ECDI — Dual-Use Drones Innovative Programme
Free to start. We confirm your fit and quote a fixed price before you commit to anything.
ECDI
Free ECDI intakeECDI (European Cluster for Drone Innovation, a Eurocluster under the EU Single Market Programme) funds drone-manufacturing SMEs that already belong to the dual-use market. Selected SMEs implement a 6-month Innovation Plan that advances one drone product by at least one TRL, supported by mentoring and free consortium services — from certification and TRL validation to investment readiness.
- Funding
- Up to €35,000 equity-free per SME, covering a maximum of 80% of the Innovation Plan budget. Minimum 20% private co-financing (own funds or guaranteed external financing — €8,750 at full grant); in-kind contributions do not qualify. Payment: 40% pre-financing, 30% mid-term, 30% final.
- Who can apply
- Manufacturing SMEs in the drone sector with at least one drone product at TRL 6 or higher, established in an EU Member State or COSME country, and already active in the dual-use market (proof required). Software-only companies, drone service providers and consultancies are not eligible.
- Programme
- Run by four aerospace clusters (Aerospace Valley FR, Andalucía Aerospace ES, Silesian Aviation Cluster PL, OIKK UA). Around 10 SMEs will be selected. Deadline: 30 September 2026, 17:00 CEST.
- Geography
- The consortium aims for at least 10% of selected SMEs outside France, Spain, Poland and Ukraine. Location is the fourth tie-break, applied only when total score, feasibility sub-score and impact sub-score are all equal — a real but narrow advantage for Dutch and other non-consortium applicants.
- Deadline
- 30 Sept 2026— 36 days remaining
- Max grant
- €35,000
- Official source
- https://ecdi-euroclusters.eu/ ↗
Is this the right call for you? 6 conditions decide it
- 01Your company does not develop and manufacture a tangible drone product, component, subsystem or infrastructure. Software-only and SaaS providers, drone-service and drone-operator companies, data or AI companies without proprietary drone hardware, consultancies and training providers, and resellers of third-party drone hardware are all excluded by name.
- 02Your leading drone product is below TRL 6 at the time of application, or you cannot document it. The TRL evidence annex is mandatory: flight-test reports, demonstration videos, pilot-customer reports, certification documents, deployment records or independent validation.
- 03You cannot document that your company already belongs to the dual-use market. The guide accepts a regulatory compliance statement, a declaration of conformity with EU Regulation 2021/821, or a letter of interest from a Military Unit, Ministry of Interior or Ministry of Defence in an EU Member State or COSME Strand country.
- 04You cannot evidence 20% private co-financing of the Innovation Plan budget, from own funds or guaranteed external financing. Planned or future fundraising without a formal commitment does not count, and neither do in-kind or personnel contributions.
- 05You are still running the earlier Civil Drones Innovative Programme. That excludes you outright, and even after completing it successfully you are capped at €60,000 in total ECDI grants across both calls.
- 06You, a linked company, or any individual member of your proposal team appears on more than one application. The Declaration of Honour excludes all associated proposals automatically.
Not a match on one of these? Then this call is not the one, which says nothing about the next. Calls open continuously: the free Match Report tells you which call does fit, or tells you plainly that none of them do, and our weekly digest tells you when a call you can enter opens.
What counts as already being active in the dual-use market?
You have to document that your company already belongs to the dual-use market, not that your product could in principle be adapted for defence use. The guide accepts three kinds of proof: a regulatory compliance statement, a declaration of conformity with the EU Dual-Use Regulation 2021/821, or a letter of interest from a Military Unit, Ministry of Interior or Ministry of Defence in an EU Member State or a COSME Strand country. Applications that are not from the dual-use market, or that fail to supply this proof, are listed as not eligible. If you cannot produce one of those three documents today, you are not ready to apply.
Can a software company, a drone-service provider or a consultancy apply?
No. The guide excludes by name software-only companies including SaaS, drone-service and drone-operator businesses, data and AI companies without a proprietary drone hardware product, consultancy, engineering and training providers, and companies whose offer is built exclusively on third-party drone hardware. Eligibility is reserved for manufacturing SMEs that develop and manufacture a tangible drone product, component, subsystem or infrastructure. A service layered on someone else’s drone does not qualify, however strong the dual-use positioning.
How much of your own money do you have to bring?
At least 20% of the total Innovation Plan budget, from private financial sources: your own funds, or guaranteed external financing such as a signed loan or investment agreement. At the full €35,000 grant your plan has to total at least €43,750, so €8,750 comes from you. In-kind contributions, personnel costs and non-monetary contributions do not count, and planned or future fundraising without a formal commitment is explicitly insufficient. Payment runs 40% on signature, 30% after the mid-term report and 30% after the final report, so you carry part of the work before the balance arrives.
What does the geographic tie-break mean for a Dutch applicant?
The four running clusters are in France, Spain, Poland and Ukraine, and the consortium aims for at least 10% of the roughly ten selected SMEs to come from outside those countries. In the ranking rules, applicants outside the consortium countries get priority only at the fourth tie-break: first total score decides, then the feasibility sub-score, then the impact sub-score, and only if all three are equal does location come into it. It is a real advantage but a narrow one. Treat it as a tie-breaker, not as a scoring bonus.
What does advancing one TRL level in six months actually require?
Your leading drone product has to sit at TRL 6 or higher when you apply, and you commit to moving it at least one full level during the six-month programme, for example from demonstration in a relevant environment to prototype demonstration in an operational environment. Both the starting level and the target need documentary evidence through the mandatory TRL evidence annex. Progress is tracked through mentoring and assessed in the mid-term report at the end of month 4 and the final report at the end of month 7.
What score do you need, and where are the points actually awarded?
You need at least 50 of 100 overall and you must clear a floor on each of the three criteria: 15 of 30 on Excellence and Innovation, 20 of 40 on Quality and Implementation, and 15 of 30 on Impact. The largest single block is Quality and Implementation, and within it the two heaviest items are feasibility of activities, budget and timeline (15 points) and your capacity to execute including risks and mitigation (15 points). In other words the plan carries more weight than the invention: the degree of innovation itself is worth 10 points of 100. One procedural detail worth knowing — if the two evaluators differ by more than 20 points a third is brought in, and there may be a clarification phase where a late reply lowers your score.
Which costs are eligible, and is there a cap on travel?
Eligible costs are external services and procurement such as testing, certification and specialist technical services; equipment, components and consumables; personnel costs of staff directly on the project; prototype development, pilot testing and validation. Travel is eligible only when it is directly linked to approved internationalisation activities, and it is capped at €5,000 per SME — it has to be justified in the application itself and validated by the consortium during selection, so it is not something you can decide on later. One exclusion that catches people: an SME currently running in the Civil Drones Innovative Programme cannot apply to this one. An SME that completed that programme successfully can.
Verified against ECDI_Guideforapplicants_Dual-use-Innovative-Programme.pdf — June 2026. Official source: https://ecdi-euroclusters.eu/ ↗
Every question in our readiness intake below maps to a field or eligibility rule of the official application form, so nothing you fill in is wasted. Start there — we come back within 2 working days with an honest eligibility and fit assessment.
- Why applications fail before the technology is read
Two administrative things decide a cascade application before its technical merit is weighed. Both are inside your control.
Ready for ECDI? Starting is free.
One structured intake, specific to this call. We confirm your fit, quote a fixed price, and only then decide together whether we write your ECDI application. No obligation, no sales call.
Prefer your own language? Start the intake in Dutch, French, German, Spanish or Portuguese — we assess in your language and write the application in English.
The calls worth knowing about, once a week.
Cascade calls are not published in one place. Each consortium announces on its own project website, and aggregators run weeks behind. We monitor the sources directly and send what we find, with our own reading of who it actually fits. No pitch, and one reply takes you off the list, the same day.