Biotech Innovation Call

EIT Food is launching a call designed to boost high-potential innovations and help them reach commercialization. This funding opportunity is part of the EIT Food Co-financed Biotech Portfolio. This portfolio has identified two key industry challenges where we need to find innovative solutions. We are looking for proposals that respond to these challenges, and bring solutions to market.

Proposals must target priority areas identified by EIT Food and the Portfolio Corporate Co-financers, and demonstrate their potential to deliver long-term impact across our Missions. Your proposal should address one or both of the following challenges:

• Design sustainable Downstream Processing to increase energy/water savings;

• Develop Real-time Process Monitoring and Control technologies.

We are primarily interested in funding the following types of initiatives, that address the two outlined challenges:

• New R&D and commercialisation projects with good prospects of getting to market within 12 months.
• Existing research project teams who have a commercialisation or impact plan that needs follow-on funding to get to market. These do not have to be previous EIT Food projects – we can support projects previously funded by other EIT organisations, EU programmes and third-party funders – but projects currently receiving EU funding for the same activity are not eligible.
• Develop and market new applications and business models for existing technology. This includes transferring proven technology from other sectors into the food industry. Run scale-up activities for high impact products or services that already have promising results.

Funding available: The maximum funding amount allocated to this call is €3.000.000. We expect to fund commercial projects with EIT grant funding of maximum 400K€ per project over a period of no longer than 10 months initially.

Project duration: Feb 2026 – December 2026

Countries included: Funding for this call is available to all eligible organisations (see below), from Member States of the European Union (EU) and from Horizon Europe Associate Countries . You are not required to be an EIT Food partner to submit a proposal, or to receive funding under this call.

How to apply & contact: Please check the Call Guidelines attached or email us at calls@eitfood.eu.

Technical Support: The calls team will be offering one-on-one support sessions for any issues encountered with the platform. Please register using this link.

Watch the webinar recording: