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Get to know the four EIC Pathfinder Challenges topics 2025 – from resilient crops to waste-to-value devices


17th June 2025 at 10:58 am



Blog series 1/5: Pathfinder 2025

The EIC Pathfinder Challenges 2025 invite universities, research organisations and companies (start-ups, SMEs and larger enterprises) to tackle complex global problems through visionary science and deep-tech innovation. With a €120 million budget and four strategic topics, the call (HORIZON-EIC-2025-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01) will fund early-stage, high-risk/high-gain research up to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 that pushes beyond current scientific frontiers.

This is the first in our blog series on the EIC Pathfinder Challenges 2025, offering a high-level overview of the four topics as a starting point for understanding their scope and strategic direction.

Challenge 1: Biotech for Climate Resilient Crops and Plant-based Biomanufacturing

Climate extremes are threatening the foundations of agriculture. This Challenge calls for radical new biotechnological tools to confer resilience traits across plant species, such as desiccation or salt tolerance. Proposals must go beyond incremental gene editing to explore cross-species solutions, novel delivery systems, synthetic biology, and extremophile biology. Successful projects will lay the groundwork for more sustainable and robust crops with the potential to reshape food systems and enable plant-based alternatives to fossil-based materials. Regulatory awareness and ecological soundness are essential.

Challenge 2: Generative-AI based Agents to Revolutionise Medical Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer

Generative AI is changing the world, but when it comes to diagnoses, trust, traceability and accuracy are non-negotiable. The GenAI for medical diagnosis Challenge calls for foundational advances in how GenAI is trained, validated and deployed in healthcare. Proposals should explore how to handle sparse, noisy, or biased medical data; how to build systems that clinicians can interpret and rely on; and how to quantify uncertainty and risk. The goal is a next-generation diagnostic tool developed with clinician input, and tested against real-world tasks that shows transformative potential for health systems and patient care.

Challenge 3: Toward autonomous robot collectives delivering collaborative tasks in dynamic, unstructured construction environments

The construction sector is one of the least digitised industries: noisy, dangerous, and ripe for transformation. The Challenge on autonomous robot collectives imagines a leap into a future where teams of mobile robots collaborate with minimal supervision, reshaping how we assemble buildings, infrastructure, and even emergency shelters. Applicants will need to design both the robotic platforms and the modular, load-bearing structures they will autonomously assemble. Human-robot collaboration must be embedded, with real-world challenges like uneven ground or unexpected obstacles addressed in lab-scale demonstrations. This is more than automating old tools. It’s about rethinking construction for a robot-first, electrified, and circular future,  aligned with the European Green Deal and pushing the envelope on swarm robotics, machine learning and architectural innovation.

Challenge 4: Waste-to-value devices: Circular production of renewable fuels, chemicals and materials

Imagine a world where diapers, microplastics and flue gases aren’t pollutants but feedstock for clean fuels, chemicals and critical materials. That’s the vision behind the Waste-to-Value Devices Challenge: it calls for next-generation, fully integrated technologies that transform the most difficult waste streams into useful products, without relying on energy-hungry incineration or toxic chemicals. Funded projects may explore solar reforming, synthetic biology, brine mining, or ex-situ remediation, all with a strong emphasis on sustainability, decentralised deployment, and scalable design. Proposals must go beyond lab reactions: devices need to demonstrate selective conversion, robustness and material efficiency. From coastal clean-up units to circular microfactories, this challenge envisions waste as a local, renewable resource.

The call topics are planned to open on 28 July 2025 and close on 29 October 2025 at 17:00 CET. The EIC Pathfinder Challenges 2025 call expects to allocate its indicative budget equally across the four topics. Each Challenge will be led by an EIC Programme Manager, who will oversee a portfolio of complementary projects that contribute to a shared vision and mutual learning. To succeed, proposals must not only be excellent and ambitious, but also well aligned with the specific objectives and expected outcomes of the Challenge. Look out for our upcoming blog posts, where we’ll dive into each topic in more detail to help shape your proposal.

Turning research ideas into reality together

We at accelopment have successfully supported the preparation of multiple Pathfinder Challenge and Open proposals, including the ongoing PEARL-DNA, BoneOscopy, POLINA, PIONEAR and CORENET projects. With many years of proposal writing experience, we can support you through your application process and during the implementation of your funded Pathfinder Challenge project. Have a look at our Proposal Writing, Project Management and Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation services and contact our EIC Pathfinder experts to discuss how we can best support you with your proposal and ambition.

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Dr. Johannes Ripperger
Research & Innovation Manager

Andreia Cruz
Research & Innovation Project Manager

Blog series 1/5: Pathfinder 2025