European Partnership on Innovative SMEs – Eurostars
Eurostars is part of the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs. The partnership is co-funded by the European Union through Horizon Europe.
Eurostars for innovative SMEs
Eurostars, a joint program with 37 participating countries, is part of the international Eureka cooperation and is managed by the Eureka Secretariat in Brussels. The project participants invariably come from at least two Eurostars countries. The evaluation of the applications is centralized and conducted following common criteria. Business Finland is the funding body for Finnish applicants.
Internationalization through product development
For SMEs that are Business Finland's customers and in the process of internationalization, the close-to-market projects conducted under the Eurostars program are an excellent option for channelling new collaboration opportunities. Eurostars participants receive strong support for the growth of their company, find new markets and get the opportunity to grow their business.
The international project consortium must be led by an innovative SME. The consortium is usually composed of entities from two or three Eurostars countries, but larger consortiums are also accepted. Research organizations, universities and large companies are also accepted as project partners. The expenses of the SMEs must be dominant in the total project budget, and subcontracting costs are excluded from the budget shares of SMEs for the calculation.
The funding for Finnish participants is provided by Business Finland. The funding is primarily targeted to SMEs and mid-cap companies (turnover less than EUR 300 million). The participants must be growth companies seeking international growth; they must be financially in good shape and have financial capacity to run the proposed R&D project. It is advisable to contact Business Finland's Eurostars project coordinator before submitting the application.
Applying for Eurostars
Consortiums may submit applications to the Eurostars program from any subject area. There are two cut-off dates annually, and all the applications submitted before each deadline are processed in one batch.
The next Eurostars call for projects in 2025 is open from 10 January to 13 March. Business Finland has funding available to Finnish participants in the 2025 calls.
The leader of the project consortium files an application in the Eurostars system, and all the project participants fill in their own part. The project in its entirety is evaluated at Eurostars by independent international experts, based on the data submitted through the application.
An international evaluation panel, composed of experts from research and business, evaluates the applications and assigns a ranking to them. The projects that pass the evaluation will become real once national funding for all the project participants has been confirmed. Business Finland makes the funding decision for Finnish applicants in accordance with the levels of support, and the funding terms and conditions applied within the program.
When applying for funding through the Eurostars programme, the Finnish project participants give their consent to Business Finland to review the needed information from our national registries in order to perform the Legal and Financial Viability Check as part of the Eurostars evaluation process.
The duration of the evaluation and funding process is three to four months.
Funding of Eurostars projects
The funding is provided as a grant under special Eurostars terms.
Innovative SMEs accepted by Business Finland are provided with a 50 % grant of project costs, and 40 % grant in the case of mid-cap companies with a turnover of less than EUR 300 million. SMEs and mid-cap companies propose their project budget according to the companies' R&D needs, and Business Finland has not set formal limits on the funding available.
For large companies, the funding rate is 40%, and the company-specific maximum grant is EUR 60,000.
Universities and other research organizations can also receive public funding from Business Finland, but only if the consortium also includes an SME or a mid-cap company partner from Finland. If there is no SME or mid-cap company from Finland involved, universities and research organizations will not be eligible for public funding and can only participate in a Eurostars project on the basis of self-funding.
When one Finnish SME or mid-cap company is participating in the consortium, the funding rate to universities and research organizations is 70 %, and the maximum grant is EUR 70,000. If at least two Finnish SMEs or mid-cap companies are participating in the consortium, the maximum grant to universities and research organizations is EUR 140,000.
The maximum duration of the projects is three years, and the results are expected to enter the market within two years of the project completion.
Innowwide
Innowwide is funded by the European Union as part of the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs. Innowwide is a funding programme within Eureka, the world’s biggest network for international cooperation in R&D and innovation, present in over 45 countries.
Innowwide encourages you to take your R&D to markets all over the world by providing support to SMEs to partner with potential counterparts globally. As an innovative SMEs, you can apply for a grant of EUR 60,000 to assess the viability of your company’s research or commercial ambitions in international markets in Africa, the Middle East, North and South America or Asia-Pacific.
You will find more information about the Innowwide programme and its eligibility criteria on the Eureka network’s website.
EU Partnership on Innovative SMEs / Eurostars is a is a programme co-funded by Eureka national funding bodies and the EU Horizon Europe framework programme. Eurostars has 37 participating countries.