Last Call for the European Research Programme FP7

FP7 Cooperation is a European funding and support scheme and is part of the European funding programme “Framework Programme 7”. It supports cooperative R&D projects. The typical size of a consortium is 5-7 partners for small to medium-sized projects and 15-20 partners for a large-scale integrated project. The partners have to be from three different countries at least.

FP7 is very attractive for Start-ups. The programme is funding not only the project costs of the research partners but also of industry partners. SME receive 75% of research and development costs plus a contribution towards overheads. Start-ups also profit from the creation of an international network which includes research organisations as well as large companies.

In addition 15% of the budget of FP7 is reserved for SME. This is an ambitious goal which had not been reached yet. Therefore project groups with start-ups have a better chance to get funded.

There is one call per year. In July the last call of FP7 with a total budget of EUR 10bn will be published. Start-ups can get more information about the call, about open topics and about the application process already from the team of Euresearch. On their website Euresearch had also published a guide for SME, success stories of start-ups that took part in European research projects like Pike Pharma and a video about the experiences of Cadcamation, a start-up from Geneva.