Before Brussels asks about your business plan, it asks a simpler question: how mature is your technology? The answer, your Technology Readiness Level, determines which funding doors are open to you.
The Technology Readiness Level (TRL) is a nine-step scale originally developed by NASA and adopted by the European Commission as the standard maturity metric in its funding programmes. TRL 1 means basic principles have been observed; TRL 9 means the actual system is proven in its operational environment. Everything in between is the journey from laboratory to market.
The scale in plain terms
– TRL 1–3: laboratory science. Principles, concept, experimental proof of concept.
– TRL 4–6: the technology is validated and then demonstrated in environments that resemble real conditions.
– TRL 7–8: a prototype works in the real operational environment; the system is complete and qualified.
– TRL 9: proven in continuous operation and ready for the market.
Why the middle is called the “valley of death”
Public research grants concentrate on the lower TRLs, where scientific risk is accepted. Banks and venture capital prefer the upper TRLs, where technical risk is largely gone. In between sits the expensive stage of demonstrators, pilots and first industrial facilities. This is where many European technologies stall: too developed for research grants, too risky for private finance.
The funding landscape across the TRL scale. TRL definitions: Horizon Europe General Annexes.
Where IPCEI fits
IPCEI is one of the few instruments explicitly designed to carry a technology across that valley: it can fund research, development and innovation and first industrial deployment, everything up to, but excluding, mass production. One caveat from practice: your TRL claim must be evidenced. IPCEI project portfolios require measurable, verifiable technical KPIs benchmarked against the global state of the art for every work package.
The takeaway:
Know your TRL and be honest about it. Overstating maturity puts you outside R&D funding; understating it makes your scale-up story implausible. The right instrument follows from the right number.
Sources
– Horizon Europe TRL self-assessment guide (EU NCP Portal)