Happy New Eurostars – apply to the first call of 2022
4th January 2022 at 4:13 pm
Do you want to grow your innovative SME? The European Eurostars funding programme might be the perfect opportunity for your company. As of 21 January 2022, you can apply for EUREKA Eurostars 3 to this year’s first application deadline on 24 March 2022 at 14:00 CET.
Why Eurostars?
Eurostars is a joint funding programme by EUREKA and the European Commission dedicated to support innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to rapidly commercialise their innovative projects. It is co-funded from the national budgets of 37 participating countries and by the European Union through Horizon Europe. The aim of Eurostars is to bring increased value to the economy, higher growth and more job opportunities.
In many public funding programmes for research and innovation chances for success are slim and the competition fierce, Eurostars does not only offer a great opportunity for SMEs to implement their innovative project idea within the area of your choice but also the success rate is comparatively high at 29%.
Whether you aim to create innovative products, processes or services for commercialisation related to construction, transport, Artificial Intelligence, ICT applications, energy efficiency, biochemistry or any other innovative idea close to market, you are much more flexible in what you are proposing to do (bottom-up approach) than in other funding schemes, notably than those within the Horizon Europe framework programme where many funding instruments are top-down, i.e. a specific solution is requested.
Next application deadlines
The next call for Eurostars 3 is expected to open on 21 January and close on 24 March 2022 and there will also be second call opening this year on 13 July with a deadline on 15 September 2022. Based on our experience from several Eurostars grant applications, two months are sufficient to prepare a compelling proposal, another big difference to other funding schemes where applications are much more complex and labour-intensive
Where to start and how to succeed
Preparation is key – read the official programme guidelines and familiarise yourself with Eurostars:
EUREKA offers various guidelines for applicants on their website for free. We highly recommend reading these guidelines as many of your questions will be answered already. With this newly acquired knowledge, you can then start your application process more easily and effectively.
- Eurostars eligibility guidelines: These guidelines show you the criteria that your planned project needs to fulfil to be even considered for funding. It also explains some general definitions that are relevant in Eurostars and how to calculate your project`s overall budget.
- Application platform guidelines: These guidelines offer a great overview of the online portal, the EUREKA Project Management Platform. It shows you where to sign up and register your project, what the application form looks like, how to add a work package or a participant and many other functions of the portal and how to finally submit your application.
- Eurostars guidelines for completing an application: These guidelines will guide you through the whole application process offering explanations on how to complete every application section of the application form online. For Eurostars 3 you even have the application form available as a word document, which you can use to work on your application offline. Be aware that you cannot just upload your application in this format but need to transfer it to the EUREKA Project Management Platform online prior to submission.
Once the call opens on 21 January 2022 you can sign in and register your project. The partner who registers the project will automatically be the main partner, i.e. project leader or coordinator. However, if you later decide that one of your project partners should be the main partner, for example, because you are not an SME or it is just a better fit, you can still adjust the partner roles later.
Read also our previous blog on Eurostars eligibility criteria and the application process in general.
Support for Eurostars applicants at accelopment
We offer you and your project partner(s) hands-on support throughout the whole application process, from helping you on 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.
