Norway will participate with funding in the Eurostars call in September 2023. The call will be launched medio July, with deadline 14 September 2023.
Eurostars is a part of EUs Partnership for Innovative SME's (small and medium sized enterprises) in EU's Horizon Europe. The partnership is co-funded by EU.
Norwegian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that carry out research and development may seek funding for R&D projects from the Eurostars Programme. To be eligible for funding, projects must seek to develop new products, services or processes to be introduced to the market within two years of project completion. The projectsd must have international collaboration. Funding is available in all branches of industry and may address any technological area.
Eurostars is a support scheme for SMEs planning an R&D project with international cooperation. Eurostars projects are collaborative projects, where all partners shall have a clear role in the project and interest in the result.
Information about the application and application deadlines
There are two application deadlines in Eurostars each year, one in the spring and one in the autumn.
The next call for proposals will be launched in mid-July 2023 and will have an application deadline of 14 September. The calls for proposals are published six weeks before the application deadline. The call will be launched on the European website in mid-July. Read more about the call here.
The EUREKA Secretariat organises a webinar for new applicants who may be useful to attend. This will be arranged in connection with the call for proposals. Sign up for the webinar here.
Applications must be created via Eurostar's international pages.
The main partner in the project submits the application on behalf of all project partners in the consortium. To access the application form, one must register on the Eurostars website.
You can also find information about Eurostars and announcements on the Eureka website.
Who can apply for funding?
Eurostars is mainly for SMEs. All Norwegian Eurostars applications must include a Norwegian SME. Research institutes, universities and university colleges and large enterprises may be partners, but the project must be led by a SMB.
Norwegian SMEs and other Norwegian partners can only submit one grant application per application round and at any given time participate in a maximum of two ongoing Eurostars projects.
If you have two ongoing projects, at least one of these projects must be completed before you can submit a new grant application.
To qualify for funding, the project must meet a number of criteria
- The applicant company must fall under the definition small or medium-sized enterprise
(SME definition | Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (europa.eu)) - All partners must be able to finance their own part of the project.
- SMBs must have at least NOK 500 000 in equity at the time of the (Documentation requirements: Publicly approved annual accounts. Alternatively, in the event of a capital increase, there must be a declaration from the auditor, lawyer, financial institution/bank or accountant).
- The main partner/project manager submits the application on behalf of all project partners in the consortium.
- At least 50 percent of the total project costs must be covered by the partners in the project. Subcontractors cannot therefore exceed the total project costs by 49 per cent.
- In the project, there must be cooperation between several companies, or between companies and R&D institutions.
- Cooperation between at least two independent partners from at least two Eurostars countries. The project must have a clear goal of new product, process or service.
- Introduction to the market/commercialisation must be planned no later than two years after the end of the project.
- The activities that can be supported must fall under the definition of industrial research or experimental development.
See more detailed information on the criteria for support in Eurostars here.
- For SMEs, the Research Council's funding cannot exceed 50 per cent of approved reported project costs (experimental development or industrial research).
- For institutes, universities and university colleges, the Research Council's funding cannot exceed 70 per cent of approved reported project costs.
- For large enterprises, the Research Council's funding cannot exceed 30 per cent of approved reported project costs.
- Support levels may vary from country to country. The Research Council of Norway funds the Norwegian partners in the project.
- The maximum amount of support is NOK 6 million, which assumes project costs of NOK 12 million.
You will find information about business costs and calculation of hourly rates on our pages What to enter in the project budget. Overhead costs are calculated into the hourly rate as indirect costs for the Norwegian partners.
Funding under the scheme is considered state aid and is awarded in accordance with Article 25 of Article 25 of the So-called Group Exemption Regulation (Commission Regulation 651/2014 of 17 th. of June 2014).
- Before you start your application, it is important to familiarize yourself with the "Guidelines" from Eurostars".
- Read the text of the call for proposals well and answer what the call for proposals requests.
- Use the guidance texts in the application forms.
- The main partner in the project submits the application on behalf of all project partners in the consortium.
Funding from Eurostars is considered state aid and awarded in accordance with Article 25 of article 25 of the So-called Group Exemption Regulation (Commission Regulation 651/2014 of 17 June 2014).
It is not possible to combine support for the Eurostars project with other direct public support from Norway or the EU. However, it is possible to have public loans (Innovation Norway).
It is possible to combine Eurostars with indirect support from SkatteFUNN based on the expenditure of R&D in the project. The funding via an approval in SkatteFUNN will be truncated over the tax assessment in accordance with the State Aid Rules.
It is also possible for SMEs to apply for project establishment support from PES Horizon Europe. This application must be submitted no later than four weeks before the Eurostars' grant application. It is no longer possible to apply for PES if you resubmit the application.