European Partnership on Innovative SMEs

The European Partnership on Innovative SMEs is co-funded by the European Union through Horizon Europe and 37 Eureka countries. It supports two funding programmes, Eurostars and Innowwide, and accompanying measures.

The partnership is for innovative SMEs: companies that don’t necessarily have a previous R&D track record but prove they can achieve excellent results.

37 Eureka countries and the European Commission have committed close to one billion euro.

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

Eurostars

Eurostars is a funding programme for helping innovative SMEs grow. We support SME-led international R&D projects whose results can be introduced into the market. Eurostars is one of only a few close-to-market collaborative R&D programmes that spotlight SMEs, but large companies, universities and research organisations can also participate and benefit from funding if there is national or regional support available.

Our Eurostars funding programme has a unique and extensive geographic scope for supporting innovators as they carry out R&D projects. The 37 countries participating in the partnership dedicate funding over several calls for projects between 2021 and 2027, leading to some important international R&D collaborations receiving funding.

Innowwide

Innowwide funds innovative SMEs to assess the viability of commercial or research ambitions for internationalisation in a target country. SMEs conduct feasibility studies for innovative solutions over a six-month period, working with local organisations. Innowwide supports one SME per project, but companies in target countries the SMEs choose to collaborate with can benefit indirectly as subcontractors.

Over several calls for projects between 2021 and 2027, 24 million euro is being dedicated to funding approximately 400 market feasibility projects (with 60,000 euro given per project) led by innovative SMEs from European Union Member States or Iceland, Israel, Norway, Türkiye or the United Kingdom wanting to explore international markets in Africa, the Americas, Asia or Oceania.

Accompanying measures for innovative SMEs

Startups and SMEs can benefit from our investment readiness programme, where they develop and enhance business relationships by participating in international missions and corporate activities.

Learn about Horizon IP Scan

Are you interested in benefiting from our Eurostars or Innowwide funding programmes?

Learn about Eurostars Learn about Innowwide