European Partnership on Innovative SMEs/Innowwide CALL 5

Innowwide is a funding programme designed to support SMEs and startups in assessing the feasibility of their innovative solutions in markets outside Europe.

Innovative SMEs can apply for a grant of 60,000 euros to assess the viability of their research or commercial ambitions in international markets by implementing market feasibility projects. This initiative supports SMEs to take their R&I to markets all over the world. Choose a target country and find a local counterpart to collaborate with!

Funding is for SMEs in European Union Member States, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Switzerland, Türkiye or the United Kingdom, but entities in target countries in Africa, Americas, Asia or Oceania that SMEs choose to collaborate with can benefit indirectly as subcontractors.

This year, the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs/Innowwide will fund 70 projects.

ELIGIBILITY

To apply, applicant SMEs and their market feasibility project applications must fulfil all the following eligibility criteria:

• The application is complete. It includes the application form itself, the annex (workplan) in the template provided and all declarations, including the main subcontractor’s commitment. All information must be completed in English.
• The applicant SME is a legally constituted SME according to EU recommendation 2003/361, in an eligible country participating in Innowwide (EU Member States, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Switzerland, Türkiye or the United Kingdom). In addition, the applicant company must have been legally established for at least two years by the call deadline (i.e. established on or before 1 December 2024), irrespective of any parent company, sister company or other affiliated entity. The applicant company must not have received funding under a previous Innowwide call (in 2022, 2023, 2024 or 2025).
• The project includes an independent subcontractor (local counterpart) in the target country.
• None of the participating organisations have convictions for fraudulent behaviour, other financial irregularities or unethical and illegal business practices; is bankrupt or in the process of being declared bankrupt; or is ‘undertaking in difficulty’ according to the EU definition (Article 2, no. 18 of COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 651/2014 of June 2014).
• The project has an exclusive focus on civil applications
• The project duration is six months
• The minimum total eligible project cost is 86,000 euros
• The subcontracting costs are above zero euro
• The project includes a combination of eligible activities

SUBMISSION

Applications must be completed and submitted on the Eureka SmartSimple platform by someone legally authorised to represent the SME based in the EU Member State, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Switzerland, Türkiye or the United Kingdom.

Submission steps:

• Register on https://eureka.smartsimple.ie/. After registering, you will receive an email with the login details. If you have already registered, you can use your login details to access the application form.
• Complete the application form in English. The online application form allows you to save the draft application so you can return to it later.
• All the application form fields are mandatory.
• After you fill in the project description section, you will be able to invite your counterpart (main subcontractor) to sign a commitment in the platform. Your application won't be complete until your counterpart has agreed to the terms set in the commitment and declaration of honor in the SmartSimple platform. Please note that accepting the invitation via email is not sufficient.
• Your application cannot exceed a maximum character length: Each question in the application form will display the maximum number of characters allowed.
• Upload your workplan, using the template provided.
• Submit your completed application form electronically before the call deadline.

EVALUATION AND RESULTS

Complete and eligible applications are evaluated by two remote experts (one of them acting as rapporteur, responsible for drafting a consensus report). The evaluation is carried out using the online call management platform, and the experts assess the applications according to three criteria: excellence, impact and quality and efficiency of the implementation. Each application is given points out of 100.

Applications below any of these thresholds will be discarded:

1. Excellence: 18 points

2. Impact: 24 points

3. Quality and efficiency of implementation: 18 points

Each expert will prepare an individual evaluation report that includes scores for each criterion with explanatory comments. Once the individual evaluation reports are finalised, the rapporteur will draft an evaluation consensus report and put forward comments that match the consensus scores based on the individual evaluation reports.

The experts who have evaluated each proposal must agree and electronically approve the consensus report, including the comments and scores. In cases where experts do not agree, the consensus report, together with the disagreement notes, will be forwarded to the independent evaluation panel.

The top 105 proposals (one and a half time the total number of projects to be funded) from remote evaluation that score above threshold, progress to the independent evaluation panel and ethics review. If some proposals have tied scores with the 105th proposal, those also progress to the independent evaluation panel and ethics review.

For proposals below threshold or not in the top 105, the outcome of the consensus phase will constitute the final result of the evaluation, and there will be no panel review.

An independent evaluation panel will decide a ranking list based on evaluation results.

An ethics panel review the list of applications that received a successful evaluation, discarding those that do not comply with relevant ethics requirements.

Each applicant will receive a single evaluation report, including qualitative feedback and scores based on the conclusions of the expert’s assessments.

It is intended to communicate the evaluation results during the first trimester of 2027.

Ranking list:

The final independent evaluation panel ranking list and the ethics scrutiny will include:

• a ‘selection list’ with applications that might receive funding;
• a ‘reserve list’ with applications that may in the end get funding if one or more applications in the selection list cannot sign a grant agreement.

Funding will be awarded on the basis of this ranking, subject to the call availability budget.

Following the order set up in the ranking list, the first 70 successful SME market feasibility project coordinators will be sent a Grant Agreement by the Innowwide team at the Eureka Secretariat to be completed and duly signed within the period specified in the notification email. If any of them fail to sign within this period, applicant SMEs in the reserve list following the ranking order will be offered a contract until budget exhaustion.