Financial Support to Third Parties: An Introduction

Among the many calls for European funding that you can find on EUcalls smart platform, users can also find Financial Support to Third Parties calls to apply to receive funding for their businesses. Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) is a funding mechanism created by the European Commission to fund start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs and mid-caps to uptake or develop digital innovations.

Financial support to third parties also goes by Cascade Funding that the European Commission first introduced in Horizon 2020, now Horizon Europe, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation in the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework (MFF).

But how does the financial support to third parties work, and how can businesses take advantage of these vital cascade funding opportunities?

How the Financial Support to Third Parties Works

As cascade funding falls under the umbrella of Horizon Europe, it supports technology and European innovation and is specifically targeting businesses with the capacity to produce innovation outputs. These outputs will come to support the general missions defined by Horizon Europe in areas such as:

Whether you are a startupper or a small business owner, the financial support to third parties constitutes an alternative way to acquire funding for your business. However, you should be aware that cascade funding is not your typical funding opportunity. The financial support to third parties is not necessarily given in cash as most businesses would want. Still, instead, the funding can take the form of vouchers for support services or providing access and support to SMEs to use testing facilities.

Applying to European calls under the Horizon 2020 is a cumbersome task requiring resources that not all business can afford to devote to, as a successful result is not guaranteed. However, SMEs and startups should not be intimidated as cascade funding provides alternative ways to access financing. The way the financial support to third parties works is that small businesses and startups can also apply to secondary calls from an already implementing one.

There are many Horizon 2020 funded projects that, under specific topics, that grant a budget to project implementing consortia to open secondary calls to provide financial support to beneficiaries such as SMEs, startups, scaleups and mid-cap companies that meet the set criteria.

Find Cascade Funding Opportunities on EUcalls Platform

If you are an innovative business interested in European funding opportunities, you should be looking for European calls to third parties. At EUcalls, we have gathered all the available calls for European Funding in one place where users can filter them out to find the eu calls that best match their profile or choose from the proposed calls for funding proposed by EUcalls based on their characteristics.

Join the smart platform of EUcalls and find all the exciting opportunities for European funding that await you to discover.