1. What is Eureka Eurostars?

Eureka Eurostars is an international funding programme for innovative SMEs. It provides funding for collaborative R&D projects that create innovative products, processes or services for commercialisation.

2. What are the eligibility criteria?

To apply, you must fulfil six eligibility criteria:

• Your consortium must be led by an innovative SME from a Eurostars country.
• Your consortium must include entities from at least two Eurostars countries.
• The budget of the SME(s) from a Eurostars country, excluding subcontracting, must be 50% or more of the total project cost.
• No single participant or country should be responsible for more than 70% of the project budget.
• The project duration must be 36 months or less.
• The project must have an exclusively civilian purpose.

3. Who are the participating countries?

There are 37 participating countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.

4. What funding is available?

As a decentralised programme, each Eureka country administrates its own participation, meaning every country has its own rules, regulations, and grant rate. UK registered SMEs can apply for a total grant of up to €360,000 or 60% of the total eligible project costs (whichever is the least).

5. What stage of development does Eurostars fund?

Eureka Eurostars supports early-stage R&D projects to transition from TRL 4 until TRL 6.

6. How do UK organisations apply?

If you are a UK lead applicant, you must submit an Innovate UK application and complete the Eureka application on behalf of your project. If your consortium is led by an organisation from another participating country, one of the UK grant claiming partners will need to submit the application to Innovate UK.

7. What is the evaluation process?

Eurostars has a centralised evaluation process. In the first step, each eligible application is assessed by three independent experts commissioned by the Eureka Association. A legal and financial viability check also takes place at this stage.

Then, applications that pass the evaluation and legal and financial viability check are evaluated by the Independent Evaluation Panel. They define a ranking list of the applications and recommend the top applications for funding.

8. What are the chances of success?

29% of all applications receive funding. It is less competitive than similar innovation funding streams, such as Innovate UK Smart Grants and the EIC Accelerator.

9. Can I apply again if I am unsuccessful?

Yes, you can resubmit a Eurostars application to Innovate UK if your first attempt is unsuccessful. However, you are limited to a maximum of two applications to Innovate UK with any given proposal.

10. How can RedKnight help?

RedKnight has a proven track record with Eureka Eurostars and can help you develop a competitive application. Most recently, we won €674,160 on behalf of the FrOLik consortium – read more about this here.

If you are looking for bid writing support with a Eureka Eurostars application, we’d love to hear from you! Please contact us in order to arrange a free consultation.