The EIC Accelerator focuses on high-risk, high-impact innovations that have the potential to form new markets or dramatically transform existing markets.
Characteristics of high-risk, high-impact innovations are:
- Disruptive potential: These innovations can disrupt existing markets or create new ones. They can render existing business models redundant and lead to significant restructuring of industries.
- Uncertainty: There is often a lot of uncertainty surrounding the technical feasibility, market acceptance and regulatory aspects of these innovations. Which makes it difficult to predict success.
- High investments: They usually require significant investments in research and development (R&D), infrastructure, and sometimes also in creating market awareness and acceptance.
- Long development time: It can take years or even decades for these innovations to become commercially viable, which increases risks due to the extended period before achieving a return on investment.
- Regulatory Challenges: High-risk, high-impact innovations may require new regulations or modifications to existing regulations, adding an element of uncertainty to the innovation process.
- Social and ethical considerations: These innovations can have profound ethical, social and environmental implications, leading to public debates and the need for socially responsible innovation.
Examples of high risk, high impact innovations include:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI has the potential to transform many industries, but it also poses risks such as ethical issues, job losses and safety concerns.
- Genetic modification and CRISPR technology: These can lead to breakthroughs in medicine and agriculture, but also raise questions about ethics and biosafety.
- Quantum Computing: This has the potential to revolutionize the way we process data, but it is technically very challenging and could invalidate existing encryption methods.
Space Technologies: The commercialization of space travel offers enormous potential, but requires large investments and entails technical and operational risks.