The European Union (EU)

Below is an overview of the funding available through the European Union. For more detailed information, see the ICT funding page of the EU website.

Types of grant(s):

Collaborative project grants: flexible grants for research projects carried out by consortia with participants from different countries, aiming at developing new knowledge, new technology, products, demonstration activities or common resources for research;
Networks of Excellence: Support for a Joint Programme of Activities implemented by a number of research organisations integrating their activities in a given field, carried out by research teams in the framework of longer term cooperation;
Coordination and support actions: Support for activities aimed at coordinating or supporting research activities and policies (networking, exchanges, trans-national access to research infrastructures, studies, conferences, etc);
Individual projects: Support for “frontier” research: Support for projects carried out by individual national or transnational research teams. Used to support investigator-driven "frontier" research projects funded in the framework of the European Research Council;
Support for training and career development of researchers: Support for training and career development of researchers, mainly to be used for the implementation of Marie Curie actions;
Research for the benefit of specific groups (in particular SMEs): support for research projects where the bulk of the research and technological development is carried out by universities, research centres or other legal entities, for the benefit of specific groups, in particular SMEs or associations of SMEs.

Size of grant(s):

Collaborative projects: various;
Networks of Excellence: various;
Coordination and support actions: various;
Individual projects: various;
Support for training and career development of researchers: various;
Research for the benefit of specific groups (in particular SMEs): various.

Application deadline(s):

Collaborative projects: Variable, in response to calls for proposals (issued throughout the lifecycle of FP7);
Networks of Excellence: Variable, in response to calls for proposals (issued throughout the lifecycle of FP7);
Coordination and support actions: Variable, in response to calls for proposals (issued throughout the lifecycle of FP7); open via direct funding;
Individual projects: Variable, in response to calls for proposals (issued throughout the lifecycle of FP7);
Support for training and career development of researchers: Variable, in response to calls for proposals (issued throughout the lifecycle of FP7);
Research for the benefit of specific groups (in particular SMEs): Variable, in response to calls for proposals (issued throughout the lifecycle of FP7).

Eligibility/Restrictions:

Funding through FP7 is normally sought by building a consortium in order to submit a project proposal in response to a call;
Individual grant types also carry specific eligibility criteria.

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