EIC Accelerator Interview (Step 3): How the Jury Scores You

Why Step 3 is the decisive stage

Of the three steps in the EIC Accelerator process, Step 3 is the one where the largest proportion of outcomes are reversed. Projects that scored well on the written proposal get rejected. Projects that scraped through on the paper end up funded. I have seen both, many times.

The reason is simple: the written proposal, however good, is a controlled document. The interview surfaces what the proposal cannot show: how the founders think under pressure, whether the team is credible beyond the lead, whether the market story holds when a skeptical investor pushes on it. Those things matter enormously to the people making the final funding decision, and the jury is specifically structured to test them.

If you have reached Step 3, you should feel good about your proposal. But the interview is a different kind of test, and preparing for it the way you prepared the proposal, by writing more, polishing more, adding more slides, is one of the most common mistakes I see.

Who sits on the jury, and what they care about

The EIC jury is composed of three to five members, typically: one or two investors with venture capital or corporate venture backgrounds, at least one technical expert with domain knowledge relevant to your sector, and sometimes a market or policy specialist. They are independent of the remote evaluators who assessed your written proposal in Steps 1 and 2.

This matters because the jury comes in with a fresh perspective. They will have read your proposal and your evaluator scores, but they are not bound by them. Their job is to form their own view of whether this team, with this project, is likely to deliver on what the proposal promises. They are, in effect, acting as an investment committee.

The format: what the 45 minutes actually look like

The 10-minute pitch is the part most teams over-prepare. They build 15 slides, then trim to 12, then debate whether to include a detailed roadmap. A more useful question: what are the three things the jury is most uncertain about after reading your proposal? Answer those in the pitch, briefly and directly, then stop. Jurors are not passive audiences and they appreciate brevity.

The 35 minutes of questions are the real interview. The jury will ask follow-up questions based on your answers. This is a conversation, not a Q&A panel. The founders who perform best are the ones who can think out loud, revise their framing when pushed, and admit uncertainty where it exists.

The patterns: questions that come up in almost every interview

After reviewing a large number of EIC applications and following the outcomes through to Step 3, certain question patterns are very consistent. They vary in phrasing but they probe the same underlying uncertainties.

On the technology: "What is the specific technical risk that could prevent this from working, and what is your mitigation?" Jurors with technical backgrounds will push past the high-level innovation claim to the underlying mechanism. They want to know that you understand where things could fail, not just where they are expected to succeed.

On the market: "You claim a market of X billion euros. What is your realistic addressable segment in year three?" The total addressable market figure in proposals is almost always too large and too vague. The jury knows this. They are checking whether the founders have a credible beachhead view or whether they are relying on a slide from a market research report.

On competition: "Company Y is doing something similar and raised 50 million last year. Why will customers choose you?" This question is designed to stress-test the competitive positioning section of the proposal. Founders who dismiss established competitors or who underestimate the speed of the market tend to lose credibility here.

On the team: "Who else on the team could lead this if you were unavailable for six months?" This is a founder dependency question. The jury is testing whether the execution capability is distributed or concentrated in one person. It is also a subtle probe on succession and resilience.

On the EIC investment: "What will this 2.5 million enable that you cannot do otherwise, and what does success look like at the end of the grant period?" This is deceptively straightforward. Many founders give an answer that is essentially a summary of the work plan. The jury is looking for a crisp statement of the de-risking milestone the grant makes possible.

How the jury scores you: what the criteria mean in the room

The three evaluation criteria, Excellence, Impact and Implementation, apply to the interview as they do to the written proposal. But the weighting shifts in practice.

Excellence at Step 3 is largely taken as given if you reached the interview. The jury is less likely to re-litigate the innovation claim and more likely to probe whether the founders understand the technology deeply enough to navigate the risks. Surface-level answers to technical questions are a red flag even if the underlying science is strong.

Impact is where the jury often diverges from the written proposal scores. A proposal can make a compelling written case for market and societal impact. The interview tests whether the founders have the commercial instincts and market relationships to actually realize that impact. Jury members with investor backgrounds are particularly sensitive to whether the go-to-market logic is real or theoretical.

Implementation at the interview stage is almost entirely a team assessment. The jury is asking: does this team have the capability, the resilience and the complementarity to execute a project of this ambition? How team members interact during the interview, who answers which questions, and how they handle disagreement or uncertainty all feed into this score.

If you want a deeper view of how these criteria play out across the full application process, the complete EIC Accelerator guide walks through each one in detail, including what remote evaluators look for in the written proposal before you even reach Step 3.

Team dynamics in the room

One of the clearest signals the jury reads is how the founding team behaves during the Q&A. This is not just about individual answers. It is about whether the team looks like a team.

Bring the core team. Not everyone, but the people who are genuinely leading technology, commercial and operations. Assign domains: the CTO answers technical questions, the CEO handles market and strategy, the COO or head of product handles implementation. Brief each person on how to hand off cleanly rather than talking over each other.

The mistake that signals founder dependency is having one person answer every question, even ones that should belong to another team member. The jury notices this immediately. It raises a question about what happens to the project if that person is unavailable, and it implies that the other founders are less credible than the proposal suggests.

Similarly, if jury members sense tension or inconsistency between founders, that is a negative signal. It does not mean everyone needs to agree on everything. It means the team should have aligned on their key positions before walking into the room.

How to prepare: what actually works

Preparation for the jury interview should start the moment you submit the full proposal, not the week before the interview date.

The most effective preparation method is a structured mock interview, ideally with someone who is not already invested in the project's narrative. Your team has been living with the proposal for months. You are the worst people to anticipate where the jury will probe, because you know all the answers. An outside voice, especially one familiar with how EIC juries operate, will find the weak points you have stopped seeing.

Beyond mock sessions, there are three practical things to do:

Write out your six hardest questions. Not the obvious ones. The ones you hope the jury does not ask. Then draft honest, concise answers to each. If an honest answer reveals a gap in the project, it is better to know that before the interview than to stumble over it in the room.

Practice the 10-minute pitch out loud, with a timer. Most teams have never actually timed their pitch. The 10-minute limit is firm. Running over forces the jury to interrupt you, which shifts the dynamic immediately. Aim for nine minutes and stop cleanly.

Agree on your key numbers and have them cold. Market size, customer acquisition cost, revenue projections for year two and three, the key technical milestones. Jury members who are investors will test whether the founders know their own numbers or whether they are reading from the proposal. Know them without looking anything up.

For context on where the interview fits in the overall selection process, and what to expect at each stage, see what changed in the EIC Accelerator for 2026. If you are earlier in the process and still deciding whether to apply, EIC Accelerator vs Horizon Europe covers the decision logic between the two main instruments. And if you are thinking about the 2026 thematic challenges, the new article on EIC Accelerator 2026 challenges covers how to decide between the challenge and open call routes.