Learn how EU funding works and get answers to your most common questions. Everything you need to confidently use EUcalls and succeed in your project journey.
EU calls for proposals are open invitations for funding issued by the European Union. They are financial contributions aiming to strengthen and leverage actions or projects that support the EU policies in the most effective way. A call for proposals is developed based on a topic and under a financial frame to solve a problem and have an important positive impact on communities. Each call for proposals includes all the essential information for the submission. Everyone who is interested can submit a project proposal during the opening period of the call.
An EU project proposal is an in-depth plan of actions written by a consortium of EU partners and submitted for funding. A project proposal is based on an idea that is related to the project objective, leading to a path to solve the challenges posed under a European call for proposals and create a great impact. EU project proposals can only be submitted after the call’s publication.
The lifecycle of an EU project is separated into 4 different stages:
An EU Financial Framework, also known as Multiannual Financial Framework, is a seven-year-long programme regulating the annual budget by fixing a ceiling on payment and commitment appropriations. Each Financial Framework of the European Union aims to support specific policies and procedures for securing European safety, sustainability and growth.
The European Commission Authentication Service (ECAS) account is a necessary identification to access the IT tools of the project participant and officers portal and apply for a submitter ID.
A Participant Identification Code (PIC) is a 9-digit number that serves as a unique identifier for legal entities participating in European funding programmes. The validation of your PIC number is necessary only when your proposal or tenders are successfully evaluated. Moreover, a PIC number has no expiry date.
The Partner Identification Form (PIF) is a complete profile of your organization that it is mandatory in the project proposal submission. Include your full experience in the implementation of European projects, your past activities and scope of work as well as areas of specific expertise. The objective of the PIF is to act as an overview of potential project-level collaboration and to add more value to your organization’s profile.
An EU partnership, also known as a consortium, is an association of two or more individuals, organizations, companies, universities, public authorities or any combination of these entities that can be considered an EU public or private partner. EU partners share a common objective, participation in development and the implementation of one or more EU projects to achieve the expected objectives. Partners that participate in a consortium have to establish a regular collaboration working coherently on the projects’ programming process.
An EU project partner is a beneficiary for European funding opportunities. Project partners can come from different European countries or associated countries. They must be financially and operationally viable and qualified to implement the project’s tasks. A partner who wants to participate in EU-funded projects can collaborate with other suitable EU partners by creating a consortium and submit proposals for funding. The following groups can be EU project partners:
EU funding is the type of funding provided by the European Commission for a wide range of programmes and projects across different areas of interest, such as:
There are formal and strict rules to distribute European funding to ensure that money is adequately spent in a transparent manner. Everyone can apply for funding. SMEs, NGOs, society organizations, institutes, researchers, educators, rural business owners and youth are eligible for support through programmes funded under the financial frameworks.
There is a plethora of European funding opportunities for beneficiaries’ profiles. The following groups qualify to receive EU funding:
Within the framework of some European programmes, there are specific eligibility conditions for the participants’ profiles.
There are several available forms of EU funding for a wide range of programmes, including:
The strict rules for funding management ensure that there is a high-level control over the transparent spent of funds.
There are several steps you need to follow to receive EU funding for your project:
All types of project proposals must be submitted electronically using the Online Submission Service. Follow the next steps to complete successfully the project proposal submission process:
This feature allows you to create an idea or project concept note based on a specific call and initiate the dialogue and collaboration with your future consortium. Create your concept note in the best possible way to attract the interest of other partners. Invite those from your organization, network or the suggested profiles that you believe can meet the requirements of the call your idea and initiate the conversation.
You can view and filter by specific criteria all the available Ideas in the Idea Accelerator.
Yes, when you have identified the idea or consortium of your interest you can ask to join. The administrator or coordinator of the project will review your application and accept or reject it accordingly. Ensure you make a very targeted approach and always keep your profile up to date as your application will be reviewed based on your experience, expertise, and performance.
After you have shaped your team with the involved Partners you can initiate an asynchronous dialogue by posting your topics for discussion. Create memos for your ideas, discuss how you will proceed, even post links of the working documents for your proposal. Idea Accelerator helps you keep communication with your team in one place and make the remote collaboration easy.
There are 2 status types for ideas. You can keep an idea Draft, which means that it cannot be viewed by others, only by you at My Ideas/Drafts and those invited to participate. When your idea is Published it will be listed in the public directory of Ideas and other Partners can view it and judge if they can join or not. The Administrator can also Archive an idea, or complete Delete it. Both actions will remove the Idea from the directory. Another type of status is notifying other users of what you are looking for your idea. For example, you may be at the point of shaping a consortium so you are interested in attracting new partners. Flag your state with this status and notify other partners to offer you what you need.
You can manage the status of your idea at any time from the Settings, as long as you have the role of the administrator or coordinator. Change the state of the idea from Public to Draft and then it will be removed from the public directory. If a project has been complete or your concept note is obsolete you can always archive it by selecting Archive or completely Delete it. Be aware that Ideas that are Deleted cannot be retrieved.
Yes, even if you chose to Declare Interest and to skip the creation of an idea or want to add one more under the same call, select the Add idea from the right-side panel of the call.
