to the broader advancement of the European innovation ecosystem towards sustainability.

Only 5% of European start-ups scale-up and pursue the position of world tech leaders. The growth barriers are high for truly high-risk deep-tech innovators, the main target of EIC instruments. Deep-tech innovators struggle to get required capital at the different stages of their lifecycle. The EIC-ScalingUP is set to create a blueprint for the EIC deep-tech growth companies to successfully scale and accelerate their investments and partnerships. It will identify, engage, select and feature 50 EIC companies with ability to become world-scale companies, select up to 30 and guide their growth plan and ambitions and create the blueprint of the tailored ScalingUP services. The execution of the defined blueprint will support the growth and funding of the 30 companies and foster exposure and connections with target stakeholders and networks with the aim to impact the key growth fundamentals and to lead to a successful Series B/C round or acquisition value, thus validating the EIC-ScalingUP blueprint. It is expected that 500+ Euro Million will be raised by the supported companies and inspirational success stories of EIC deep-tech companies will be broadly promoted to establish the EIC-ScalingUP as a credential of honour among Investment & Innovation communities. All activities in the EIC-ScalingUP are carried out by a consortium of 4 partners with complementary expertise: Coordinator Tech Tour (Networking & matchmaking between innovative SMEs; investors, corporates and advisors), Bpifrance (the French public investment bank assists businesses across stages and sectors and finances them from the seed phase to transfer to stocks exchange listing through loans, guarantees and equity), Boston Consulting Group (a global management consulting company with a deep understanding of the Deep Tech ecosystem) and Deepwave Ventures.

The objective of EEN2EIC is to empower EEN network offices support potential EIC applicants, specifically women entrepreneurs and widening countries, and Seal of Excellence (SoE) holders. The project aims to develop a strong cooperation mechanism between the European Innovation Council and EEN in order to support innovation and scale up companies. EEN2EIC will involve the most relevant actors in the EIC and EEN landscape: the Enterprise Europe Network ( EEN), the EIC NCPs Network (ACCESS2EIC). EEN2EIC aims to focus on specific outreach and support activities, increasing the number of quality proposals to EIC calls with a specific focus in widening countries as well as women innovators, assisting Seal of Excellence holders access alternative sources of funding and guarantee a strong and profitable exchange of best practice within EEN. EEN2EIC overall objective is to make EU innovation support more efficient by improving the capacity of SMEs to apply to the EIC and by helping SoE holders finance their projects and to avoid overlapping with NCPs activities

EIC-ACCESS+ mission is to enable EIC Awardees and Seal of Excellence holders to access specialised services offered through the EIC Service Catalogue by offering financial support to partially cover the services price and facilitating the delivery of tailored assistance to address the unique scaling challenges of deep tech European innovators. An initial survey will allow to assess the alignment of the pool of services available in the EIC Catalogue with the needs of the EIC Community members, their availability and accessibility, and provide actionable information and recommendations to assure a complete coverage of key categories of needs. Through a permanent public open call for applications, up to 180 beneficiaries will be selected to access three categories of service packs from the EIC Catalogue to answer their specific needs and matchmaking them with EIC Ecosystem Partnership service providers. The selection process will be aimed to efficiently assign and distribute the financial support to the selected EIC Community Members as lump sums. EIC-ACCESS+ will carefully monitor the service delivery and assess results and impacts for the EIC Community members through detailed statistics and analytic dashboards, making sure that stringent quality standards are respected and reflected through an overall high satisfaction rate and the emergence of success stories to be promoted in the yearly “uptake and impact report” and more generally through online channels and social media. The initiative will contribute, in close synergy with the EIC and the contractor implementing the call for Ecosystem Partners, to making the EIC Ecosystem Partnership stronger by facilitating the service delivery with the financial support, providing insights about the service offer availability and impacts and engaging the community in a peer learning and co-construction process to fill in the gaps and fully cover the needs of the EIC Community members.

The CoDEPlugin project (COnnecting the Dots – Embedding Plug-In within national innovation support schemes) aims to enhance the alignment of national and regional innovation programs with the European Innovation Council's (EIC) Plug-in scheme. This novelty under Horizon Europe, is designed to streamline the process for innovation-driven companies—startups and SMEs—to access support under the EIC Accelerator. However, many countries still face challenges in certifying their programs, resulting in unequal access to this European-level support. CoDEPlugin responds this issue by analyzing the gaps between national support programs and the Plug-in scheme's requirements. The project will conduct an in-depth assessment of the needs of startups and SMEs, the state of certified and uncertified programs, and the barriers hindering wider certification across the EU. The CoDEPlugin develops policy recommendations and practical guidelines to help innovation agencies design programs that align with Plug-in standards. Key activities include knowledge exchange among stakeholders, including Plug-in contact points, policymakers, and innovation agencies, and the creation of a Design Options Paper. It will provide actionable recommendations for aligning national programs with the Plug-in scheme and will be piloted to test its applicability. Fostering collaboration and sharing best practices lead to a more coherent and efficient European innovation support ecosystem. The CoDEPlugin consortium is well-represented by a diverse group of countries: strong innovators like FR, DE, moderate (IT, PT), which have successfully certified their programs. In contrast, Poland (emerging innovator), the largest of widening countries, ‘s not achieved certification. The consortium ensures a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and opportunities across stages of Plug-in implementation, providing a robust response to the needs of both well-established and underperforming innovation systems.