SIGMA Programme

SIGMA Seal of Excellence / EIC Accelerator Pilot — 1st

Provides Czech companies with top-up support after positive innovation review, helping bridge to investable product development.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

The Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR) operates the SIGMA programme for applied research and innovation support. Sub-objective 5 (SO5) was created as a dedicated track to capture Czech SMEs that received a Seal of Excellence (SoE) quality label from the European Commission under the EIC Accelerator Pilot 2020 but could not be funded due to EU budget constraints. The 1st — and to date only — SO5 call was financed from the Czech National Recovery Plan (NRP), specifically component 5.2 entitled 'Support for research and development in companies and introduction of innovations into business practice,' and its investment in synergy effects with the Horizon Europe Framework Programme. This NRP funding source meant different accounting and procurement rules applied compared to standard SIGMA calls.

Eligible applicants were small and medium-sized enterprises registered in the Czech Republic that held a valid Seal of Excellence certificate from the 2020 EIC Accelerator Pilot evaluation. Because the European Commission's peer-review evaluation was treated as the technical assessment, TA CR did not conduct a second full review; the SoE certificate itself served as proof of scientific and commercial quality. The total call budget was CZK 200 million, with a maximum award of CZK 25 million per project at a maximum funding intensity of 70%, requiring SMEs to contribute at least 30% from non-public sources. The call opened on 30 September 2022, with a submission deadline of 30 October 2022 and notifications in November 2022.

The call was designed as a fast-turnaround top-up mechanism, with a compressed 30-day submission window reflecting the administrative simplicity of accepting EC evaluations rather than running new expert panels. Nonprofits, research organisations, universities, and large enterprises were not eligible. Given that subsequent EIC Accelerator Pilot cycles have continued to issue Seal of Excellence certificates to Czech applicants, the SO5 track represents a recurring policy instrument that TA CR may reactivate for future NRP or national budget allocations whenever a significant cohort of SoE holders accumulates without EU funding.