European Partnership on Innovative SMEs
Partnership on Innovative SMEs · HORIZON-COFUND · Needs partners
What this call funds
This call funds a large-scale co-funded partnership that pools national and regional funding programmes to support innovative SMEs doing cross-border research and innovation projects. It will run joint calls for proposals, fund collaborative projects between SMEs across countries, and support activities that help national funding bodies coordinate better, so SMEs can access new markets, finance, and knowledge partnerships internationally. The goal is to help innovative SMEs grow, create jobs, and become embedded in global value chains.
sme scaleup · regional development · research excellence
Who wins this
This call is designed for a consortium of national and regional funding bodies/administrations (not individual SMEs) that will jointly manage a co-funded partnership programme supporting cross-border innovative SME research collaboration.
Could you win this call?
We read your site to see what you build.
The call in detail
- Indicative grant size
- €72.9M
- Funding model
- Budget-based — reimbursement of actual eligible costs
- Submission
- Single-stage submission (full proposal at once)
- Cut-off dates (3)
- 10 Sep 2026 · 1 Dec 2026 · 4 Mar 2027
- Partners
- Required. The call asks for a consortium — from 2 countries.
- Eligible applicants
- public body, national funding body, national administration
- Funding rate
- 30% of eligible costs
- Support to third parties
- Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties in the form of grants; the EUR 60,000 threshold under Article 204(a) of the Financial Regulation does not apply, as this is a primary activity of the action.
- Also required
- Only one project will be funded under this call; a substantial majority of supported sub-projects must involve at least two beneficiaries from Member States or Associated Countries.
- Eligible countries (45)
- Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, United Kingdom, IL, TR, UA, RS, MK, ME, AL, BA, XK, GE, AM, MD, TN, NZ
Read the full conditions from the official call ›
General conditions General conditions 1. Admissibility conditions: described in Annex A and Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme General Annexes Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System 2. Eligible countries: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide. 3. Other eligibility conditions: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes 4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes The granting authority can fund a maximum of one project. Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes The starting date of grants awarded under this topic may be as of the submission date of the application. Applicants must justify the need for a retroactive starting date in their application. Costs incurred from the starting date of the action may be considered eligible. The funding rate is 30 % of the eligible costs. Beneficiaries may provide financial support to third parties. The support to third parties can only be provided in the form of grants. Financial support provided by the participants to third parties is one of the primary activities of this action in order to be able to achieve its objectives. The EUR 60 000 threshold provided for in Article 204(a) of the Financial Regulation No 2018/1046 does not apply. 6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes Specific conditions 7. Specific conditions: described in the specific topic of the Work Programme
Who has won calls like this
No past winners are recorded for this call family yet.