Frequently Asked Questions

The pledge is a non-legally binding promise to support the initiative’s aim to train 1 million people in deep tech skills by 2025. Contributions to the aim are varied, but may include running training programmes, upskilling staff, hosting events or promoting the initiative.

Those interested are invited to submit their pledge on the website and sign the pledge document.
After the Pledge is approved, the Pledgers will receive account name and password to access the backend of the Platform and can proceed to providing information about the courses offered on the platform of the Initiative via the Quality Check. Courses offered may take place online, offline or in a hybrid format in any European language, but content on the platform must be submitted in English.

• Will be granted access to the community platform
• Will be invited to the networking events
• Will be incorporated into the Tech Radar

International Exposure

The Deep Tech Talent Initiative is the first European educational platform that offers courses in deep tech areas at all levels.
Courses and initiatives offered by Pledge members can gain international exposure and help attract wider audiences to the programs displayed on the website of the Initiative.

Knowledge and Networking Hub

Pledgers have access to a community platform where they can access up-to-date information events, funding and news related to deep tech skills training. Annual events organized by the EIT Community are also a chance to showcase training programs and network with other pledgers.
The platform of the Initiative features additional tools that users may benefit from, including:
1) Tools to match individual skill needs with available training.
2) A talent database of people interested in training in deep tech fields.
3) A course catalogue where pledgers can register their courses, gain a quality seal and benefit from enhanced marketing through the initiative.
4) A technology radar, which offers foresight for rapidly identifying emerging deep tech technologies and applications.
5) Tools to track and visualise the progress of the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative.

Financing Opportunities

By joining the Pledge, members will have the chance to find out about relevant funding opportunities offered by the EIT Community and other funding partners. Some funding opportunities are restricted to pledgers of the initiative.

Pledgers are invited to join forces with the EIT Community and contribute to skilling, re-skilling and upskilling of 1 000 000 people in deep tech areas.
Education and Training providers can launch new training programmes or adjust their existing training to match the ambitions and requirements of the Initiative. Member States or Institutions can produce strategic objectives for their region or launch/modify funding calls in support of the initiative. Funding organisations can contribute by creating a dedicated Call for Proposals, either through a new programme or through modifying existing programmes.
All Pledge members will be expected to upload information about their commitments to the Deep Tech Talent Initiative platform. In addition, they will be requested to report basic information to the EIT on a regular basis on their training activities implemented in line with their Pledge.

The minimum criteria cover the following points:

• A proven deep tech sub-sector focus
• Courses should not contain or use protected Intellectual Property or copyrighted content and materials that are not lawfully granted
• The training programme should contain at least 50 hours or more guided learning hours combined. In the case of courses aimed at learners under 18, the minimum requirement is for 25 hours of learning
• Students should be issued with a verifiable certificate of achievement or qualification from the training provider or the qualification’s regulator

• Pupils, especially young women, in secondary education with an interest in (deep) tech
• Students of Higher Education with a need for more specific training in deep tech
• Adult Learners in companies and on the job market who need additional skills in deep tech

The minimal requirement of 50 hours learning was set with inclusivity in mind and it can include any type of educational format (face to face classes + online classes + project work, etc.). The initiative would like to offer a chance for everyone – regardless of their existing level of deep tech and the financial and social situation of the trainee – to gain skills and knowledge in deep tech. By allowing relatively shorter programs to take part, those who wish to take a very first step towards deep tech can also join Europe’s largest deep tech talent training initiative.

The certification criteria means that all participants need to receive a certificate proving that they participated in the program. Certifications do not necessarily need to provide new qualifications.

Not all the Pledgers categories are expected to offer a list of courses.

Detailed information about the courses will be needed by Education and Training Providers after signing the Pledge. Pledgers are requested to make an application for any course they wish to publish on the platform.

Each course will undergo a quality-checking process to verify if the course details fulfil the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative requirements.

Education and Training providers can launch new training programmes or adjust their existing training to match the ambitions and requirements of the Initiative.

When signing the Pledge, organisations are committing to recording and reporting the data required by the initiative. This includes:

• Course code (for courses listed on the platform)
• Successful graduates:
  • Gender
  • Country of residence

The Definitions document is a non-exclusive list and will be updated regularly in line with the emerging deep technologies on the market, and with the support of the EIT Knowledge Innovation Communities and the Pledgers Community. If you would like to propose a new area of deep tech, please email info@eitdeeptechtalent.eu. In the meantime, please choose the area that most closely matches your technology.

Once a pledge is submitted the pledge target is locked.

Yes. In some cases, large organisations, such as universities, may wish to pledge multiple times for different departments. However, Pledgers are identified by their PIC (Participant Identification Code) and only one pledge can currently be submitted per PIC. Once a pledger is approved, multiple users from the organization can upload courses in support of the pledge.

Learners that have completed an approved course, listed on the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative website, must be included in reporting. Learners that have completed training and are residents of EU Member States and associated countries (according to Horizon Europe guidelines) will count towards the pledge targets.
Learners that have taken courses that are not listed on the platform and staff that have upskilled or re-skilled in deep technology also count towards the target.

Residents of EU Member states plus Horizon associated countries count towards the pledge targets. To be clear:

• Nationals and residents of Horizon countries – yes, these learners count towards the pledge target.
• Horizon nationals, but not resident – no, these learners do not count towards the pledge target.
• Non-EU Nationals, but Horizon resident – yes, these learners count towards the pledge target.
• Non-EU nationals and not Horizon resident – no, these learners do not count towards the pledge target

In addition to the existing and freshly initiated trainings in the field of deep tech, the EIT and its Knowledge and Innovation Communities will provide support for the development of new curricula in deep tech. Funding calls will be announced to Pledge members on an annual basis and will also be published on the website.

Participation in the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative does not exclude the possibility to apply for other calls from the EIT Community.

Deep tech is defined as a classification of organisation or a start-up, with the expressed objective of providing technology solutions to deep societal challenges. They present scientific or engineering challenges requiring lengthy research and development, and large capital investment before successful commercialisation.

The EIT Deep Tech Talent has developed a quality check for the training programmes targeted under the initiative. In addition, a Definitions document that identifies the fifteen deep tech technologies currently under the scope of the programme is available.

Please note that the Definitions document is a non-exclusive list and will be updated regularly in line with the emerging deep technologies on the market, and with the support of the EIT Knowledge Innovation Communities and the Pledger Community. 

Each person who completes an EIT Deep Tech Talent course that meets the minimum requirements will be added to the sum of trained individuals. The trainees will be reported by the pledging organisations. It is the responsibility of the Pledger to make sure that the reporting is accurate.
Upskilling and reskilling within the workforce are also an important contribution to the initiative. Wider actions aside from the courses listed on the platform are recorded during Pledger reporting. Numbers of staff upskilled in deep tech are counted and included in figures.

The talent community is an online space open to anyone to join, but is expected to comprise largely European talents that have taken courses as part of the initiative.

Talents can create a personal page as part of our Talent Community. On this page they can:

• Build their own profile based on their preferred courses and deep tech areas
• Mark courses as favourites as a way of saving their learning plan
• Get a personalised course offer using the platform’s AI-based Course Matching Tool
• Mark themselves visible to Pledgers wishing to provide an opportunity to talents

We also hope to expand the offering for talents to enable them to upload the certificates of courses they have completed as part of the initiative.

Talents can decide to leave the community at any time by going to the User Settings section of their profile and clicking on “Delete your account”.

Talents can choose to mark themselves as “visible” to Pledgers or not. If a talent is marked as visible, they may be offered job opportunities or be invited to events aimed at the deep tech community.

The Course Matching Tool aims to help learners find the best course offer, matching their needs and requirements, through an AI tool. Open AI translates the free text from the user to categories and the categories are then matched by the platform with the categorisation of available courses. The Course Matching Tool should be considered a beta and will be developed with better matching based on more data during spring 2024.

No. As mentioned on page 8 of the Call for Proposals Guidelines, EIT KICs cannot apply, either as a main applicant or as partners of a consortium.

No. The same action cannot be funded twice through different Horizon Europe funds. A situation like this would be considered double funding and this is not admissible.

No. Applicants should not have received funding from the DTTI Prize 2023 or from DTTI Call for Training Proposals 2024 for the actions of the application of the Call 2025.

No, only legal entities are eligible.

Yes.

The eligibility of a participant is determined by the country in which they are legally established. This means that an organization’s legal registration governs its country of origin, irrespective of where its operations are physically carried out

Yes, however you still need to find a suitable partner to meet the Call objectives.

To apply you must have a PIC number, which is a requirement for any EU funded programme.

Each organisation can submit ONLY one proposal. However, there are some cases where big organisations/institutes have multiple PICs, and are therefore treated as different organisations. However, we do not handle this matter directly, you should refer to the rules as explained in the EC website Participant Register.

All project funded under this Call for Training Proposals must finish end of 2025. This is a requirement written in guidelines, and the activities are limited to the timeframe of June-December 2025.

No, for each PIC number there should be only one application.

You can find all the information about becoming a Pledger here.

Yes, all partners of the consortium must have signed the EIT Deep Tech Talent Initiative Pledge and had it approved, at least two weeks before the call deadline.

No.

A legal signatory of the university.

Prospective Pledgers need to state how many courses they wish to upload on the platform to become a Pledger, as well as how many talents they are planning to train until the end of 2025. However, this is not legally binding, and if funding is secured, they can develop more courses and train more talents!

Pledgers who have joined in 2025 must submit their reports as a pre-condition for pre-financing, if successful. If there were no relevant activities during the pre-pledge period, you can indicate this in the reporting section on our platform.

Any organisation is considered Pledger when they have their Pledge submitted and approved, irrespective of whether they have a course in the catalogue or not. All information on becoming a Pledger can be found here.

No. You will not be eligible to apply for the Call for Training Proposals 2025, unless you are a Pledger, but you do not need to get funding in order to become a Pledger.

There are some restrictions, most notably, an organisation activity should be relevant to deep tech, and should train people in EU and HE associated countries. You can find all the information here.

Pledger processing can take up to a week, and you will receive two emails once your Pledge has been approved. Please remember to check your email Spam folder, and if you haven’t heard, please contact us by email info@eitdeeptechtalent.eu

We can invite the additional contact person to Agora. Please send a request email to info@eitdeeptechtalent.eu.

No, in order to apply to the call, all consortium members must be Pledgers.

Yes. All partners are required to sign the Pledge separately.

Yes. Please see our current course catalogue here.

There is no maximum number of parties. For practical reasons, however, we do not recommend including more than five partners in a consortium.

Yes, they can apply as institutional Pledgers.

Horizon Europe rules are applied to this call. Therefore, each legal entity can apply only once. But if an organisation is made of different legal entities, they can apply several times under those different legal entities. In the proposal submission, the organisation’s PIC number is required to check this.

Yes, if they are two separate legal entities.

The consortium must include minimum 2 independent legal entities, coming from at least 2 different eligible countries, and respecting the following conditions:

• At least one partner must come from a Member State (MS).
• The other partner can be from either MS or Associated Countries (AC).

The rules of Horizon Europe apply in this call.

That is, any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from non-associated third countries or international organisations, is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.

Regulation: (EU) 2021/695 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 April 2021 establishing Horizon Europe (OJ L 170, 12.5.2021, p. 1)

As mentioned in the Call text, working with different countries consortia, would allow your existing courses to be enhanced, improved, and expanded.

Improvements may include digitalisation, enhancing accessibility, increasing participation of women and other underrepresented groups, scaling up, fostering international collaboration, localising content to different languages, establishing new academia /industry /NGO / government / etc partnerships, or updating programmes with new deep tech curriculum and more ambitious and impactful KPIs, inter alia.

Both are possible.

Make sure you clearly explain the difference between the two versions when you submit the quality check application.

Contact quality-check@eitdeeptalent.eu before you start you application for advice on how to proceed.

As soon as you pledge, you will receive an invitation email for Agora, meanwhile, you can look for potential partners on our website here.

Yes.

Ukraine can as it is an associated country to Horizon Europe.

For Switzerland, following the announcement of the conclusion of successful negotiations between the European Commission and Switzerland on Switzerland’s association with Horizon Europe, it is important to note that the transitional arrangements in place while waiting for the signature of the Switzerland’s Association Agreement do not apply to cascading funding of the EIT KICs (Financial Support to Third Parties). Therefore, Swiss entities can apply to this call for proposals but will not be eligible and awarded any funding before the signature of said Association Agreement. The signature of the Association Agreement will not have retroactive effects to 1 January 2025 for cascading grants. The eligibility of Swiss partners for EIT funding will be assessed at the end of the selection process of the call.

No, there should be at least one EU member state in the consortium.

Yes.

Germany is a member State of the EU, so satisfies part of the eligibility criteria for consortium. For Switzerland, please see the above explanation on the current status.

Kenya is not an associated country.

Courses should be designed to train learners residing in EU member states and Horizon Europe-associated countries.

Chosen applicants are expected to report the following data for their learners by the end of 2025: course content and learner objectives and the data on successful graduates. The data submission should meet the reporting requirements of EIT Impact Framework for Participants in non-labelled education and training (https://eit.europa.eu/sites/default/files/eit_impact_framework_2022-2027.pdf).

The KPI of training 300 individuals must be achieved and reported by the end of 2025. The 2024 Call winners have reported strong demand for their courses, exceeding the 500 trained talent KPI.

For this Call, 300 refers to the number of TRAINED learners via the project you submit, of which at least 30% women

April 8th is the deadline to apply to this Call for Proposals, not to train the learners. For the projects funded under this call for proposals, 300 talents should be trained by December 2025.

Sometimes unforeseeable things happen, and a failure to train 300 learners will be treated as a deviation, similar to other EU projects.

However, you should give a detailed reason why, explain what you did to mitigate risk and deviation, and what will you do in the upcoming periods if something similar happens.

Yes, they can refer to existing courses they have implemented but not published on the platform.

Yes. All pledgers should submit a report if joined before the end of 2024, even if no training has been delivered.

Yes. However, if you are already a Pledger and you’ve joined the Initiative before 31 December 2024, you must have fully completed your 2023-2024 reports by the time of application submission, otherwise you won’t be considered eligible to apply.

The training targets you submitted in your Pledge reflect not only the specific targets for the current call for proposals but also your broader contribution to skilling, re-skilling, and upskilling 1,000,000 people in deep tech areas. When collaborating with another Pledger for the Call, each organisation should submit their own training targets, as they are responsible for their individual contributions.

Yes.

The projects fall under Horizon Europe, and the general regulations regarding funding and cost eligibility are governed by the Horizon Europe Annotated Model Grant Agreement (AGA).

The EIT funding covers up to 100% of the eligible costs. Co-funding is not required.

Yes. Applicants may provide additional funding from their own resources or other sources to enhance the project’s scope and impact. Consortia may include partners that bring with their own funding.

These are the current rules of this type of call. SMEs will need to critically evaluate their cashflow capabilities before implementation. The Deep tech Talent Initiative will try and streamline the process for all Call winners.

There is no specific requirement in terms of how to distribute the budget among the beneficiaries. The funding grant is paid to the consortium coordinator to distribute as set out in the proposal.

However, it is possible for some consortium partners to receive financial support and for others not to, but it depends on the consortium details.

There are no constraints. You can distribute between consortium partners as you wish, as long as you meet the requirements set by call.

There is no limit on portion of budget to allocate to sub-contractor. However, preferably it shouldn’t constitute a significant percentage. We prefer to give priority to proposals that don’t have large sub-contracting costs which can be difficult to track down. It’s preferable for someone to be part of the consortium, but if this is not possible, the sub-contracting budget shouldn’t be substantial.

€60k is maximum amount of funding available per proposal.

Proposals should show how money will be used in a way to create an impact and create a project efficiently, they will not ‘lose points’ during the evaluation stage if they are requesting the maximum grant amount of €60k.

The pre-financing payment is 25%, dependent on the proposal passing quality check and moving to phase 2 of the project. The remaining 75% will be distributed at end of project.

Yes, if the activities to be funded are not already being funded under the other project. This means it can participate with a project which is unrelated to the one already funded by EIT.

Pledgers who are not academic institutions and are unsuccessful in receiving funding may revisit their training targets. While maintaining the commitment to skilling and upskilling in deep tech, we encourage exploring alternative ways to achieve the targets despite funding limitations.

No. It is a fixed timeline that successful projects must adhere to.

All the information relating to this Call can be found in the dedicated Call web page. This is the main point of reference where you will find the application link, related material, links to events, etc.

There is no pre-proposal submission checking assistance available. All call documents are self-explanatory and can be consulted here. We have put together this FAQs to support and guide on additional questions. There are three info-sessions where applicants can ask more specific questions, registration links can be found here.

The EIT HEI Initiative is another joint activity of the EIT community, coordinated by EIT Raw Materials. It recognises higher education institutions (HEIs) as the pivotal actors in regional and European innovation ecosystems.

The EIT HEI Initiative is uniquely designed to enhance the innovation capacity and entrepreneurial mindset of HEIs and foster collaboration between academia, industry, research institutions, public authorities and governmental organisations.

Through competitive calls for proposals, the initiative offers non-reimbursable grants to consortia formed by HEIs and their partners to work on innovation and entrepreneurship, but also on other dimensions of strategic interest for Europe, such as deep tech.

You will need to log in as a Pledger on the Deep Tech Talent Initiative platform, where you can update your organisational data and course descriptions, if applicable.

On the left-hand side of the platform, you will find the “Talents” section, where you can access the information.

There is no template, the project proposal should be completed directly on the NetSuite platform. However, it doesn’t need to be completed in one sitting, you can input details across several sessions, saving your progress each time.

If you are already a Pledger, publish your partner search in the Matchmaking space on AGORA. If you haven’t received your Agora invitation email, please contact info@eitdeeptechtalent.eu.

The links to all Call Information Session recordings will be added to the Call website, and can be found here.

No, this deadline not flexible. However, this is the final deadline, ideally initial course proposals should be submitted by 1 August, and project team members should be available throughout August to make any modifications. Projects will receive an answer by the beginning of September as to whether they can proceed to Phase 2.

If the project is not approved, they will be given guidance on what to do to resubmit and pass for the October 2025 Phase 2 start date.

If Quality Check does not approve the course after the 2nd submission, this means it cannot proceed to Phase 2, and won’t receive the remaining 75% of funding.

Contact the technicians by completing this form.