Joint R&D Track
One project, two countries, one application.
Too big for an open call, too early for a €5-30M round, and not yours alone. A different kind of European money, with its own rules.
Written verdict in 5 working days. No calls, no obligation.
One story, several budgets.
Joint transnational programmes fund one R&D project carried out by partners in different countries. You submit a single application, but the money arrives separately: each partner is paid by their own national agency, under their own national rules, at their own national percentage.
Eurostars is the main programme. It runs two cut-offs a year and funds projects with an average total budget of around €1.5 million. It is also busy: call 10 drew 687 applications, which is why eligibility is checked before anything is scored.
Primary
Eurostars
SME-led collaborative R&D. Any technology, any market, civil purpose only.
Adjacent
EIC Transition & Pre-Accelerator
Two narrower routes in the same size class, each with a hard entry condition.
It starts with a free written report.
A Joint Report checks two things: whether the programme fits your project, and whether your consortium holds up against its seven eligibility criteria. Failing any one of them ends an application regardless of how good the science is, so it is worth knowing before you start.
You have it within five working days of a complete written intake. A Joint Report is allowed to conclude “not yet”, and when it does it says exactly what would need to change.
Award decisions rest solely with the funding bodies. We never guarantee outcomes, and neither should anyone else.
The seven criteria we check
- An SME from a Eurostars country leads the consortium
- At least two entities, independent of one another
- Two Eurostars countries, one of them EU or Horizon-associated
- SMEs carry at least 50% of the project cost
- No participant or country above 70% of the budget
- Duration of 36 months or less
- Exclusively civilian purpose
Plus two that are not on the official list but are just as fatal: at least one participant must actually receive public funding, and every partner needs a PIC number before anything can be submitted.
The document is the product.
We write the application. Your technology, your market case, your consortium’s logic, set out as one project and mapped to the programme’s own evaluation criteria. That includes the part most applications get wrong: a budget that is internally consistent across partners while satisfying each country’s separate funding rules.
It is a substantial document. The Eurostars form asks twelve assessed questions, three summary questions and nine further questions about every consortium member, plus work packages and a cost table. Written out in full that is well over ten thousand words, in English, all of it consistent with itself.
We also tell you when not to apply. If your partner is not committed, or your project is a bilateral supply arrangement rather than joint R&D, the honest answer is that this route will not reward the effort.
One requirement, stated up front
For Eurostars, you bring the partner. It needs at least two independent organisations from two Eurostars countries, and we do not broker consortia or introduce you to companies we have not worked with. It is the one thing we cannot write for you.
That is not true of the whole route. EIC Transition and the Pre-Accelerator accept single applicants, so a company without a foreign partner is not automatically out — it just means Eurostars is not the instrument. Working out which of the three fits is exactly what the free Joint Report does.
Two details that catch people out. The leading SME does not need a track record in R&D, so a first-time applicant is not disadvantaged. But a consortium in which everyone self-finances cannot be approved.
Start free. Commit one step at a time.
Free
Joint Report — your eligibility against the seven criteria and a verdict on the route, in writing, in 5 working days.
€475 per partner
Joint Application Plan — before you commit to the application: the consortium outline, each partner’s role and budget frame, the national funding rules per country and our candid read of your chances, within 5 working days. €950 in total for two partners, invoiced to one partner, excluding VAT; each partner above two adds €475. Deducted in full if you continue within 30 days, and yours to keep if you don’t.
Then the Joint Application: the complete application written, the multi-partner budget built, and the submission prepared for your consortium to file. €4,975 per partner in a two-partner consortium, €9,950 in total, excluding VAT, with the Plan already included. Every partner above two adds €2,500, because each one means an extra budget, an extra work package and an extra alignment round, so three partners come to €12,450, or €4,150 each.
No success fee and no percentage of your grant. Eurostars runs two cut-offs a year. Call 11 closed on 10 September 2026; the next one is Call 12, which opens 17 December 2026 and closes 4 March 2027 at 14:00 CET. A joint application is realistically eight weeks of work, so the consortium wants to be settled well before that date.
Half on signing, half once the finished application is ready for you to file. Nothing is invoiced afterwards against money you have not received yet.
Applications are submitted on the Eureka Project Management Platform by the consortium itself and cannot be modified afterwards. We prepare everything and hand it over, with a final check before you press send.
Sources: Eurostars application form v2.3 (June 2026) and Eurostars eligibility guidelines v5.3 (June 2026), both published by the Eureka Network; EIC Work Programme 2026. Eurostars is part of the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs, co-funded by the European Union through Horizon Europe. Eucade is not affiliated with Eureka or the European Commission.