Finding the Right Funding Opportunity 

Finding the right funding opportunity is the first step. 

You can look for the suitable topic for you on ISERD’s website, either according to work programmes, or alternatively, the type of legal entity you represent (Academia and Research Institutes, Large Companies, Small and Medium Enterprises, Public Sector and NGOs).

Once you have reached the right topic, there are a few things you should be aware of:  

Type of projects: Most of the Horizon Europe funding opportunities require a collaborative consortium that brings together different entities, each with its unique skill set to solve a challenge presented in a topic. However, a few calls of Horizon Europe are suitable for or even require single entity participation (mono-beneficiary), allowing a single researcher or organisation to be funded.   

Submission in a collaborative consortium: 

Find the topic call in the relevant work programme: Familiarize yourself with its requirements: expected outcomes, allocated budget per project, deadline, type of action and funding rate, Technology readiness levels (TRLs) requirements (if applicable), submission process (single stage or two stages), any other special limitations under eligibility conditions (may include a specific type of partner needed, number of partners or any other limitation on participation). 

 A minimum of at least three legal entities from three different participating countries, one of which is an EU member state, is required for a consortium.  

The participants in a consortium will need to choose a coordinator, from among themselves, to manage and coordinate the project and represent the consortium towards the granting authority. The coordinator will be responsible for coordinating the submission, submitting the project’s financial reports, deliverables and milestones and disturbing the money. 

Types of Projects:  

Horizon Europe funds different types of collaborative projects. These include: 

Type of Action EU Funding rate The purpose  
Research and innovation action (RIA) 100% of the project costs+25% overhead  Establishing new knowledge or exploring a new or improved technology, product, process, service or solution;  
Innovation action (IA) 70% of the project costs+25% overhead (Non-profit organizations will get 100% funding rate +25%)  Producing plans or designs for new or improved products, processes or services including prototyping, testing, demonstrating, piloting, large-scale product validation and market replication;  
Coordination and support action (CSA)    100% of the project costs+25% overhead  Improving cooperation among EU and associated countries to strengthen the European Research Area including, for example, standardisation, dissemination, awareness-raising, communication and networking activities, policy dialogues, mutual learning or studies.  
Programme co-fund action (COFUND)     30%-70% of the project costs Providing multi-annual co-funding for European partnerships, bringing together public and private partners.  

Submitting the Proposal 

In order to submit a proposal, the legal entity must be registered in the EU Funding and Tenders portal and to obtain a PIC number (Participant Identification Code). The legal entity will use the PIC for all the European funding schemes.  

If your legal entity is already registered, use your PIC for the submission (if you are not sure, you can check on the Participant Register). 

If your legal entity is not yet registered, log in to the EU portal and register via the registration wizard.  You will need to provide basic information about the legal entity in order to obtain and achieve a PIC. 

Partner Search and Consortium Building 

The consortium must collectively address the specific expected outcomes outlined by the European Commission for each topic call. To effectively implement these solutions, the consortium composition should encompass a diverse range of expertise and skills and comprise an interdisciplinary team on which each participant contributes significant added value. 

How to build a consortium? 

Here are some useful tips: 

All proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal electronic submission system by the deadline stipulated for each topic call, 17:00 Brussels time. 

Proposals must be complete and contain all sections, mandatory annexes and supporting documents. 

The application form will have two parts: 

Here are the main templates:  

For the RIA/IA calls, here is the template (Part A+Part B). 

For the CSA calls, here is the template (Part A+Part B). 

For the EIC Accelerator (stage 1), here is the template (Part A+Part B). 

Lump Sum 

The lump sum funding model aims to reduce administrative and financial errors by removing the need to report actual costs.  

Lump sums are defined up-front and fixed in the grant agreement, meaning they are paid upon completion of the activities in work packages, not dependent on successful outcomes (which are never certain in research) and follow the standard payment schedule. 

For lump sum grant proposals, the estimated budget must be described in a detailed budget table. This will be used as a basis for justifying and/or fixing the lump sum amount. As the lump sum must be an approximation of the costs actually incurred, the costs included in this detailed budget table must comply with the basic eligibility conditions. Please note that for topic calls that use a lump sum funding scheme, the proposal’s page limit is higher, because of the additional financial information required. During a lump sum project fewer documentations are needed, with no requirements to document dedicated person months for work packages. Apart from that, the planning, evaluation and execution of projects is not significantly different. 

FSTP 

Cascade funding, also known as Financial Support for Third Parties (FSTP), is a Commission mechanism to distribute public funding in order to assist beneficiaries such as start-ups, scale-ups, SME and/or mid-caps in the uptake or development of digital innovation. Where this possibility is indicated under the relevant topic in the Work Programme, the proposal should provide a description of the use of FSTP using this document. It should be submitted as a separate annex together with Part B.

Ownership control declaration

As part of Horizon Europe, some calls require that the organisations in receipt of grants or other contracts are NOT controlled from outside the European Union.

In the declaration, the participant is required to answer and fill the relevant information concerning: Location of global headquarters; Location of the executive management structure; stock exchange; subsidiary of a listed company? Are you controlled by a listed company? Ownership structure and specific rights; Corporate governance; Commercial links conferring control; Financial links conferring control; Guarantees; Cybersecurity, etc.

The declaration needs to be filled in by the project participants according to the template and submitted as part of the application. All declarations must be assembled by the coordinator and uploaded in a single file in the Portal Submission System.

Beneficiaries, affiliated entities and associated partners must always provide the form; subcontractors must provide it only if required by the call conditions.

Entities that are validated as public bodies by the Central Validation Service are exempted since they will automatically be considered as controlled by their country.