More than just money (Part 2): Practical advice on applying EU funding
Business Finland held an interesting webinar on EU funding recently and we collected some key messages for you in two parts. In this second part, we summarise what our Principal Consultant Eeva Viinikka shared regarding practical matters on how to get started with building the consortium and EU funding proposal. She knows what she is talking about: Eeva has supported our clients with EU applications at Spinverse for over six years and helped them secure funding worth millions of euros.
- Analyse your needs and screen for matching calls
Companies looking into EU funding should first do a thorough analysis of their funding needs, business strategy and challenges they want to solve with their solution or service. It is also important to identify the level of maturity of the solution for the markets and where the solution stands with its innovativeness. Consulting EU funding experts may prove very useful. Business Finland can help companies by providing basic advice but when it comes to finding matching calls and proposal building, consulting companies such as Spinverse can save a lot time and effort.
Using European Commission’s own search engines or commercially available search engines (e.g. Spinbase) also helps to identify a matching call and find your possible partners for the project, if you are planning on building a consortium.
- Identifying your matching call
Reading the call texts is a skill in itself. You really need to understand the requirements. Reading into every single word will reveal if your solution is eligible, as your company’s proposal must have 100% match to the call text. Once you have found your match, it is time for decisions and schedule the proposal preparations well in advance. This is not something you want to do in the last minute.
- Invest time and effort on your proposal
Once you have identified a suitable EU call for you, it is very important to plan and prepare your funding proposal carefully to increase your chances and stand out from the competition, which will be tough. Eeva generally recommends to kick-off the proposal writing four to six months before the call cut-off date, keeping in mind holiday periods both in Finland and also in Europe, if you are planning to form a consortium.
Expert tip: submit your proposal at least one week before deadline to avoid any technical issues with submission portal closer to the cutoff day.
Do not hesitate to contact our experts at Spinverse if you need more detailed advice on finding your way through the EU funding application process and identifying the right partners to build your collaborative consortium.