Running from June 2025 to May 2027, our Fellowship Programme is designed to boost deep-tech researchers’ commercialization capacity — especially from moderate and emerging innovation ecosystems — and help transform their scientific breakthroughs into viable, market-ready innovations.

Project ID: 101213513 – CORE12.01 – HORIZON-EIE-2024-CONNECT-02

We offer hands-on support, ecosystem access, performance-driven tools, and access to funding opportunities. CORE confronts long-standing challenges in the European climate innovation ecosystem, including fragmented stakeholder engagement, unequal access to commercialization infrastructure, and limited entrepreneurial readiness among academic researchers.

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT 

CORE is committed to understanding stakeholder needs. Our project includes activities to surface and respond to perspectives and concerns throughout the commercialisation value chain – from researchers to industry, civil society and policymakers. Our ecosystem sessions will incorporate feedback from citizens and social innovators, and our Fellowship Program will train researchers in various engagement techniques to ensure that technological solutions are aligned with stakeholder needs.

CORPORATE ENGAGEMENT

We know that one of the biggest challenges facing deep-tech researchers is gaining access to feedback from industrial players. CORE will help our Fellows to engage with promising corporate entities – to identify, reach, and most crucially follow-up with key contacts for potential pilot projects, co-development, or early sales. CORE Fellows will learn what corporations are looking for, how to prepare and present their solutions, and what to expect from potential industry partners. Following our presence and pitching at a major industry event, we will help Fellows develop these relationships and take the dialogue further.

FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

At the heart of the project lies the Responsive Ecosystem Fellowship Programme (REFP), a structured, pan-European acceleration and training framework that selects 30 Innovation Fellows (individuals or teams) through a competitive Open Call. Each Fellow receives:

• Tailored mentoring and coaching; 
• Access to commercialization tools:
  • The Responsive Ecosystem Toolbox (RET) for ecosystem mapping and stakeholder engagement
  • The Responsive Innovation Monitoring Tool (RIM) for setting, tracking, and adjusting KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in business, regulatory, social, and technological areas
• Training modules on business development, intellectual property, stakeholder alignment, corporate engagement, and investment readiness
• Networking with corporates, investors, policy institutions, and civil society actors across the quadruple helix (academia, industry, government, society)
• A final Showcase and Pitch Event at a major EU innovation summit

To ensure relevance and replicability, CORE12.01 combines both macro and micro strategies:

• At the macro level, the project applies ecosystem mapping methodologies to identify regional innovation gaps, barriers to commercialization, and collaborative opportunities across Europe.
• At the micro level, the project supports individual researchers to develop strategic commercialization roadmaps backed by real metrics and real-time coaching.

CORE12.01 is especially focused on Widening countries and underrepresented regions, addressing disparities in innovation capacity and stakeholder access. The project strives to make climate-tech innovation inclusive, impact-driven, and regionally anchored while contributing to Europe’s broader green and digital transitions.

The project’s goals are fully aligned with the New European Innovation Agenda, the European Green Deal, and the objectives of the HORIZON-EIE-2024-CONNECT-02-01 topic. CORE12.01 also complements other EU instruments such as the EIC Accelerator, EIT Climate-KIC, Startup Europe, and Eurostars, creating added value by increasing visibility and uptake of early-stage climate-tech innovations.

By the end of its 24-month duration, CORE12.01 aims to:

• Support 30 Innovation Fellows (individuals or teams) with specialised  commercialization journeys;
• Establish over 90 new strategic connections across academia, industry, policy, and civil society;
• Generate at least 4 regional ecosystem success stories;
• Facilitate access to over €7 million in follow-on funding (private and public);
• Ensure the continued use and adoption of the RET and RIM tools by institutions and innovation support actors across Europe.

CORE12.01 offers a bold, scalable approach to making Europe’s research ecosystem more entrepreneurial, more connected, and more capable of responding to the urgent challenges of the climate crisis through innovation.