IF26: Five questions to ask before applying

The Innovation Fund 2026 is beginning to take shape. And while the final IF26 call conditions are still to come, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: Europe’s industrial decarbonisation funding landscape is becoming more specialised. 

The Innovation Fund remains a major opportunity for innovative projects moving towards commercial deployment. But with different funding routes emerging for net-zero technologies, SMEs, maritime projects, hydrogen and industrial heat, identifying an opportunity is only part of the challenge. 

The bigger question is whether your project, its maturity and its funding needs match the right instrument. 

For industrial companies considering IF26, that makes the months before the calls open particularly valuable.

What is changing for Innovation Fund 2026? 

The Innovation Fund is expected to maintain its core role: supporting highly innovative technologies with significant greenhouse gas reduction potential as they move towards commercial deployment. 

As we explored in our overview of what to expect from Innovation Fund 2026, IF26 is expected to become more targeted. 

Current plans foresee a Net-Zero Technologies Call alongside dedicated Maritime and SME calls, while separate competitive auctions are planned for hydrogen and industrial heat. Final budgets and conditions for the regular calls have not yet been published. 

This differentiation matters because these opportunities do not necessarily target the same projects. 

The regular Innovation Fund calls assess projects across areas including innovation, GHG emission avoidance, project maturity, replicability and cost efficiency. The auctions follow a different logic, placing greater emphasis on cost-effective deployment and operational support. 

At the same time, other European instruments are emerging around the Innovation Fund 2026. As our recent analysis of the industrial decarbonisation funding landscape shows, support is increasingly differentiated across the route from industrial demonstration to first commercial deployment and subsequent scale-up.  

For companies, this makes funding fit increasingly important. A strong decarbonisation project may have several potential routes, but that does not mean every route is equally suited to its maturity, technology or financing gap. 

Five questions to ask before preparing an IF26 application 

Final call conditions will determine exactly what applicants need to demonstrate. However, the Innovation Fund award criteria already provide a strong basis for challenging the fundamentals of a project before the call opens. 

1. Is the project genuinely innovative?
   Low-carbon does not automatically mean innovative enough for an Innovation Fund grant. The project needs a clear position against the relevant state of the art.
2. Can you demonstrate its GHG impact convincingly?
   The emissions baseline, methodology and operational assumptions behind the expected GHG avoidance need to withstand scrutiny.
3. Is the project sufficiently mature?
   Technology is only one part of maturity. Engineering, permitting, infrastructure, procurement, energy sourcing, implementation planning and financing all contribute to the credibility of the project.
4. Does the business case hold up?
   CAPEX, OPEX, revenues, financing assumptions and offtake arrangements need to form a coherent and credible investment case.
5. Is the Innovation Fund route you are considering actually the right one?
   Depending on the project, a regular grant, an Innovation Fund auction or another European funding instrument may offer a better strategic fit.

These questions are worth addressing early. Finding a weakness before an application starts gives you time to work on it; finding it during evaluation does not.

Why early project assessment matters 

Competition for Innovation Fund support remains substantial. The IF25 Net-Zero Technologies Call alone received 358 applications from 27 countries for €2.9 billion in available funding.  

For IF26, simply meeting the eligibility requirements will therefore not be enough. 

An early assessment can help determine whether a project has a credible Innovation Fund case, where critical gaps remain and which funding route best matches its characteristics. For companies developing several decarbonisation investments, it can also help prioritise which projects are worth taking forward for IF26 and which need further development first. 

That is particularly important because project maturity cannot be created in the final weeks before a deadline. Permitting, engineering, financing, offtake and GHG assumptions often require decisions and evidence well before application writing begins. 

Preparing for IF26?

We work with industrial companies from early project assessment, scoping and development, all the way through to application preparation and project implementation after being awarded. 

To date, we have:

116 Innovation Fund projects supported
48 Innovation Fund proposals funded
41% Innovation Fund success rate
>€4.8 billion in funding secured for our clients
>75 Innovation Fund consultants involved each year 

Our first step is not writing the application. It is understanding the project: where it fits, how it performs against the evaluation criteria and what still needs to be strengthened before moving forward. 

If you are considering the Innovation Fund 2026, now is the time to determine whether your project has the foundations for a competitive application.