Eurostars: new call announced for 2024 to finance innovative projects of SMEs

A new Eurostars call has been announced for March 2024, to finance innovative activities of startups, spin-offs and SMEs.

As part of the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs, cofunded by the Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation, Eurostars provides funding for international collaborative projects in many different fields, led by innovative SMEs.

The programme covers innovation activities from a proof of concept in a laboratory for technological maturation, to prototype, and maturation of the business idea.

This upcoming Eurostars call will be open for submissions from 12 January to 14 March 2024.

Who can apply to this Eurostars call?

The call addresses innovative SMEs, including startups and spin-offs, willing to collaborate on an international R&I project to develop new products, processes or services for the European and global markets.

Research centres and large companies can also join these projects, but only SMEs will receive funding.

Which projects can be eligible?

In order to be eligible for the funding, projects must meet the following criteria:

• The project must be coordinated by an innovative SME from one of the Eurostars countries, including Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, among many others.
• The consortium must be composed of at least two independent entities from two different Eurostars countries. Out of them, at least one organisation should come from an EU Member State or a Horizon Europe associated country.
• The project must last no more than 36 months (3 years) and should have an exclusive focus on civil applications.
• The budget should be approximately €1-1.6 million, with at least half of it coming from the SMEs. However, no single participant or country can be responsible for more than 70% of the total budget.

How will proposals be assessed?

Project proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

1. Quality and efficiency, including the quality of the consortium, added value through cooperation, reasonable cost structure, and realistic management and planning.
2. Impact, including market size and risk, competitive advantage, realistic commercialisation plans, and economic, environmental, and societal impact.
3. Excellence, meaning the degree of innovation, new applied knowledge, level of technical challenge, and technical achievability and risk.

FI Group has 20 years of experience and wants to accompany you on the new NextGenerationEU path. Our experts are at your disposal to analyse how your project fits into the NextGenerationEU European recovery fund and to take the next steps together with you. Contact us.

Marina Marcos