EIC Women Leadership Programme

About

The EIC Women Leadership Programme enhances leadership end entrepreneurial skills of participating women researchers and entrepreneurs. The programme expands participants’ network by engaging various innovation ecosystem partners and institutional players from the EIC and beyond and connects participants with peers to share best practices and solutions to common challenges.  

The programme consists of four pillars; joint in person and online trainings empowering participants to master their leadership role and lead the market entry and scale up of their startups or scaleups, individual mentoring exploring career orientations and addressing personal challenges, business coaching maximizing the business potential of developed innovations and visibility boost providing exposure to participants and their work as role model female leaders in deep tech.  

The EIC Women Leadership Programme targets female members of EIC supported projects, and specifically: 

• Businesswomen, (co)founders and managers in C-suite positions, who want to strengthen their skills and expand their network; 

• Women researchers involved in research projects aspiring to lead the transition of their research into businesses.

Implementing partners 

Eligibility

The EIC Women Leadership Programme cohorts are alternately open to EIC researchers and EIC entrepreneurs.  

The entrepreneurial cohort is open to female (co)founders and managers in C-suite positions small and medium-sizes enterprises (SMEs) which have benefited from the following schemes: 

• SME Phase I and Phase II  

• EIC Pathfinder 

• EIC Transition  

• EIC Accelerator  

• Women TechEU 

• Seal of Excellence under Horizon Europe   

The research cohort is open to female members of research institutions which have benefited from the following schemes: 

• EIC Pathfinder  

• EIC Transition  

• FTI under Horizon 2020  

• FET Open and FET Proactive under Horizon 2020  

Timeline and Open calls

Please check the Open Calls & Upcoming Events page. 

Testimonials 

Joana Simões Correia, Executive Director and CSO at Exogenus Therapeutics:

The EIC Women Leadership Programme was all about self-confidence and empowerment.

Alessandra Balduini, Professor and principal Investigation at SilkFusion:

The EIC Women Leadership Programme had a great impact on my career. As a scientist, I learnt about business and how to direct my science, my research, in that sense. 

Learn more

• Women Leadership Programme - 3rd cohort Awards Ceremony.  

• How the EIC Women Leadership Programme is breaking down barriers to success 

• Visit the EIC Women Leadership Programme dedicated webpage. 

FAQ

What skills will I obtain during the programme?  

The programme offers a catalogue of profile-based and tailored journey of training sessions for participants, for example, how to develop your personal leadership and brand, scout and negotiate with partners, pitch in front of investors, increase sale skills and other key topics for innovators to thrive. The skills will be further developed during the exchanges with personal mentors and business coaches.  

How does the Women Leadership Programme Coaching scheme work?   

Each WLP participant works with a Business coach, who helps participants discover innovation opportunities and provide insight in their entrepreneurship potential and improve their business plans, implementation strategies and the market entry. Participants are entitled to 3 days of business coaching spread during the duration of the cohort.  

What will I gain during the Women Leadership Programme Mentorship Scheme?  

Each WLP participant has the opportunity to work with a Mentor – experienced entrepreneur, investors, innovator or senior manager who shares his or her extensive managerial experience and provide access to their diverse professional networks. Mentors help participants define their career path, overcome the existing career challenges and set the next steps. Each participant is able to select his best matching Mentor based on her needs from a pool of more than 200 qualified mentors from across the EU and beyond.  

Find all the answers on the EIC Women Leadership Programme in the FAQ.

Contact us 

For additional information, please refer to our Helpdesk service (please choose 'EIC Women Leadership Programme' as the subject).