Eurostars is one of the most accessible EU-backed funding programmes for SMEs with an R&D project — and one of the most misunderstood. It's bottom-up (any sector, any technology), it funds international collaboration, and it's managed jointly by the EU and 37 national funding bodies.

Call 10 is open now with a March 19, 2026 submission deadline. This guide covers everything you need to know.

Key Numbers

  • 37 participating countries (EU, EEA, plus Canada, UK, Israel, South Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Türkiye)
  • Any sector — no thematic restrictions
  • 36 months maximum project duration
  • 2+ partners from 2+ Eurostars countries required
  • March 19, 2026 submission deadline (14:00 Brussels time)
  • Applications submitted via myeurekaproject.org

What Is Eurostars?

Eurostars is part of the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs. It co-funds international R&D projects where at least two partners from different countries collaborate to develop a new product, process, or service.

The key difference from Horizon Europe: each partner gets funded by their own national funding body, not directly by the EU. This means funding rates, eligible costs, and maximum amounts vary by country. The EU co-funds the national budgets, but you deal with your national agency.

This also means your consortium needs to be strategically assembled — not just technically, but financially.

What Gets Funded?

Eurostars funds market-oriented R&D:

  • New products and services
  • Process innovation
  • Prototype development
  • Technology demonstration
  • Market validation
  • International R&D collaboration

What it doesn't fund: pure research with no commercial path, sales and marketing activities, or projects that are purely domestic.

The 7 Eligibility Criteria

This is where most rejections happen — not in evaluation, but in the eligibility check that runs within one week of the deadline. Fail any one criterion and your application is rejected without evaluation.

1. Innovative SME Lead

The project must be led by an innovative SME from a Eurostars country. "Innovative" here means an SME with the ambition to collaborate internationally on R&D — you don't need a proven R&D track record, but you do need to be developing something new.

SME definition (EU Recommendation 2003/361):

  • Fewer than 250 employees
  • Annual turnover ≤ €50 million OR balance sheet total ≤ €43 million

Large enterprises cannot lead. They can participate as partners, but the project must be SME-driven.

2. At Least Two Independent Entities

Your consortium needs at least two organisations that are independent of each other — neither can be under the direct or indirect control of the other.

"Control" means holding a majority of voting rights, ability to appoint/remove management, or dominant influence via contract. But there are exceptions: venture capital firms, business angels, universities, and public investment corporations can hold 25–50% without triggering the control test.

3. At Least Two Eurostars Countries

Partners must come from at least two different Eurostars countries, with at least one from an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country. Switzerland counts as an Associated Country as of January 2025.

The 37 participating countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, United Kingdom.

4. SME Budget ≥ 50%

SME partners must account for at least 50% of the total project budget. Critical detail: subcontracting costs are subtracted from the SME budget but not from the total.

The formula:

(SME budget − SME subcontracting) ÷ Total project budget ≥ 50%

Example: A Spanish SME has a budget of €665,876 with €48,840 in subcontracting. A South African partner has €504,660. Total budget: €1,170,536.

Calculation: (665,876 − 48,840) ÷ 1,170,536 = 52.71% — eligible.

If that SME had €100,000 in subcontracting instead, the ratio drops to 48.3% — rejected.

5. No Single Partner or Country > 70%

Two checks:

  • No single organisation can exceed 70% of the total budget
  • No single country's organisations combined can exceed 70%

This prevents "token" international partnerships where one partner dominates.

6. Maximum 36 Months

Project duration cannot exceed 36 months. Extensions are possible after project start, but only if justified and approved by both the Eureka Secretariat and your national funding bodies.

7. Civil Applications Only

The project must have an exclusive focus on civil applications. Dual-use technologies are permitted (e.g., a sensor that could have military applications but is being developed for environmental monitoring), but purely military projects are excluded.

How Applications Are Evaluated

If you pass the eligibility check, your application enters a two-stage evaluation.

Stage 1: Remote Expert Evaluation

Three independent experts evaluate each application. Experts are matched based on technical expertise and cannot be from the same country as any consortium partner. Each must have at least 10 years of professional experience.

They score three criteria on a 1–6 scale (integers only):

Quality and Efficiency of Implementation (Q)

  • Quality of the consortium — complementary skills, relevant experience
  • Added value of international cooperation — why can't this be done domestically?
  • Realistic project management and planning
  • Reasonable cost structure

Impact (I)

  • Market size and opportunity
  • Market access strategy and risk assessment
  • Competitive advantage
  • Clear, realistic commercialisation plans
  • Economic, environmental, and societal impact

Excellence (E)

  • Degree of innovation — how novel is this?
  • New applied knowledge generated
  • Level of technical challenge
  • Technical achievability and risk management

Each expert gives one score per criterion. The three expert scores per criterion are averaged, and fractions ≥0.5 round up.

Minimum threshold: ≥3.6 average on every criterion. Score 3.5 on any one and you're out — even if your total is high.

All 9 individual scores (3 experts × 3 criteria) are summed for a total out of 54.

Stage 2: Independent Evaluation Panel

The top ~200 applications (by total score) advance to the Independent Evaluation Panel (IEP). This panel of 10–20 experts reviews all advancing applications, considering both the application itself and the remote expert assessments.

The panel groups applications on a 1–6 quality scale:

  • Group 6 (Excellent): Recommended for funding
  • Group 5 (Very Good): Recommended if national funding is available
  • Groups 1–4: Not recommended

A Group 5 or 6 recommendation doesn't guarantee funding — it depends on whether your national funding body has budget remaining and whether your costs qualify under their rules.

After Evaluation

  • Legal and financial viability check runs in parallel (end of April 2026)
  • All partners must pass this check
  • Results communicated by end of June 2026
  • National funding agreements typically 5–7 months after submission

National Funding: The Hidden Variable

This is the part most applicants underestimate. Eurostars evaluation is centralised, but funding is national. Each partner's national funding body determines:

  • Whether the organisation can receive funding at all
  • Which project activities and costs are eligible
  • The funding rate (percentage of eligible costs)
  • Maximum funding amount per partner or project

Two partners in the same consortium can have completely different funding conditions. A German SME might get 50% of eligible costs; a Finnish SME in the same project might get 70%.

Before you apply: contact your National Project Coordinator (NPC) to understand your country's specific rules. This is not optional — it's essential for realistic budgeting.

At least one partner in the consortium must receive public funding. Fully self-financed consortia are not allowed.

Application Structure

Applications are submitted in English via myeurekaproject.org. The key sections:

Section 1: Project Details — title, acronym, keywords, duration, budget

Section 2: Application Questions — the core of your proposal:

  1. Project idea and its innovation
  2. State of the art and your added value
  3. Development, prototype, and commercialisation plans
  4. Work packages, milestones, and expected results
  5. Impact potential and sustainable development goals
  6. Expected outcomes and lasting impact
  7. Ethics self-assessment
  8. Exploitation and IP management

Section 3: Organisation Information — each partner completes details about their organisation, SME status, and expected impact

Section 4: Declarations — commitment form, SME declaration, financial documents

Section 5: Work Packages — detailed breakdown with tasks, timelines, and resource allocation

Mandatory Annexes

  1. Signed commitment and signature form
  2. SME declaration (for each SME partner)
  3. Country-specific financial documents (varies by national funding body)

Optional Annexes

  • Technical annex (max 10 pages) — supporting technical detail
  • Gantt chart
  • Self-funding declaration (if applicable)

Timeline

Date Event
January 16, 2026 Call opened
March 5, 2026 Last date to engage consultants
March 19, 2026 Submission deadline (14:00 Brussels)
~March 26, 2026 Eligibility check complete
~End of April 2026 Remote expert evaluation + financial viability check
~Mid-June 2026 Independent Evaluation Panel + ethics review
~End of June 2026 Results communicated
~August–October 2026 National funding agreements

8 Tips for a Stronger Application

  1. Contact your NPC first. Every country has different funding rules. Know your maximum amount, funding rate, and eligible costs before you budget. Building a proposal on wrong assumptions wastes everyone's time.

  2. Make the international collaboration essential. Evaluators score "added value through cooperation." If your project could be done domestically by one partner, it will score poorly. Show why each partner's expertise and market access is necessary.

  3. Watch the 50% SME budget rule. Subcontracting is subtracted from your SME budget. If your SMEs rely heavily on subcontractors, this threshold becomes harder to hit. Run the calculation before finalising your budget.

  4. Lead with commercial viability. Eurostars is market-oriented. Evaluators want to see a clear market opportunity, competitive advantage, and realistic commercialisation timeline. A technically brilliant project with no market path scores poorly on Impact.

  5. Be specific about innovation. "We're developing an innovative solution" means nothing to evaluators with 10+ years of expertise. Articulate exactly what's new, what exists today, and why your approach is better. The Excellence criterion rewards genuine technical novelty.

  6. Build a balanced consortium. The 70% rule prevents one partner from dominating, but balance goes beyond budget. Show complementary expertise — one partner's technical capability plus another's market access is stronger than two partners doing the same thing.

  7. Budget realistically. "Reasonable cost structure" is an explicit evaluation sub-criterion. Inflated budgets get flagged. Person-month estimates should align with what's actually achievable.

  8. Submit before the deadline. The myeurekaproject.org portal can experience high traffic near the deadline. The cutoff is 14:00 Brussels time — not midnight. Don't risk a late submission.

Should You Apply?

Eurostars Call 10 is a strong fit if you:

  • Are an innovative SME with fewer than 250 employees
  • Have a partner in at least one other Eurostars country
  • Are developing a new product, process, or service (any sector)
  • Can demonstrate a clear path to market within 36 months
  • Your SME partners account for at least 50% of the project budget

It's not a fit if you're a large enterprise without an SME lead, your project is purely domestic, your technology is still at the basic research stage with no commercial path, or you can't identify a genuine need for international collaboration.

Preparing a Eurostars application? We help SMEs navigate the eligibility criteria, national funding rules, and evaluation process. Book a call or visit our Eurostars Call 10 grant page for details.