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The Innovation Fund is one of the world's largest funding programs, focusing on deploying innovative low-carbon technologies to support the EU's transition to climate neutrality by 2050. It is financed through the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), with an estimated budget of around €40 billion for the period 2020-2030.
Key aspects of the Innovation Fund include:
- Financing highly innovative technologies and projects with significant emission reductions and European added value.
- Supporting large-scale projects with investment costs over €100 million, medium scale projects with costs between €20 million and €100 million, small-scale projects with costs below €20 million, clean tech manufacturing projects and pilot projects. There is no separate call for battery cell manufacturing projects this year; however, these can now be funded in the clean tech manufacturing category.
- Covering up to 60% of eligible costs, with grants in the range of tens and even hundreds of million euro being feasible. For pilot projects, the maximum funding is capped at €40 million.
The 6th call for proposals has opened early December 2025, with submissions due by April 23, 2026. A budget of €2.9 billion is available for Net-Zero technologies in this year’s call.
Together with the opening of the IF25 call, CINEA also formally opened the Hydrogen Auction and Heat Auction funding mechanisms for projects focusing on the production of hydrogen and renewable process heat (e.g. electrification). Note: these auctions have an earlier deadline for proposal submission, set at February 19, 2026. For more information, we refer to our prior Tax Alert on the topic (Heat Auction: EU funding to decarbonize industrial process heat | EY - Belgium).
The Innovation Fund aims to boost economic growth, create jobs, and reinforce European technological leadership globally. It supports a range of sectors, including energy-intensive industries, carbon capture, renewable energy generation, energy storage, net-zero mobility and buildings.
EY Belgium has a proven track record of success with the Innovation Fund in prior calls. We can support Innovation Fund applications not only with technical grant writing but also with specialized expertise in GHG emission avoidance calculation and financial modelling provided by expert teams.
In case of any further questions with regard to these developments, please do not hesitate to reach out to your trusted EY person of contact.