Dare to tackle one of the EIC Pathfinder challenges?

The European Innovation Council (EIC) will continue in 2025 its strong commitment to frontier research through the Pathfinder programme, designed to turn radically new ideas into technologies with disruptive potential. Following the closure of the Pathfinder Open call in May, attention now shifts to Pathfinder Challenges, which will remain open until 29 October 2025. With a budget of €120 million, EIC Pathfinder Challenges represents one of the most significant opportunities under Horizon Europe for those seeking funding for high-risk scientific and technological projects at early stages of development.

The EIC Pathfinder stands out among European instruments because it funds the exploration of visionary concepts, without requiring immediate market results, but with the expectation that they could form the foundations of future industries. Projects are expected to be at low Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs 1 to 3), meaning they are still based on principles under validation. Through non-repayable public funding and a support framework including mentoring and acceleration services, the programme aims to bridge the gap between frontier science and future applications.

The Challenges modality focuses on strategic priorities defined by the European Commission, setting it apart from the completely open-topic Open call. This orientation makes it possible to concentrate resources on areas with potentially high social and economic impact, while also introducing greater flexibility in consortium composition: unlike the Open call, which requires at least three entities from different countries, Challenges allows individual applicants or smaller consortia, provided they put forward ambitious and coherent responses to the chosen topics.

EIC Pathfinder: the 2025 challenges

In 2025, four major challenges will cover a wide spectrum of disciplines. The first seeks biotechnological solutions to develop climate-resilient crops and, at the same time, sustainable biomaterials. The aim is to combine food security with a transition towards industrial processes that are less energy-intensive and have a lower impact on biodiversity. The second challenge targets the application of generative artificial intelligence in healthcare, specifically for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Projects are expected to integrate large volumes of clinical and imaging data to create autonomous agents capable of offering an integrated, personalised view of the patient.

The third challenge focuses on the construction sector, where the Commission aims to promote multi-robot systems that cooperate to execute complex tasks in dynamic environments. The approach seeks not only to increase efficiency but also to improve sustainability and safety on building sites. The fourth challenge relates to the circular economy and energy transition: technologies to valorise difficult-to-treat waste — mixed plastics, microplastics, industrial gases, contaminated water — into valuable products such as fuels, chemicals or renewable materials.

Intense competition

Each project may receive up to €4 million, fully funded under the lump sum model. This represents a major shift from traditional European Commission schemes: beneficiaries do not need to justify actual costs, but must deliver agreed milestones and outputs, making management simpler and more predictable. Beyond financial support, funded projects join a broader ecosystem that provides access to business acceleration services, expert mentoring, and the possibility of evolving into later EIC instruments such as Transition or Accelerator.

Competition, however, is extremely tough. In 2024, the Challenges modality received 415 proposals, of which 401 were deemed eligible. In the end, only 31 were funded, with a success rate of around 8%. The selected consortia also demonstrated significant international breadth, with participants from up to 48 countries. This high selectivity enhances the prestige of successful projects, but requires applicants to prepare exceptionally strong proposals, with a clear scientific narrative and a compelling case for potential impact. The EIC places particular emphasis on interdisciplinarity, encouraging the participation of teams spanning different fields of knowledge, from synthetic biology to advanced robotics and artificial intelligence.

Solutions for the future

The Pathfinder is conceived as the entry point to a staged funding pathway. The rationale of the programme is that today’s ideas, even if still in the laboratory, may become tomorrow’s industrial solutions. For this reason, the EIC supports beneficiaries beyond the initial project, offering rapid transition options to other instruments designed to bring technologies closer to market.

The programme’s other major modality, EIC Pathfinder Open, closed on 21 May with a budget of €140 million. This bottom-up call, with no thematic restrictions, offered up to €3 million per project and required the participation of at least three entities from different EU Member States or Horizon Europe associated countries. Its broad scope attracted a very high volume of proposals, reflecting the strong international interest in this instrument. In 2024, out of more than 1,000 applications submitted, barely 5% secured funding, illustrating the programme’s extreme competitiveness.