European funding
Typically €3m to €15m per project, shared across the consortium.
Consortia of at least three organisations from three different countries.
Collaborative research and innovation on health, digital, climate, energy, mobility, food and security. The largest share of the money and the main route for UK universities and industrial R&D teams.
Up to €2.5m grant for the Accelerator, up to €4m for Pathfinder projects.
Single companies (Accelerator) or consortia (Pathfinder, Transition).
Breakthrough, high risk deep tech. The Accelerator runs a written application, then an interview panel that decides on evidence and delivery, not polish.
UK contribution typically around £360k per partner.
R&D performing SMEs leading an international collaboration.
The most accessible route into European collaboration for a smaller company. UK participation is funded through Innovate UK.
From a few hundred thousand euros to well over €50m for major decarbonisation projects.
Deployment focused consortia, and in the Innovation Fund, first of a kind industrial projects.
These fund adoption and scale rather than research: digital capacity, environmental and climate action, and commercial scale low carbon technology.
The UK is associated to Horizon Europe, so UK based organisations can lead and join the large majority of calls on broadly the same terms as EU applicants. A small number of restricted actions stay limited to member states, and the EIC Accelerator equity component is handled separately for UK applicants. We check the call text before you commit any time.
Research and innovation actions are usually funded at 100% of eligible direct costs, innovation actions at 70% for profit making organisations and 100% for non profits, with a 25% flat rate for indirect costs on top. Budget the project around those rates from the start rather than retrofitting them.
A coordinator carries the proposal, the consortium agreement and the reporting. A work package leader carries a defined slice. Joining as a partner is the sensible first step for most UK SMEs, and it is also the fastest way to build the track record that supports leading later.
Every participant needs an EU Login and a nine digit participant identification code (PIC) on the Funding and Tenders Portal, validated against your legal documents. Leave it to the final week and you will miss the cut off, which is a hard deadline to the minute.
EU money is awarded against specific topic text with its own expected outcomes and impact. We shortlist the topics your technology genuinely answers and reject the ones that only look close.
Partners need to cover the value chain and the exploitation route, not just the science. We help assess partner strength, fill the gaps and agree roles and budget splits before drafting starts.
Excellence, impact and implementation are scored separately out of five. We write each section against its scoring guidance, with the impact pathway and exploitation plan evidenced rather than asserted.
Portal submission well ahead of the deadline, then interview preparation for EIC applicants and grant agreement support for funded projects.
Typical client input on a European bid is under 12 hours, nearly all of it in technical sessions. We carry the writing, the partner coordination and the portal work.
Yes. Following UK association to Horizon Europe, UK organisations can participate in and lead most calls, including EIC Pathfinder, EIC Transition and Eurostars, and can receive funding directly from the EU. A limited set of restricted actions remains member state only.
The European Commission publishes calls with specific topic text, a budget and a deadline. Applicants submit through the Funding and Tenders Portal, independent experts score the proposal on excellence, impact and implementation, and funded projects sign a grant agreement and report against milestones and costs.
Register for an EU Login, get your organisation a validated PIC, choose a live call, assemble the consortium where one is required, then complete Part A (administrative and budget data) and Part B (the technical proposal) in the portal before the deadline.
Plan on two to three months of proposal work for a collaborative bid, then roughly five to six months from deadline to evaluation result, and a further few months to grant signature. EIC Accelerator adds an interview stage between the written result and the final decision.
For most Horizon Europe Pillar II calls, yes, with a minimum of three independent organisations from three eligible countries. The EIC Accelerator is the main single company route, and Eurostars needs only a small international collaboration.
Often, but not always. EU projects pay more and open European partnerships, at the cost of longer timelines and heavier reporting. We look at both and say plainly which route fits your stage, and we decline bids we do not think can score.
The routes we work on, award sizes and how we write and review European bids.
Which route suits your stage, timeline and appetite for collaboration.
Open UK and European calls, with deadlines and eligibility in plain English.
How relief stacks with grant funding to lower the real cost of your R&D.
A free call tells you whether the call fits, what the consortium needs to look like and whether the timeline works for you.
