EU Innovation Fund — Regular Grants

Innovation Fund — Small and Medium-Scale Projects

Funds small and medium European demonstrations of low-carbon technologies moving toward broad commercial deployment.

Eligibility · EU member states

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

The EU Innovation Fund Small and Medium-Scale Projects call addresses the same technology mandate as the Large-Scale call — first-of-a-kind demonstration of innovative low-carbon technologies — but targets projects with capital expenditure between €2.5 million and €100 million. The 2025 cycle split this band into two tracks: Medium-scale projects (CAPEX €20 million to €100 million) and Small-scale projects (CAPEX €2.5 million to €20 million). Applicants self-select the track matching their project size. Both tracks drew from the combined €5.2 billion IF25 budget; the Small and Medium tracks together account for approximately €2.2 billion of that total. The 2025 call closed on 23 April 2026 alongside the Large-Scale call; awards are expected Q4 2026 to Q1 2027.

All eligibility and technical rules are identical to the Large-Scale call: projects must be in an EU Member State, Iceland, Liechtenstein, or Norway; demonstrate TRL 8 or higher at project start; achieve greater than 50% GHG avoidance versus the conventional reference technology; and exclude activities related to electricity generation from non-recycled fossil fuels. Funding covers up to 60% of relevant costs (the additional cost gap versus the conventional alternative). Technology focus areas include energy-intensive industries, renewables, energy storage, net-zero mobility, buildings, hydrogen, and CCUS. Project Development Assistance is available from the European Investment Bank for smaller projects that need additional preparation support.

The smaller CAPEX thresholds make the Small and Medium tracks accessible to a broader range of industrial operators, mid-size manufacturers, and clean-energy developers who cannot sustain a €100 million-plus demonstration project. Applications follow the same EU Funding and Tenders Portal process as Large-Scale, though smaller projects may follow a single-stage rather than two-stage evaluation procedure. CINEA administers all Innovation Fund grant competitions and provides evaluation feedback to applicants. National Contact Points in each Member State provide free pre-submission advisory support, and CINEA GHG calculation guidelines and templates are available to help applicants quantify their avoidance case.