The European Innovation Council (EIC), which oversees the EU’s deeptech funding strategy, has appointed a new board to oversee its operations for the next two years.
The appointments come at a crucial time for the EIC, as it seeks to boost European sovereignty by funding startups working in critical industries.
The EIC, which currently has a €10bn mandate, appoints new board members every two years. The new 20-strong board includes Belen Garijo, CEO of German multinational Merck, Italian economist Francesca Bria and Ann Mettler, formerly a director of the EPSC thinktank and VP of Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy in Europe.
“It's time for policy makers to understand that innovation is not just a nice-to-have, this is an existential question for Europe. We need to not only create these innovations, but also scale them into successful global companies,” says Mettler.
Outgoing board members include French entrepreneur Kat Borlongan and Francesco Profumo, former Italian minister of education. Previous members have included ARM cofounder Hermann Hauser and Jan Goetz, cofounder of quantum computing startup IQM.
A move into dual-use
The EIC has made 325 equity investments since it was set up in 2021. It runs four funding programs: for early-stage research, for tech moving out of the lab, for companies starting to scale up and the Scale Up fund, a new €5bn pot for larger companies.
Mettler says the Scale Up fund, announced in October, is particularly critical because there was previously too much focus on providing support at the early stages.
“From a policy perspective, it's been unwise to focus so much on the early stages of innovation and not enough on the demand and on the scale-up commercialisation phase,” she says.
Previously, the EIC has backed three sectors: health and biotech; the energy transition; and AI and quantum companies. From the start of 2026, it will also start backing dual-use defence technologies — those with both military and commercial applications.
“It was a request from the market,” says Becks. An amendment to the organisation's rules will allow it to back dual-use technologies from early 2026.
The change follows other EU bodies that have moved into defence funding in the last few years: the European Innovation Fund (EIF), for example, started backing dual-use startups last year.
The importance of the EIC’s work was buoyed up by last year’s Draghi report, which called for an increase in spending on critical technologies, including defence and energy generation.
“The advantage of having a Draghi report at a certain moment is that a lot of people are talking about the fact that we should increase the investing part in it and decrease the regulation element,” says Bart Becks, investor at Syndicate One and EIC board member.
The new board:
Returning members
- Bart Becks — entrepreneur and investor at Syndicate One
- Carsten Dreher — innovation academic
- Michaela Kršková — Strategic Adviser, Kempelen Institute of Intelligent Technologies
- Patrick Sobocki — Senior investment director, Industrifonden
- Anita Krohn Traaseth — Former CEO of Innovation Norway
Incoming members
- Francesca Bria — honorary professor of UCL and member of the AI International Council
- Ana Casaca — global director of innovation at Galp
- Jean-Michel Dalle — managing director of the Agoronov incubator and founder of RISE Europe
- Stefaan Drussler — managing director of Unternehmer TUM
- Belen Garijo — CEO of Merck
- Maria Victoria Hernández-Valcárcel — long-term EIC jury member
- Eliza Kruczkowska — managing director of Foundation for Entrepreneurship Support
- Milla Marinova — founder of R8ER, a digital platform for health innovations
- Ann Mettler — former director of the EPSC thinktank and VP of Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy in Europe
- Sorin Moisa — CEO of drone startup Skyy Network and former MEP
- Laurence Petit — innovation department head at CEA
- Danielius Stasiulis — entrepreneur and startup ecosystem builder
- Peter Vanbekbergen — co-founder of semiconductor fundimec.xpand
- Antti Vasara — member of Heitor group and former CEO of VTT
- Jaromír Zahrádka — deep tech investor
