When the strongest strategic move is the one nobody advertises.
The situation
Two projects from two technology companies in a fast-moving digital market entered an IPCEI with a compelling case: genuine R&D activities moving the industry beyond the global state of the art, significant first industrial deployment ambition, a credible funding gap, and strong backing from the national authorities. We supported both projects through the national phase, pre-notification, and successive rounds of Commission questions. The files were in good shape. Approval was within reach.
What happened
The IPCEI process did what the IPCEI process does: it took time. Multiple RFI rounds stretched across more than two years — each answered thoroughly, none fatal to the case. But while the files stood still for review, the market did not. In a sector where product cycles are measured in months, the competitive landscape the projects had been designed for no longer existed. The technology roadmap that justified the funding gap had been overtaken — partly by competitors, partly by the client's own evolving strategy.
The client faced a choice between securing aid for a plan that no longer reflected the market, or redirecting resources to where the business had moved. They chose the business. We supported that decision — and we believe it was the right one.
What we learned
IPCEI is a powerful instrument, but it prices in time. For deep-tech projects with decade-long horizons — semiconductor fabs, hydrogen infrastructure, pharmaceutical manufacturing — a two-to-three-year approval cycle is noise. For projects whose competitive advantage depends on being first to market, that same cycle can consume the very advantage the aid was meant to protect.
The lesson is not that these projects should have been weaker. It is that instrument choice is a strategic decision, not an administrative one.
How this changed our practice
Every prospective IPCEI engagement now begins with a time-to-market stress test: we model the client's competitive window against realistic notification timelines — not the official ones — and ask explicitly what the project is worth if approval arrives 12, 24, or 36 months out. Where the answer is uncomfortable, we say so before the national application is filed, and we assess faster alternatives: block-exempted aid under the GBER, the EU Innovation Fund, or national schemes with shorter clearance paths. Sometimes the right answer is a hybrid — securing the long-horizon work through IPCEI while the time-critical deployment is funded through a faster route.
An advisor who only knows how to file IPCEIs will always recommend an IPCEI. Knowing the instrument deeply also means knowing its limits.
The takeaway
Both projects were withdrawn by the client's own strategic decision before formal notification — a decision we endorsed. Our record of Commission approvals on notified projects stands at 100%, and this experience is one reason it does: we would rather help a client exit well than push a mismatch to a decision.
Why we publish these
Most advisors show you their wins. We also want you to understand our judgment — and judgment is formed by the full distribution of outcomes, not the survivors. Fourteen IPCEI projects taught us where the Commission's real red lines sit, when the instrument fits, and when it doesn't. Eleven went to formal notification; all eleven were approved. The three that didn't get there are the reason we screen the way we do.