An IPCEI is not a bundle of national grants with a common logo. It is one integrated project, and the document that makes it one is called the chapeau. Understanding it explains most of what applicants find strange about the process.
Legally, an IPCEI is a single integrated project: a group of projects inserted in a common structure, roadmap or programme, aiming at the same objective. The chapeau document (French for “hat”) is that common structure on paper. Drafted jointly by the participating Member States, it sets out the strategic case, the value-chain architecture, the work streams, the common objectives and how each participant's project plugs into the whole.
Below the chapeau sit the individual project portfolios, one per direct participant: 50-plus pages covering the company's R&D content, first industrial deployment, funding gap and spillover commitments. The scale of integration is real: the second microelectronics IPCEI (ME/CT), approved in June 2023, combined 68 projects from 56 companies across 14 Member States under one chapeau, with €8.1 billion of public funding.
One chapeau, many portfolios. Example figures: IPCEI ME/CT (June 2023).
Why this matters for your application
Your project is assessed twice: on its own merits, and as a building block of the integrated project. A technically strong portfolio that does not connect to the work streams, has no collaboration links to other participants, and cites no cross-border dependencies weakens both itself and the chapeau. This is why the matchmaking stage matters and why consortium engagement during the design phase is not optional networking; it is where your project's position in the architecture is fixed.
The takeaway.
Write your portfolio as a chapter of the joint story, not a standalone pitch. The strongest applications read as if the chapeau would be incomplete without them.
Sources
– IPCEI Communication, OJ C 528, 30.12.2021 (EUR-Lex)
– EC press release – IPCEI ME/CT approval, 8 June 2023 (IP/23/3087)