Lead or Participate in an International Research Project - Eureka - Multilateral Biotech Call

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Summary

The intergovernmental Eureka Initiative, created in 1985, brings together nearly 50 members. Its goal is to boost European competitiveness by supporting companies that implement international projects for developing innovative products, processes, or services.

Participating countries in this call include South Africa, Germany, Austria, Belgium (Wallonia and Flanders), Canada, Chile, South Korea, Spain, Estonia, France, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. Your R&D project must include at least two organisations based in at least two of the countries.

Project proposals with clearly defined innovative content and an implementation plan in biotechnological fields such as medicine, bioinformatics, pharmaceutical products and services, life sciences, digitization, or (bio)process technology (non-exhaustive list) are welcome. Companies are invited to establish international R&D collaborations with partners from participating countries to address challenges in this field. The detailed list of areas of interest and topics is in the call for proposals document.

This call uses Eureka's funding mechanisms; it is a simple way to access public funding and explore major and/or emerging markets worldwide.

Timeline:

Call opening: 6 May 2026
Online application deadline: 25 September 2026
Feedback on project applications: 15 December 2026
Decision on national/regional funding and Eureka label: First quarter 2027

Key points

Applicants must submit the project to the Eureka initiative and also apply for funding via the SPW Research portal ONTIME under penalty of being deemed ineligible. This application must be in French.

Walloon participants are strongly encouraged to contact SPW Research as early as possible before submitting their proposal.

In detail

Target audience - details

Eligible partner types are companies.

Benefits

Aid is granted as a subsidy at 40-80% of each Walloon partner's budget, based on company size and research qualification (industrial research or experimental development).

Subsidies cover all research-related costs :

personnel (researchers, technicians, administrators/managers),
operating expenses,
overheads,
equipment,
subcontracting.

Convention duration up to 3 years maximum.

Procedure

Preferably, an information meeting between Walloon project partners and SPW Research program agents is organized before submission.

Important : Applications must be submitted on both the Eureka Smart Simple platform and the ONTIME platform (SPW Research) by the deadline.

Conditions

A proposal is eligible if all the following are positive :

The research budget of partners from any one country cannot exceed 70% of the total project budget.
The product or process must be innovative, with real technological risk for each partner.
The project must benefit all partners.
The project must show clear benefits and added values from technological cooperation between participants from different countries.
The product or process must be innovative and have potential impact.
A consortium agreement must be signed before project start.
Walloon industrial partner(s) must have a sound financial situation.
Walloon participants must have an operational headquarters in Wallonia.
The project must not have received prior public funding.
Subcontracted research activities to approved research centers, university research units, and high school research units and associated research centers, cannot exceed 20% of the total research budget of Walloon partners.
Project duration cannot exceed 3 years.

Evaluation and Selection

The evaluation and selection process includes :

Step 1 : For Walloon partners, evaluation on three criteria (proposal quality, technological quality, valorisation) by SPW Research experts and possibly independent experts. Foreign partners evaluated by their funding bodies.
Step 2 : Multilateral consensus meeting among funding bodies to select projects based on evaluator scores.
Step 3 : Selection proposal sent to the Minister in charge of Research.
Step 4 : After agreement from other funding countries, Eureka labels the project.
Step 5 : Selected proposals notified to project leaders.

Evaluation criteria :