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About the Author: Maya Hernando

Co-CEO: Maya is an agricultural engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (ES) and she has a MSc. in Plant science from the University of Wageningen (NL). Before founding Innovarum she worked as project coordinator for IFOAM EU – Brussels (BE). Maya spends her spare time fighting against injustices via Twitter.

EIC Transition is a very interesting programme that funds initiatives that aim to mature a novel technology and develop a business case to bring it to the market. EIC Transition projects must derive from another funded European project and are focused on the exploitation of these previously obtained results. The EIC Transition application process includes the preparation of a written proposal following pre-defined guidelines and an interview in front of a panel.

Recently, one of our clients at Innovarum, has been invited to the interview. We tell you now here how the whole process of the presentation in front of the panel went.

EIC Transition and the panel experience

The proposal was submitted in the first call of the EIC Transition 2023, which closed on 12 April. Our project was selected for the “OPEN” call. When we had almost lost faith on 5 June (about 7 weeks after the cut-off date) we received an email from the Commission with the invitation. ¡¡¡¡¡¡GREAT!!!!!! The interview was to take place on 21 June remotely via the WEBEX platform. We were given a week to prepare and send a presentation, and to pass on the personal details of all the people who were going to attend (maximum 5).

The Commission informed us that the aim of the interview was to reach a deeper understanding of the proposal and to clarify certain aspects, especially those related to the objective of the programme, complementing what had already been said in the written proposal. We were also sent a guide of what the presentation had to include (which can have a maximum of 10 slides). Please, note that the presentation file must be no larger than 10 MB, otherwise the platform will not allow you to attach it!

Our jury was composed of a panel of 6 evaluators. One day before the interview we received their names and surnames so that we could assess whether there was a potential conflict of interest. The profiles were varied, ranging from technical profiles to representatives of Venture Capital or public administrations.

The duration of the interview was strictly 45 minutes, measured by a moderator. This included our presentation of 10 minutes and a maximum of 35 minutes for questions and answers from the jury. The jury was well acquainted with the written proposal and the questions were aimed at clarifying points in the proposal; mainly around technical issues or the sharing of intellectual property among the participants.

We are now waiting for the results, which we have been told will arrive a month after the interview, so we hope to close for the holidays with good news. We will keep you posted!

The next call for applications this year is 27 September, with the interviews scheduled for 11-15 December, are you up for it? In Innovarum we are ready to help you get there!

Interesting links

#HacemosLaInnovaciónRealidad

¿Tienes una idea para un proyecto? ¿Buscas un socio de comunicación o para el desarrollo de modelos de negocio innovadores? ¿Tienes alguna otra iniciativa innovadora en mente?