The fully-fledged European Innovation Council (EIC) will include numerous funding opportunities for universities and research organisations. Apart from the typical bottom-up calls, the EIC will also launch calls for proposals under each of the three main EIC schemes that will contribute to strategic EU priorities – it is in these calls that the Commission will adopt the new 'portfolio approach'.
What is the portfolio approach about?
The EIC Strategic Challenges will support portfolios (coherent collections) of projects with the assistance of dedicated EIC Programme Managers. The portfolios will reflect the scope of a particular challenge and successful projects may be requested to join one or more thematic portfolios overseen by the Programme Managers. These projects may then be requested to participate in portfolio activities together with other projects or initiatives to help maximise the impact of EIC funding in a selected priority area.
In particular, projects in a Challenge portfolio are expected to interact and exchange information with each other, remaining flexible and reactive in the light of developments within the portfolio or in the relevant global scientific or industrial community. They will progress together towards common Portfolio goals and create new opportunities for radical innovation as described in the dedicated Challenge Guide.
Portfolio considerations during evaluation
Portfolio considerations will be taken into account in the evaluation process of proposals submitted to the EIC Challenges calls.
The evaluation process includes two steps: first, a remote evaluation of each proposal separately and second, the evaluation by the Evaluation Committee taking into account portfolio considerations. Portfolio considerations for a given Challenge call will be described in the dedicated Challenge Guide. As a general principle, in order to balance out the portfolio, a categorisation of the proposals will be used and the proposals will be allocated to different components or categories. A suitable portfolio of proposals to be funded will be selected by the Evaluation Committee from the highest scoring ones for each category or component and proposed for funding.
Where can I find more information about the specific portfolio considerations?
For each Challenge, a dedicated Challenge Guide will be published on the EIC website and on the Funding & Tenders Portal. This Challenge Guide will provide more information about the specific objectives of the Challenge, as well as relevant portfolio considerations.
Will the Commission adopt the portfolio approach in other parts of Horizon Europe?
The Horizon Europe Missions will be funded through a portfolio approach with actions expected to stretch across different disciplines and parts of the programme. This means that they will go beyond individual projects or partnerships and will create strong synergies to help achieve the specified goal in a set timeframe. Details of how the portfolio approach will work in the Missions are yet to be announced.