Conducting or participating in an international collaborative research project – Eureka

The types of eligible partners include:

• Businesses

The aid is granted in the form of a subsidy or a recoverable advance, with a financing rate ranging from 40% to 80% of the budget of each partner in Wallonia, depending on the type of partner and the qualification of the research.

Recoverable advances and subsidies are intended to cover all of the costs related to conducting the research.  They cover:

• staffing costs for researchers, technicians, administrators and managers;
• operating costs;
• general costs;
• cost of equipment used;
• subcontracting costs.

The agreement will last for a maximum of three years.

There is no call for this programme. An application may be submitted at any time (open call).

Preferably, an information meeting will be organised between the Walloon partners in the project and the representatives responsible for the programme within FPS Research prior to the submission of any proposal.

Projects are submitted via the ONTIME platform at the same time as they are submitted via the Eureka initiative’s platform.

Target audience – Eligibility criteria

A proposal is eligible if the following elements are all answered in the affirmative:

• The project aims to develop a new product, process or service for exclusively civilian purposes.
• The partnership must be formed by at least two independent organisations from two different Eureka member states and the research budget for the partners for a given country may not exceed 70% of the total budget for the project.
• In addition to submitting the project to the Eureka initiative, applicants must submit an application for funding with FPS Research via the ONTIME portal, under penalty of being deemed ineligible.  This application must be drafted in French.
• Walloon industrial partners must be in good financial standing. At the time of submitting the application, the companies cannot be experiencing difficulties, in accordance with the guidelines from the European Union concerning State aid and the rescue and restructuring of companies in difficulty.
• Walloon participants must have a business unit in Wallonia.
• The project cannot have already received public funding.
• A project cannot last for more than three years.

       Assessment criteria and project selection

       The assessment and selection procedure for projects comprises several stages:

• Stage 1: The proposal will be evaluated based on three criteria (quality of the proposal, technological quality and promotion) by an expert from FPS Research and, potentially, independent experts.
• Stage 2: The selected proposal will be sent to the Minister for Research
• Stage 3: Eureka will certify the project after receiving the agreement from other funding member states.
• Stage 4: The relevant project leaders will be notified of the proposals selected for funding.