1 minute read / July 14, 2025
The European Innovation Council (EIC) has released a new report titled “Unlocking Innovation through Corporate-Startup Collaboration – The EIC Corporate Partnership Programme”, highlighting how partnerships between innovative startups and large corporations are driving deep tech scale-up and industrial transformation in Europe.
The report supports the goals of the EU Startup and Scale-up Initiative and reflects the strategic direction of Mario Draghi’s 2024 report “The Future of European Competitiveness”, which emphasises the need to better connect research and innovation with market deployment. It also contributes to the European Commission’s objectives for strengthening Europe’s technological leadership and strategic autonomy.
Since its launch in 2017, the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme (CPP) has enabled over 1,500 startup-corporate engagements across Europe, involving more than 120 major corporations and EIC-backed startups, resulting in more than 100 business agreements/deals. The programme provides structured matchmaking, coaching, and follow-up support to ensure meaningful and results-oriented collaboration.
