Be smart – choose Eurostars: Eurostars-3 for innovative SMEs
7th February 2023 at 1:09 pm
As an SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) you have the possibility to become project leader of a EUREKA Eurostars project and benefit from this funding opportunity’s many advantages. See all facts at a glance and find out why you should apply to this exciting funding scheme – EUREKA Eurostars-3.
Six reasons for choosing Eurostars
There are many reasons why you should apply to Eurostars; our top six are listed for you here:
- Eurostars has a stunning success rate of 29% compared to 5-10% (or lower) of many other funding schemes. Whereas other funding opportunities for SMEs have over 2,000 applications for a single submission deadline, the number of applications to Eurostars are in comparison rather small and only sum up to 3,422 submitted applications from 2014-2020 and thanks to the high success rate 989 projects were funded accordingly.
- There is no need to apply to a specific and pre-given topic that might not match your idea 100%. You can freely choose your area since Eurostars supports the development of any rapidly marketable innovative product, process or service.
- The average consortium in Eurostars is only 2-3 partners, which facilitates the management of your project as well as communication within your consortium. Since your partners cannot be all from the same country, Eurostars gives you the possibility to collaborate internationally, to combine and share expertise and benefit from working beyond national borders in a small team.
- As an SME you can get up to 80% of your costs funded depending on your country, as Eurostars is co-funded from the national budgets of 37 participating countries. For Eurostars-2 check your country-specific funding information here.
- Eurostars offers two cut-off dates each year, usually in March and September – the first deadline of 2023 should be announced soon – which gives you plenty of time to prepare and since the cut-off date is not tied to a specific call topic as in other schemes, you can just apply to the next cut-off if you miss your window for the first one.
- The application process is quite different from other funding schemes. The whole process takes place online – although EUREKA provides a word template to compile your input offline – and there are character limits to each question of the application form. The questions might be complex at times but at least you know exactly how much text and detail you are supposed to provide.
Read our blog on the complete application process from start to submission. Your next application opportunity is on 13 April 2023, with another deadline expected in autumn 2023.
Eurostars in numbers – all facts at a glance
Eurostars was implemented in 2008 to support innovative SMEs and their project partners from academia and industry. Building on its success, Eurostars-3 was launched in 2021 with three cut-off dates so far. While the reports on the proposal submissions in 2022 (March and September) are not available yet, an overall Eurostars-3 budget of 300 million EUR and the success numbers of previous cut-off dates as shown in the below infographic provide a promising lookout for future Eurostars applications.
Support for Eurostars applicants by accelopment
We offer you and your project partner(s) hands-on support throughout the whole application process, from helping you on defining your work plan to advising you on the project budget. We are eager to help you convince the evaluators of your innovation project.
Our many years of Proposal Writing allow us to support you throughout your application process, facilitate communication with your project partners and manage your application in the Eurostars online platform. We have been involved in several successful Eurostars applications in the past, such as the awarded OPTO-BRAIN, MAXCOAT, NoCaTS, sus@pension, MiniLib, RETWood, FP-Catheter, and most recently AirToxMonitor.
