Deadline Date: October 01, 2026
The EdTech Accelerator programme aims to strengthen the development and market readiness of innovative education technologies by supporting startups and SMEs across Europe.
The key focus areas of this initiative include supporting European EdTech startups and SMEs in transforming innovative concepts into market-ready solutions, fostering ethical and effective use of advanced technologies such as generative AI, robotics, and extended reality in education, contributing to the Digital Education Action Plan (2021–2027), nurturing a strong EdTech ecosystem that promotes innovation, job creation, and economic growth, ensuring solutions align with European values including inclusion, accessibility, privacy, and security, and facilitating collaboration among stakeholders such as educators, learners, policymakers, and industry actors.
The programme will establish a structured accelerator environment designed to nurture and scale EdTech solutions through a comprehensive lifecycle approach. This includes launching three open calls to select startups and SMEs, ensuring broad participation across eligible countries, and allocating significant funding through Financial Support to Third Parties. Selected participants will receive financial assistance to conduct short pilot projects in real educational or training environments, enabling them to test and refine their solutions.
A central component of the initiative is the implementation of a yearly 12-month incubation and acceleration programme. This programme will provide tailored mentoring, networking opportunities, consultancy services, training sessions, and market access support. Through these activities, startups will strengthen their business models, validate their educational impact, and enhance their readiness for scaling and market entry.
The programme also emphasizes the importance of real-world testing through piloting phases. Startups will deploy their solutions in diverse educational settings such as schools, universities, vocational training centres, and informal learning environments. These pilots will generate both qualitative and quantitative data to assess usability, effectiveness, and adoption potential, while incorporating human-centric design and learning methodologies.
Following the piloting phase, participants will enter a post-piloting stage focused on refining their go-to-market strategies. This stage will support startups in scaling their solutions by connecting them with investors, procurement opportunities, and collaboration networks. It will also facilitate partnerships with educational institutions and other stakeholders to ensure long-term adoption and impact.
The total estimated call budget is EUR 12,500,000, of which EUR 2,700,000 is allocated to the EdTech Accelerator topic.
For more information, visit European Commission.
