A little book about EU funding for clusters Your way to the euros
Dear cluster You might have heard stories of 80 billion euro of EU funding being handed out. You might have thought: is there funding for my cluster? The answer is both maybe and probably Maybe, because EU funding doesn t cover everything and probably, because EU funding does cover a lot of things from cluster excellence to internationalisation to enhancing innovation and cluster facilitated value chains to internationalisation, and enhancing innovation and cluster-facilitated value chains However, "probably" doesn't necessarily mean that it is worth your while to pursue it. Funding is difficult to obtain 2
It demands great ideas, a strong team of partners, an excellent proposal, hard work and a long wait from submitting your proposal to project start The following short guide gives an overview of some of the opportunities, the things to consider and where to get help for increasing your chances of success 3
What is European funding? EU funding is society investing in good ideas and in innovation, in solving problems and challenges, creating jobs and growth, and making the EU more competitive in the global marketplace. There are different funding schemes managed by different organisations providing funding for different types of projects Is EU funding bureaucratic & full of red-tape? To some degree yes. It has improved but there are still too many forms to be filled out, still too many three-letter abbreviations, still too long time from submitting a proposal to getting an answer 4
However! It is our taxpayer money that is being handed out. So it should be given and administered in a responsible, safe and transparent way while also being accessible to clusters and companies in all EU countries. This unfortunately results in some bureaucracy and inflexibility 5
What do you get? Exposure being highlighted internationally as a cluster that has managed to receive funding International network Hopefully good results and innovations that you can build your cluster on in the years to come Administrative burdens (the good news when you ve first entered the system it becomes much easier the second time around ) 6
What does the EU provide funding for? Euros for ground breaking research. Lots of our EU tax money goes to universities and research institutions Euros for innovation & value chain development. Where it becomes more interesting for clusters and companies Euros earmarked your cluster members the small and medium sized companies (SMEs) Euros for excellent and professional cluster management Euros for internationalisation of the cluster and your members Euros for competence development and employment 7
The different funding programmes With 80 billion euro being handed out, there has to be some form of structure. This is done via various programmes through which the funds are funnelled out via call for proposals. The different programmes cover research, innovation, product development, test and maturing products for the market and others focused e.g. on social issues, on increasing the mobility of the work force in EU, on education, on... In the following we present a handpicked number of the programmes and calls most relevant for clusters. This is not a full list but it includes the most relevant (and popular) funding opportunities 8
Horizon2020 Aka H2020. EU s programme for research and innovation. With a budget of roughly 80 billion euro, H2020 is where the most money is. However, lots of the euros are earmarked for research projects and research institutions You need to match a specific call and most proposals need to involve partners from three different European countries Most proposals need to involve academia. However, H2020 funds projects much closer to the market than earlier European research and innovation programmes. Around 25% of the organisations receiving funds in H2020 are SMEs! https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/ desktop/en/opportunities/h2020 9
HORIZON2020: Innosup Cluster facilitated projects for new industrial value chains Innosup Cluster facilitated projects is, as the name suggest, targeting clusters as drivers of value chains. The idea is to develop new cross-sectoral industrial value chains across the EU, by building upon the innovation potential of SMEs Deadline for applications: Once a year Budget: 18,500,000 per year. Requested EU contribution per project: Between 2.5 5 million Euro 10
At least 75% of the total proposed budget shall be allocated to support innovation in SMEs directly (e.g. as innovation vouchers) Proposal: phase 1 = 10 pages; phase 2 = 30 pages HORIZON2020 11
COSME Competitiveness of Enterprises and SMEs COSME is the EU s programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and SMEs, running from 2014 to 2020, with a budget of 2.3 billion COSME offers a range of miscellaneous funding from access to finance, tourism and entrepreneurship, to clusters. COSME offers various kind of funding opportunities dedicated to clusters COSME - Cluster Go International supports clusters building up strategic partnerships for internationalisation 12
Remember that when EU says international it means towards third countries beyond Europe COSME - Clusters Excellence Programme Here the aim is to strengthen cluster management, to provide more professional business services to European SMEs and, as a result, to contribute to the development of more world-class clusters in the EU Read more about cosme here: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/cosme 13
Interreg European Territorial Cooperation (ETC), better known as Interreg, provides a framework for the implementation of joint actions and policy exchanges between national, regional and local actors in Europe Interreg is built around three strands of cooperation: 1) Cross-border (Interreg A) 2) Transnational (Interreg B) and 3) Interregional (Interreg C) Five programming periods of Interreg have succeeded each other from 1990 onwards 14
The current fifth programming period of Interreg has a budget of 10.1 billion euro invested in over 100 cooperation programmes between regions and territorial, social and economic partners Many clusters have over the years applied and got funding from Interreg for projects such as innovation, competitiveness of SMEs and employment and mobility Topics and funding opportunities vary from region and programme. However, for clusters it is typically 50-75% Read more here: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/cooperation/ european-territorial/ 15
The European Regional Development and Social Fund The European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund: These plan to invest more than 80 billion euro during 2014-2020 The money is aimed at innovation, entrepreneurship, green transition, education and job creation Several clusters have successfully found funding for regional projects here Be aware that the funds are infamous for their administrative burdens; however measures have been made to decrease it THE EUROPEAN UNION The European Regional Development Fund Investing in your future THE EUROPEAN UNION The European Social Fund Investing in your future 16
Things to consider Does your cluster need money? Maybe you should consider other sources first (e.g private funding, regional grants etc.) Does the EU-project fit into your overall cluster strategy and internationalisation strategy? Project results tends to be better when aligned with the strategies Who benefits from the EU-project? The cluster management or the members (and which members)? One doesn't necessarily exclude the other, but do think about it 17
Do you have a great idea for an innovation? Does it match a funding programme? Do you have the time and resources to commit to making an application and waiting for a hopefully positive answer? Don t do it if you don t mean it! 18
Things to consider part II Do you know the success rate of the call? In some international calls, the chance of success is as low as 6 % Where do you get the co-financing? The funding from EU is for gearing investments and often you have to co-finance 30-50 % Your solution should address a European problem not a national one Ask yourself - what do we want on the market in three to five years time? 19
Do the chances of success and the potential gains match the resources you need to invest to get there? Do you have a backup plan if your proposal fails? (e.g. can you apply again, apply a different funding programme etc.) Have you checked what help there is for putting a proposal together? Have you considered hiring professional help to increase your chances of success? Have you checked EUopSTART? There might be a possibility of applying for 50.000 DKK for making your proposal 20
The timeline Idea! Matching idea to topic Gathering the right partners Developing your proposal Waiting for an answer... 1 month 1-6 months 1-6 months 3-6 months Negotiating a contract with the EU Project & funding New sustainable cluster services 3-6 months 1-3 years 1-2 years 21
Do you have the right idea? You need to match the topic and call for proposal. Every aspect of it. If you don t address all the points you won t get the money Go through the call text word by word and consider how you will be addressing the different items. Consider the why why has this word been used, what is the purpose and thinking behind this part. Some topics are very broad and easy to match while others are very specific often the broader the more competition, so you might have a better chance if your project fits a more specific topic 22
Do you have the right partners for the job does the consortium and the idea match the call text? Discuss your project idea with project partners, university contacts, cluster participants, Eurocenter, your regional EU Office etc. Get feedback e.g. from Eurocenter, Enterprise Europe Network or your regional EU office (contact info in the back) 23
Getting the right group for the right job In many proposals you need partners from other EU countries. It can be other clusters, SMEs, large companies, universities, research institutions, other type of organisations. Depends on what fits the specific call & what fits your project idea The partner group or consortium should complement each other. All with a clearly defined role and value from the project. One way to look at it is: do the partners represent a clear value chain from technology to market access? 24
Counter your weak parts. E.g. if you are a very small and new cluster it might be good to cooperate with a larger cluster that has a track record and necessary documentation of resources and in-house competences It s a team effort consortia should be well balanced in terms of tasks, budget etc. Don t know the right partners? Enterprise Europe Network can help in finding one (more on this in the back) 25
The good proposal Has been read through by others before you send it in Captures the reader from the very start. The first half page shows your selling points and the why, the what & the logic behind why you are doing this. The rest of the application supports this Is similar to asking an investor for money. You need to describe the international market potential and the business plan 26
Is ambitious and innovative. Has a good description of goals, milestones and deliveries. Is clear and easy to understand Is written so it can be read by a generalist rather than a technician. It should be easy for an evaluator to find the right information related to the call 27
The good proposal part II Contains all the right things. Addresses all the things in the call for proposals Describes the innovation and how it will be unique compared to current solutions in the market. Describes the competencies and the balance in the partner group Has a good description of goals, milestones and deliveries throughout the project 28
Describes the international market potential and the business plan for realising the potential?$????? Sticks to the standard structure and doesn t include a lot of links. Don t expect the evaluators to be check ing links. They relate to what your proposal says. Not what is outside the application form 29
Questions to be answered in a proposal Why are you doing this? What difference will it make in Europe, in society, for users, for the members of your consortium, for? What are your goals & how will you know that you ve reached those goals? How will you communicate it? What are the risks? And how will you address them? How will you collaborate and make decisions in the consortium? What happens if you disagree? 30
How will you protect your results? How will you protect and share intellectual property rights in the consortium? What is the market potential? What steps will you take to get your innovations on to different markets? Who will take them to the market? What target groups are you aiming for with your innovation? Who has the demand for your innovation? Will you involve them in the development of your solutions? 31
Part A & Part B Most H2020 proposals uses the same standard proposal format: Part A & Part B Part A: information on project participants, budget and ethics Part B: The actual proposal. Often 30+ pages of text and tables. Consists mainly of three parts: Excellence, Impact and Implementation 32
Excellence, Impact & Implementation Excellence : what you want to do and why this is new and unique. What are your objectives and how will you do it? What risks and how will you handle this? The pitch of your idea and innovation Impact : what difference your results will have e.g. economic, social, technical. What groups do the results create value for and how will you reach the target groups? The description of what short-, mid-, long-term difference the results have. Quantifies and qualifies market and user needs. The pitch of your business case 33
Implementation : how you manage the project and partners. How to handle disagreements, who decides what and how do you make decisions? What managerial skills does the coordinator have? The pitch of the team Pitch of your business case. What value will the project results have? Pitching the team & the plan for getting results. Why are you the right group for the task and how will you do it? IMPLEMEN- TATION IMPACT EXCELLENCE Sweet spot Pitch of your idea & innovation. What is the project aims? 34
Pitfalls Starting too late Too much focus on the project and innovation and not on the market possibility Too vague description of the partners behind the proposal why are you the best group for doing this? Not addressing everything in the call-text No uniqueness / not enough innovation Writing everything yourself without involving partners. Can make for a good proposal. But often a bad project 35
Remember If you don t get the funding, the time s not necessarily wasted. You can often reapply or use the text in other proposals There s lots of help to be had. Look at www.eusupport.dk or your local Enterprise Europe Network Office. Free of charge Every Danish region has a Brussels-based EU office. They are there to help you get started and to increase your chances. Free of charge Check out European Cluster Collaboration Platform for news on cluster-related calls and topics: www.clustercollaboration.eu Don t do it half-hearted 36
Words to know PIC, TRL, WPs, SME, FTE the funding circus is full of three letter abbreviations and EU lingo. Here s a short overview of some of the most used: 37
PIC: Participant Identification Code. A 9-digit unique number identifying your organisation. If your organisation does not have one you can apply for it easily online DoW: Description of Work. Describes what you want to do in the project i.e. work packages, deliverables, milestones etc. Used both when applying for funds and when negotiating the contract DoA: Description of Action. Kinda the same as DoW. But used in the contract negotiation with the EU (after a positive evaluation) SoA: State of Art. What s the status of development on the area you are focusing on?. How does what you want to do go beyond SoA? (i.e. what s the new thing and in what way is it new?) 38
Words to know part II LSIGN: Legal Signatories. The person who can sign documents electronically (or by hand). Someone with the mandate to do so. E.g. the CEO PLSGN: Project Legal Signatories. Person that can sign documents related to the project. May or may not be the organisation LSIGN SME: Small and medium sized companies. Less than 250 fulltime employees. And either less than 50M turnover or less than 43M balance sheet total. Also if you are owned by more than 25% by other companies this can affect the calculation. If you are the least in doubt check the rules 39
ECAS: European Commission Authentication Service. Your account and login for getting access to the Participant Portal, which contains all information related to your application or project ECEI: To create more world-class clusters across the EU by strengthening cluster excellence, the Commission launched the European Cluster Excellence Initiative (ECEI). ECEI promotes cluster management excellence through benchmarking and quality labelling (Gold, Silver and Bronze) of clusters and cluster management organisations. Some EU calls require clusters to possess a ECEI-label WPs: Work Packages. How your project is organised. E.g. you might have a WP on project management, on developing X and Y and so on. WPs also contains milestones and deliverables (the concrete results of the work in a WP) 40
Words to know part III TRL: Technology Readiness Level. Nine levels for estimating technology maturity and used for screening projects i.e. sometimes your innovation have to be a certain TRL level for matching a call. The different TRL are well described on the English Wikipedia page CSA: Stands for Coordination and Support Actions. H2020 Projects that promote sharing of knowledge and experience. Funding covers the coordination and networking of research and innovation projects, programmes and policies. Funding for research and innovation is covered elsewhere. Innosup projects are often CSAs. 41
LEAR: Legal Entity Appointed Representative. A person who manages the legal and financial information of the organisation. Often an administrative staff member FP7: The 7th frame Work Programme. Before FP7 there were FP6, FP5 etc. Horizon2020 is basically FP8 with a new name H2020: Horizon2020. The framework programme for a lot of the calls. The largest research and innovation programme with over 80 billion funding FTE: Full-time equivalent. Used when calculating fulltime personnel costs. Two half-time employees = one FTE 42
CONTACT US The regional EU offices Capital Region: www.cphoffice.eu North Denmark: www.eu-norddanmark.dk South Denmark: www.southdenmark.be Central Denmark: www.centraldenmark.eu Zealand Denmark: www.zealanddenmark.eu Skåne European Office: www.skane.eu or if you are situated in Zealand you should also try Capnova www.capnova.dk You can also take a look on EU-DK support: www.eusupport.dk and find a local Danish advisor, or find video tutorials on how to register and apply for funding 43
CONTACT US Enterprise Europe Network EEN stands for Enterprise Europe Network. It is there to help SMEs to make the most of their business opportunities in the EU, including through innovation, research or technology transfer. Your local Enterprise Europe Network can: Provide information on EU programmes and actions, including on Horizon 2020 and notably the SME Instrument Help you to find international partners for your proposal Help you to find EU-projects in the making that you might join as a partner 44
Help you in finding international, qualified suppliers and producers (and distributors, agents) Find your local representative on the Enterprise Europe Network website: http://een.ec.europa.eu/ 45
CONTACT US Cluster Excellence Denmark Is the national support function for clusters and innovative networks in Denmark Their objective is to develop and provide a number of services for clusters and innovative networks in order to ensure optimum working conditions: Professionalisation of clusters by developing and collecting tools Competence development of clusters Strategic Internationalisation of clusters Read more on: www.clusterexcellencedenmark.dk 46
Notes 47
This is a very quick guide... providing an overview of EU funding for clusters and SME networks We've made this guide to provide some information about EU funding and some of the questions you might have. We ve also collected some of our tips and advices on how to get the Euros. We ve made it in a format that you can put in your pocket and share with your team. Get the online version here: www.vhhr.dk/a-little-book-about-eu-funding #alittlebookabouteufunding