Missed the Eurostars Deadline? – Get ready now for cut-off 12
5th March 2019 at 1:34 pm
The Eurostars funding programme offers two deadlines, so-called cut-off dates, per year. While the spring deadline has just passed on February 28, the autumn deadline on September 12, 2019 (cut-off 12) will give you now time to develop your project idea further, find the perfect partners and work on your proposal.
About Eurostars
Eurostars is a funding programme aimed mainly at small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and follows a strict bottom-up approach. There are no given topics and any company can apply with hopes of turning an idea into a product, combining and sharing expertise with partners from different countries or accelerating their growth.
Eurostars is a great public funding scheme for companies, in particular, SMEs, who wish to develop new products or services with at least one cooperation partner, typically also a company, from another European country. Brought to life in 2014, Eurostars-2 has funded a total of 899 projects with a phenomenal average success rate of 29% for applicants.
How to write a Eurostars application
To write a successful Eurostars application you’ll need to describe your idea clearly, in full detail, convincingly and to the point. Even the best idea in the world will not be heard if you cannot manage to engage the evaluators and convince them with your proposal. Our recommendation is to start the proposal writing about two months before the cut-off date. In the best case scenario you will have your project partner(s) on board before you start the proposal writing process.
From our experience, we can also advise having a rather small consortium. Consortia consisting of 2-3 partners are easier to handle than large collaborations for two main reasons: 1) It`s generally less work to coordinate and to compile input from fewer partners and 2) even though your application might be positively evaluated and awarded a high score, the national funding agency of those countries in which your project partners are located might not have sufficient funds to finance the partner(s) in your highly ranked proposal. In that – not uncommon – case, you will “lose” your project partner and most likely the entire project. For that reason the successful sus@pension and MiniLib Eurostars proposals we recently supported only applied each with a consortium consisting of two partners from two countries.
How accelopment can help you with your Eurostars application
accelopment has vast experience in writing European grant applications. This experience includes project proposals for the Eurostars programme, including the awarded OPTO-BRAIN, MAXCOAT, sus@pension and most recently MiniLib. Once approved, we can support you in the contract negotiations and provide project management support.
Helpful links
Official Eurostars website, https://www.eurekanetwork.org/
Apply for funding, https://www.eurekanetwork.org/countries/hungary/network-projects/apply