Who can benefit from EU funding? As you can guess, not everyone and everything is fundable – moreover, a potential beneficiary will need to meet certain requirements to be eligible for funding. For an individual person or a solopreneur, the possibilities to obtain EU funding are rather limited to very specific circumstances. More opportunities can be found for organisations, institutes, companies and other legal entities such as for example public authorities, with project funding for new and innovative activities in many thematic areas. Discover what is possible and how it works in this article.
Before categorizing the different areas for EU funding opportunities, it is important to understand why certain activities are funded by the EU at all. The decision about the budgets and thematic funding areas has been taken by the EU Member States.
The EU’s overall priorities have an important influence on EU funding. To ensure that the priorities will be achieved or are at least advancing, budgets have been allocated to the concerned thematic areas in the form of funding programmes, which, in addition to the individual Member States’ policies and programmes, can be used for activities and projects related to the EU priorities.
Among the priorities we have, for example, goals related to sustainable growth such as the target to reach carbon neutrality by the year 2050, the digital transition, enhanced competitiveness and skills development, fighting inequalities and safeguarding democracy. Within these areas there are plenty of sub-areas which all contribute to the overall target. Examples are an increase of renewables and the circular economy within the sustainability target, or the fight against disinformation in the domain of democracy.
One goal of the EU is to ensure a development towards a more competitive economy in areas which are less advanced than others. A classic example for EU funding in this area this is cohesion policy funding and the EU Structural Funds. Within these, another important EU goal is to make society more inclusive and re-integrate disadvantaged persons who are facing difficulties. For example, they are being supported through measures from the European Social Fund+, with the aim to (re-)enter the labour market.
Another EU priority is to make Europe more competitive. That’s why even “rich” regions get some funding through EU Regional Policy (which they then pass on to selected projects in their region), whereas the funded activities are then more targeted towards excellence and competitiveness. Another example in the category of promoting excellence and competitiveness is the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon Europe.
In the current programming cycle (2021-2027), more than 40 thematic EU funding programmes exist. These programmes are either directly managed by the European Commission via its Executive Agencies and in this case the project selection is organised by them. One example is the EU CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values) Programme.
For some programmes, an indirect management mode applies, which means that the Commission has designated other entities at EU or national level for these programmes. This applies for example to the Erasmus+ Programme – the EU’s programme to support education, training, youth and sport – where National Agencies in the EU Member States carry out the project selection and management.
Thirdly, some programmes such as in particular the EU Structural Funds are managed jointly between the EU and its Member States under a shared management mode. The project selection takes place by the latter, mostly authorities at the regional level.
As EU funding is in principle additional to national funding, you don’t find classical transfer payments, but rather targeted measures. For unemployed persons such as long-term unemployed or young people with difficulties entering the labour market, you can find targeted training measures. These are organised by administrations within the regions and are financed by the national/regional level together with the EU through the European Social Fund+ (ESF+). Support to start up a business is a common support scheme as well. If you would like to start up a company, there could as well be possibilities through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), or possibly through the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) in rural areas.
As a researcher, and if you fulfil certain conditions, you can get funded for your research project through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions or the European Research Council within Horizon Europe.
For an individual or solopreneur, EU funding is not an obvious choice. Firstly, there will usually be no funding for activities which you are pursuing anyway already – EU funding is focused on new and often innovative activities. Although Structural Funds could be possible sources for funding new activities, depending on your region’s priorities, it is possible that there are other suitable funding schemes in your region. Therefore, you can also look at website of your regional development bank, or your local Chamber of Commerce.
Many funding opportunities exist for established legal entities such as organisations – NGOs, non-profits, associations, for-profit organisations including companies, and also public authorities such as cities and other local authorities. Usually the funds go to projects, this means your endeavour needs to have a certain objective to be achieved within a set timeframe.
Very often the Calls for Proposals will state that you have to implement your project with partners from other EU countries to develop a solution to a common problem together. Thus, an “EU added value” is expected, also in terms of transferability to more countries. In the best possible scenario, you have some contacts who you can work with. Otherwise, it is possible to look for partners in various existing tools or find them through brokerage events for your respective Call. Some programmes also issue Calls for Proposals where you can be the only beneficiary of the grant (e.g. within LIFE – the EU funding instrument for the environment and climate action, and CERV – Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme).
Your project proposal requires a detailed implementation plan with structured work packages, milestones, set deliverables and dedicated budget. More requirements which need to be included are, for example, information about project partners and their areas of competence, project management and quality assurance arrangements, a communication plan to publicise the outcomes and results of the project, etc. You will mostly also have to bring in a pre-defined %age of co-financing for the project yourself.
Most selection processes are very competitive, a sometimes much higher number of proposals is submitted than can be awarded with the foreseen budget of the Calls. Writing a proposal for a (cooperative) project, especially when it includes a higher number of partners in a consortium, requires a good knowledge about how to write proposals and what is expected in the different sections of the proposal template. Being fully prepared will increase success chances considerably.
A bit different approach is valid for Operating Grants. Operating grants are a special scheme for organisations whose operating costs will be (for the most part) paid when they are pursuing an objective supporting the EU policies and priorities. In your application, you will need to demonstrate that the activities and projects you are planning to do over the concerned period (often around 3 years) are relevant to the programme you are applying within. You will also need to set targets to monitor the activities’ progress.
Operating grants exist for example for organisations working on social inclusion topics and/or with civil society (through the EU Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme CERV), or organisations working on environmental and climate protection (through the LIFE Programme – the EU funding instrument for the environment and climate action). In any case, a thorough application to obtain this funding is needed, similar to the ones required for projects.
If you are not very experienced (yet) with EU funding and have an idea for a project or several ideas, there are many websites and documents to screen to find out if you could get funding (hint: always start with the EU Funding and Tenders Portal). What I therefore offer in my starter package is a personalised analysis with the aim to find a suitable funding programme for a project idea. Before booking, there will always be a free-of-charge 20 minutes orientation call so that we can figure out if EU funding can be suitable for the concerned project idea at all. If there is a possibility for EU funding, I then prepare a comprehensive assessment document to explain with which programme(s) the project could be funded, what the conditions are and how the process works. After receiving the funding analysis document, I offer a (Zoom) call to clarify any questions about the results of the analysis and what to do as next steps.
It is important to know that I will not invent a completely new project – the reason is that my client is the expert in the concerned thematic field and knows best what is innovative or a new approach in that field, what impact the project would have, also in the long term, and what the organisation is able to deliver. What I can do is to ask guiding questions about the endeavour. And if something in the design of the project is missing for being eligible for EU funding or for increasing the success chances, I propose what needs to be changed or added to the project outline.
EU funding is available mostly for organisations which are planning to start a new project. The procedures to obtain the funding are competitive and the success rates vary from programme to programme and from one funding Call to the next. A thorough preparation for the application is a must. The analysis of the suitability of the project for the respective funding Call, especially in relation to what is demanded in the Call text, is crucial to avoid a loss of time and unnecessary work loops. Making the necessary adaptations before or right in the beginning of the project application process can save you a lot of headaches.
Still unsure whether your new project idea would have chances to get EU funding? Get your EU funding checklist here.
Besides, you can check out my funding analysis offer and grant writing support offers and let me know if you have any questions.
Author: Astrid Mechel
https://eufundingconsulting.eu
Hello, I am Astrid Mechel and I work (for the most part) with small and medium sized organisations who aim to access EU funding. It is my goal to help discovering suitable EU project funding possibilities and to provide support to submit a high-quality grant application. My main thematic focus is on grants for research and innovation, environmental sustainability as well as on social inclusion and participation.
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© Astrid Mechel, 2024
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