ACCESS2EIC was a 24-month coordination and support action aimed to empower and facilitate transnational cooperation within the network of National Contact Points - NCPs focused on the Horizon 2020 European Innovation Council - EIC Pilot and the specific objective Access to Risk Finance - ARF. It involved a consortium made of formally appointed NCPs under ‘Future and Emerging Technologies – FET’, ‘Innovation in SMEs – SME’ and ‘Access to Risk Finance - ARF’ areas of Horizon 2020. Overall, the network will aimed to: -
develop an improved, more consistent and professionalised NCP service across Europe, thereby helping simplify access to EIC Pilot calls, and lowering the entry barriers for newcomers;
- identifed and shared good practices into raising the general standard of support to EIC and ARF programme applicants, taking into account the novelties of this transition period and the diversity of actors that make up their constituency.
Special attention was devoted to outreach and support activities aimed at helping potential applicants in those countries that have been participating at low levels in the EIC calls and its predecessors (FET instruments and SME Instrument). These activities helped the NCPs rapidly acquire the know-how on NCP operations accumulated in best practice countries and included priority awareness raising actions aimed at increasing visibility of the enhanced EIC Pilot to potential applicant organisations in the above mentioned countries.
ACCESS2EIC achieved the following specific objectives:
1. Improving NCP capacities to provide systemic knowledge (NCP Curriculum) to clients across different EIC enhanced pilot calls and access to finance opportunities through networks collaboration (WP2).
2. Identifying key success factors for EIC Pathfinder and Accelerator funding schemes based on the experiences of FET, SME Instrument and FTI funded projects, by improving the set of tools (e.g. analysis and involvement of innovation ecosystems, development of annotated templates, factsheets), and consequently the efficacy of the assistance of NCPs (WP3).
3. Understanding EIC successful applicants’ characteristics and EIC fund offer, including how to deal with exploitation and market aspects under a Pathfinder project as well as with the equity offer of the EIC accelerator. (WP4).
4. Spreading knowledge on access to risk finance opportunities under the Framework Programmes, notably InnovFin products sharing information and practices on financial instruments for R&I across researchers, SMEs and ARF national communities; setting the ground for the new generations of financial instruments including the EIC Pilot and the ones expected under the next Programming Period ; Fostering the cross-border access to risk finance for specific high potential businesses actors participating or emerging from EIC calls (WP5).
5. Enhancing the outreach of this Network through strategic information, communication and dissemination activities to maximize the impact of its activities, services and results to a wider audience of clients and stakeholders and avoid overlapping with further initiatives in those areas (WP6).
