European Commission opens Horizon Europe for Swiss participants as of January 2025

The material completion of talks is a major step towards the formal conclusion of negotiations, scheduled for next spring, when both chief negotiators will initial the final text of the agreements. In the meantime, Switzerland will continue to work with the EU on putting the documents into final legal form and the translation process. At national level, discussions with institutional partners (the cantons and Parliament) and social partners will be completed in parallel. Finally, the federal departments involved will also need to complete the necessary legislative work. The Federal Council will need to decide whether to launch a regular consultation on the draft dispatch before next summer, with a view to submitting it to Parliament in early 2026.

Transitional agreements entering into force on 1 January

Switzerland and the European Commission have agreed arrangements for cooperation which will apply from the end of 2024 to the date on which the package takes effect.

The transitional arrangements for research and innovation will be fully implemented from 1 January 2025, giving stakeholders in Switzerland near-complete access to calls for tender issued by Horizon Europe, Euratom and Digital Europe Programme.

For all calls for proposals from the 2025 programme year onwards, participants in Switzerland must prepare their project proposals as beneficiaries and thus apply for EU funding.

The budget of the Swiss partner must be included in the total grant amount that the consortium is requesting from the EU. 

Start-ups can apply for the EIC accelerator

Swiss start-ups and SMEs can submit short applications for the EIC Accelerator call 2025 (Step 1). Short proposals may be submitted at any time and which will be evaluated remotely by EIC expert evaluators on a first come, first served basis. Short applications are batched and sent for evaluation the first Tuesday of every month, and typically take at most 4 weeks to be evaluated. Interested companies should contact Euresearch for more information on the EIC Accelerator, and how to prepare theirproposals

If selected, they have to submit a full proposal until 12 March 2025 (Step 2). 12 March is the first cut-off date in 2025. The second cut-off date is on 1 October 2025.

The EIC Accelerator offers grant awards up to €2.5 million complemented by equity of up to €10 million. Swiss companies will also be able to submit proposals for the new STEP Scale-up call for follow-on EIC Fund equity investments of between €10 million and €30 million. See details of the work programme on the EIC website.

From 1 January 2025, the transitional measures are in force, which allow Swiss startups to apply for both grants and equity financing. What remains is the initialing of the agreement text foreseen for spring 2025, and the signing of the agreement foreseen for the second half of 2025. It is currently considered highly likely that the agreement will be signed by the EU and Switzerland as planned. If this happens, the EU will provide funding for the selected Swiss startups.

If the process of initialising the agreement text and signing of the agreement is unexpectedly aborted, then funding for the grant portion of the award (not the equity award) is provided by SERI within the limits of the budget allocated by the Federal Council and Parliament.

Further programs

Swiss participants can now submit project proposals in the role of coordinator. Switzerland's participation in calls for proposals in areas considered strategic by the EU (including quantum and space) will be the subject of technical discussions with the European Commission. 

Under the transitional arrangement, researchers and innovators in Switzerland now also have the opportunity to participate as beneficiaries in calls for proposals of the Digital Europe Programme, from the 2025 programme year onwards. This means that they can submit their project applications in the role of coordinator. Specific Objectives 3 (Cybersecurity) and 6 (Semiconductors) are exceptions to this; they are only accessible to EU member states and, to a limited extent, to countries in the European Economic Area (EEA).

We will continuously update this information over the next few days.

More information can be found on the SERI website.

Euresearch provides support for potential Swiss participants.

(Stefan Kyora)