Eurostars

Budget

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy allocates € 22 million yearly, divided over 2 calls per year.

Criteria

International funding

If you want to receive international Eurostars funding, your project and consortium need to meet the following criteria:

• An innovative SME from a participating country leads the project consortium. Please check the Eureka website for an overview of all Eurostars countries.
• The project consortium exists of at least 2 organisations that are independent of one another.
• The project consortium exists of organisations from at least 2 Eurostars countries with a minimum of 1 organisation from a Eureka full member or partner country.
• The SME budget from the participating countries is 50% or more of the total project cost. This does not include subcontracting.
• No single participant or country handles more than 70% of the project's budget.
• The project duration is 36 months or less.
• The project has an exclusive focus on civil applications.

National funding criterium

Universities and research institutes can only apply for funding if a Dutch company participates in the consortium.

Funding rates

The funding rates for Eurostars projects are:

• SME: 50%
• Large company: 40%
• University/research institute: 50%

The maximum funding amount is €500,000 per project.

Only project costs directly related to Research & Development are eligible for Eurostars funding. Read more about the funding rules (in Dutch) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy.

International calls

8^th international call

The 8^th call of the Eurostars-3 program opens on 10 January 2025 and closes on 13 March 2025, 14:00 CET.

The following countries have indicated to not have funding available:

• United Kingdom
• Switzerland
• Greece
• Italy (Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT)*

Partners from these countries can only participate on the basis of self-funding.

* There is funding available for Italian organizations through the Ministry for Universities and Research (MUR). Contact the Italian National Funding Body via the contactform on the Eureka-website for more information.

How to apply

A Eurostars application consists of 2 parts. Your proposal has to be approved internationally before you can request national funding.

Application procedure

1. The project and consortium meet all the international and national criteria mentioned above.
2. You register on the Eureka Project Management Platform and apply as a consortium. Read more about the required documents for a complete application.
3. Three experts will rate your project. Then an independent evaluation panel will draft a ranking list of all proposals. Read more about the international evaluation process on the website of the Eureka network.
4. Does your application rank high enough on the ranking list? And are all applicants in the consortium eligible for funding? If so, we will invite you to submit a national application. The call for a national application will be open for about 4 weeks.

National application

The national application period for the 7^th Eurostars international call opens on 1 January 2025 and closes on 21 January 2025, 17:00 CET.
Eligible applications have received a personal invitation from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency to submit a national subsidy application.

You can submit your application digitally or by post. If you want to apply digitally log in with eHerkenning. For your application, you need at least level 3 with authorisation for Netherlands Enterprise Agency services at level eH3.

Read more about the national application process and download the attachments you need for your application (information in Dutch).

Points of attention

The following aspects need extra attention when you apply for Eurostars funding:

• The conditions for granting and the subsidy amount differ per participating Eurostars country. We strongly advise your partners from other countries to contact their national funding institutes to discuss the conditions that apply to them. You can find the contact information on the Eureka website under 'Contact your national funding body'.
• Proposals the evaluation panel finds eligible for funding do not automatically receive national funding. This allocation depends on the position of the project on the ranking list and the available budget per country.
• National Eurostars funding can only be applied for R&D-related costs. For example, marketing and management costs are not eligible for funding.

Eurostars in practice

• See which entrepreneurs have gone before you in the Eurostars case studies (in Dutch only).
• At ‘follow innovation’ (in Dutch only), you can see which companies have received financial support through the Eurostars programme.
• You can find all Eurostars projects in the Eureka database.

Legislation

Eurostars legislation follows the Dutch regulation national subsidies from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (in Dutch only).

Eurostars background

Eurostars is a European innovation programme, a Eureka network and European Commission initiative. Eurostars provides financial support for projects through national funding of each participating country. The funding amount depends on project activities, the type of partner organisation and the country in which they are established.

Eurostars helps (small) companies to install market-oriented technological development. This development can be in any sector. Eurostars aims to shorten the time-to-market of new technologies and reduce technical risks. Small companies can thereby increase their development and growth rate. Under certain conditions, other organisations can also take part in Eurostars projects.

European Partnership

Eurostars is part of the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs. The partnership is co-funded by the European Union through Horizon Europe.