Europe’s most radical innovations often struggle to attract credit despite their transformative potential. Supporting deep tech is no longer just about research, but about competitiveness, autonomy and leadership in a global tech race.

Diego Giuliani


Technologies that can redefine entire markets, reshape industrial value chains and offer answers to some of today’s most pressing societal challenges are often born far ahead of their time. In the field of deep tech, innovation rarely follows linear paths: it is radical, capital-intensive and inherently risky. Precisely for these reasons, many of Europe’s most visionary projects struggle to attract credit and investment, despite their extraordinary long-term potential. In a global race increasingly defined by technological leadership, this gap between scientific excellence and market readiness has become a strategic issue. While the United States and other global players deploy powerful financial instruments and innovation ecosystems to accelerate breakthrough technologies, Europe still risks seeing its most promising ideas stall—or move elsewhere. Supporting deep-tech innovators is therefore no longer only a matter of research policy, but a question of economic resilience, competitiveness and geopolitical autonomy. Against this backdrop, initiatives like EIC Communities have worked to accompany researchers and innovators, helping them translate vision into credibility, structure and investability. The challenge is not only to enable daring ideas to emerge, but to ensure that they can grow, scale up and remain anchored in Europe, strengthening strategic sectors such as cleantech, industry and health. As EIC Communities reaches the end of its two-and-a-half-year journey, we reflect on these issues with Stefania De Santi, project coordinator and project manager at APRE, the organisation leading the initiative.

EIC Communities is a very rich and complex ecosystem. How would you describe it?

EIC Communities is a project funded by the European Commission that works with projects funded under Horizon Europe’s third pillar, which is dedicated specifically to innovation, and in particular to breakthrough innovation.Projects that are highly innovative, often very futuristic and cover all stages of technological development. They range from early-stage laboratory research, the so-called “Pathfinder projects”, to intermediate “Transition projects”, where technologies are validated at industrial level through prototypes, all the way to “Accelerator projects” that are much closer to the market.

What needs do these projects have in common?

They often need support to get to know each other, to identify technological links, and to support one another along the value chain. Many of them originate in academia, and often face common challenges on their path to market. In addition to this, they also have to deal with regulations and policies that directly affect their daily work and to which they must adapt.

What was your response to these challenges then?

Overall, EIC Communities acted as a large umbrella that brought together cutting-edge projects and innovations, fostered exchange among them, and culminated in the DeepSync platform, which showcases all the projects and stakeholders that worked with us over the past two and a half years. We created “Communities of Practice”, bringing together selected projects, considered particularly promising in three macro-sectors: cleantech, industry and health. By involving also representatives from academia, industry, chambers of commerce, trade associations, investors, and other startups, these groups facilitated exchange and interaction, helped projects identify potential partners, further develop their technologies, or even collaborate on new projects (LOOK FOR SYNONYM). But they also allowed them share best practices, lessons learned, and challenges, and helped them overcome obstacles and move forward more smoothly.


As you said, EIC Communities focuses on cleantech, industry and health. What is the strategic relevance of supporting projects specifically in these fields?

They are the sectors where we currently see the most disruptive developments in innovation, and that are considered strategic at the European level. “Cleantech” includes sub-sectors such as sustainable construction materials, next-generation technologies for more resilient agriculture, and the energy sector—particularly energy production, conversion, storage, but also environmental technologies, such as nitrogen conversion and carbon capture and conversion. For "industry”, the focus areas include artificial intelligence, space debris management and space-enabling technologies, sustainable materials, and micro- and nano-electronics. In the health sector, we cover neurotech, artificial intelligence and machine learning applied to medical imaging, but over the course of the project, we also added a cross-cutting sub-sector focused on women’s health.

A key concept in your mission is “deep tech”: an extraordinary field, where things happen that are often hard to imagine…

When we talk about deep tech in this context, we mean truly profound innovation—technologies that are genuine game changers; innovations that fundamentally alter markets and, in some cases, the way we understand and interact with the world. They are high-risk projects, but they also offer extremely high potential returns in terms of societal benefits, technological progress, and also from the economical point of view.

The impression is that you allow visionaries to dare and dreams to become reality…

Yes, the goal is to accompany these innovators and visionaries: people who can see beyond the horizon through their research and development work, but who often come from academia and research and do not have an entrepreneurial background. We support them, helping them progress and become aware of what is needed to turn their dreams into reality.

So, projects that are simply too visionary to obtain credit and funding?

Absolutely. A crucial step is combining vision with concreteness, especially in organisational, structural, and financial terms. This is essential to build credibility and reliability, which in turn are necessary to attract investment. Finding partners—both technical and financial—who can support these projects and help turn them into real, market-ready solutions is fundamental.

In a global context of rapid technological development, Europe sometimes lags behind in key sectors. How socially, economically, and strategically important is it to support these innovators and projects?

It is extremely important. If Europe wants to maintain leadership, it must strongly support its companies and researchers. One of the major challenges is preventing these realities from leaving Europe and relocating overseas. We face strong competition from the United States in terms of investment tools and startup support. Many projects end up being funded by overseas investors or programmes. Creating a robust European ecosystem that allows these initiatives to stay, grow and thrive in Europe is essential to avoid dependency on external players.

As the project approaches its conclusion, how would you assess the overall results?

We have succeeded in creating living active communities that have followed us and that we expect will continue to do so. At the same time, we have learned a great deal—especially about the needs of these projects—and how to provide more tailored support.

What kind of needs and what kind of support?

The key need is networking—helping projects open up and connect with the outside world by creating opportunities to meet stakeholders. Not only investors, but also local actors who can support them on regulatory issues, intellectual property management and technology protection. What stood out most to us was that many projects working in the same field, with complementary capabilities, simply did not know each other. Enabling dialogue and helping them realise they can join forces to increase impact is a fundamental step in their journey.

What legacy will EIC Communities leave to society and the scientific community?

Everything developed through EIC Communities will remain available. Our methodologies for running Communities of Practice, as well as all analytical outputs, will be accessible. The DeepSync platform will remain online for at least the next four years and will be open to both professionals and the general public. And in collaboration with the European Innovation Council, community members will remain within the EIC ecosystem, ensuring continuity through a formal handover. Beyond that, the human relationships and networks built during the project will remain active, and there is hope that this accumulated capital can be channelled into future initiatives.