Grant funding glossary, 109 terms explained

How EU funding works

The machinery: who hands out the money, under what programme, and what a "call" actually is.

Term	What it means
Beneficiary	The organisation that signs the grant agreement and receives EU money. If you win, this is what you become.
Call for proposals	A published invitation to submit project proposals for funding, with a fixed deadline, a budget and a set of topics.
Topic	The specific subject you apply to, identified by a code like HORIZON-CL5-2026-D3-01-02.
Work programme	The multi-year document that sets out what a programme will fund, with the budget and conditions per topic.
Funding & Tenders Portal	The European Commission's single entry point for finding calls, submitting proposals and managing grants.
Direct, indirect and shared management	The three ways the EU budget is spent: by the Commission itself, by delegated bodies, or by national and regional authorities.
Managing authority	The national or regional body that runs calls funded from the structural funds in its territory.
ERDF and ESF+	The European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund Plus: the two largest structural funds, run by national authorities.

Instruments and action types

RIA, IA, CSA, Accelerator, cascade funding: the shapes a grant can take, and who each one is for.

Term	What it means
Research and Innovation Action (RIA)	A collaborative project that generates new knowledge or tests a new technology, funded at 100% of eligible costs.
Innovation Action (IA)	A collaborative project that builds, demonstrates or pilots something close to market, funded at 70% for profit-making organisations.
Coordination and Support Action (CSA)	A project that coordinates, networks, studies or supports, rather than doing research itself. Funded at 100%.
Lump sum grant	A grant paid against completed work packages at a fixed agreed price, with no reporting of actual costs.
Cascade funding (financial support to third parties)	Small grants of roughly €10,000–€200,000 handed out by an EU-funded project rather than by the Commission.
EIC Accelerator	Grant plus optional equity for a single company scaling a high-risk innovation, one of the few EU instruments with no consortium requirement.
ERC grants	European Research Council grants funding one researcher's frontier science, judged on excellence alone.
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)	Funding for researcher mobility and training: fellowships, doctoral networks and staff exchanges.
COFUND	An action where the EU co-finances someone else's funding programme rather than funding projects directly.

Applying and being evaluated

What you submit, who reads it, how it is scored and what the outcome letters mean.

Term	What it means
Part A and Part B	A proposal has two halves: structured forms filled in online (Part A) and the narrative document you upload (Part B).
Page limit	A hard cap on the length of Part B, typically 45 or 70 pages depending on the action type.
Evaluation criteria	Proposals are scored on excellence, impact and implementation, each out of 5, with thresholds to clear.
Threshold	The minimum score a proposal must reach on each criterion and overall to remain eligible for funding.
Ranked list and reserve list	Proposals above threshold are ranked by score; the budget is spent down the list, and those just below the cut sit in reserve.
Evaluation Summary Report (ESR)	The written feedback you receive after evaluation: scores per criterion, with the experts' strengths and weaknesses.
Resubmission	Submitting an improved version of a rejected proposal to a later cut-off of the same or a similar topic.
Seal of Excellence	A certificate given to proposals that scored above threshold but could not be funded for lack of budget.
Two-stage submission	A procedure where a short proposal is evaluated first, and only those that pass are invited to submit in full.
Cut-off date	The moment submission closes, typically 17:00 Brussels time, enforced by the clock and not by anyone's judgement.
Submission system	The portal tool where the proposal is assembled and submitted, and the only place a submission legally happens.
National Contact Point (NCP)	A publicly funded adviser in your country whose job is to help you apply, at no charge.

Money and cost rules

Funding rates, eligible costs, the flat rate for overheads, and when you actually get paid.

Term	What it means
Funding rate	The share of eligible costs the EU reimburses: 100%, 70%, 60% or 50% depending on the action and your organisation type.
Co-financing	The part of the project cost you must cover yourself, from your own resources.
Eligible costs	Costs that may be charged to the project: actually incurred, during the project, necessary, identifiable and recorded in your accounts.
Actual costs	The default costing method: you charge what you really spent and prove it.
Unit costs	Fixed amounts per unit (per researcher-month, per person-day) used instead of proving what was actually spent.
Personnel costs	The cost of your own staff's time on the project, usually the largest line in the budget.
Indirect costs (overheads)	Overheads charged as a flat 25% of eligible direct costs, without any need to justify them.
Pre-financing	An advance paid shortly after the grant agreement is signed, so the project can start before any costs are reported.
Interim and final payments	Money paid after each reporting period, once the Commission has accepted the work and the costs.
Certificate on the Financial Statements (CFS)	An auditor's certificate required when a beneficiary claims above a threshold of actual costs, commonly €430,000.

Consortia and partners

Coordinator, beneficiary, affiliated entity, associated partner: the roles and what each one is liable for.

Term	What it means
Coordinator	The beneficiary that leads the consortium: single point of contact, receiver and distributor of payments, owner of the reporting.
Consortium agreement	The private contract between partners covering money, decisions, liability and intellectual property, mandatory in most actions, and not drafted by the Commission.
Affiliated entity	A legal entity linked to a beneficiary (a subsidiary, a parent, a member of the same group) that may charge costs to the project.
Associated partner	An organisation that takes part in the project but claims no EU money and signs nothing.
Third party	Anyone outside the consortium who contributes to the project, as a subcontractor, an in-kind contributor, or a recipient of cascade funding.
Subcontracting	Buying part of the project work from an outside supplier, at market price, under a contract.

Eligibility and identity

PIC, LEAR, the SME definition, TRL, and the checks that decide whether you may apply at all.

Term	What it means
PIC (Participant Identification Code)	The nine-digit number identifying your organisation across every EU funding programme.
LEAR (Legal Entity Appointed Representative)	The person your organisation formally appoints to manage its identity and roles on the portal.
SME definition	The EU's formal test: fewer than 250 staff, and either turnover up to €50M or a balance sheet up to €43M.
Technology Readiness Level (TRL)	A one-to-nine scale of maturity, from an observed basic principle (1) to a system proven in operation (9).
Eligible and associated countries	Member states are always eligible; associated countries participate on equal terms under an agreement; others may join but usually without funding.
Financial capacity check	A check on whether your organisation can survive its share of the project, based on your accounts.
Expected number of grants	How many projects the Commission intends to fund under a topic, published in the work programme, and rarely displayed anywhere.

After the award

Reporting periods, deliverables, amendments, audits and what you owe once the money arrives.

Term	What it means
Grant agreement	The contract between the Commission and the beneficiaries that turns a winning proposal into a funded project.
Reporting period	A block of project time (often 12 or 18 months) at the end of which you report technically and financially.
Deliverable and milestone	A deliverable is a named output due on a named date; a milestone is a checkpoint that says whether the project is on course.
Amendment	A formal change to the grant agreement: partners, budget, duration, work plan.
Results, ownership and access rights	Results belong to whoever generated them; partners get defined access rights to use them.
Open access and the data management plan	Peer-reviewed publications from an EU-funded project must be openly accessible, and research data managed under a written plan.
Dissemination, exploitation and communication	Three distinct obligations that proposals routinely blur into one paragraph, and lose points for.
Ethics review	A screening every proposal goes through, and a full review for projects touching people, personal data, animals or dual-use concerns.

United States

NOFO, Assistance Listings, UEI, the Uniform Guidance: the vocabulary of the largest single corpus on Bemzu, and none of it is shared with Europe.

Term	What it means
NOFO (Notice of Funding Opportunity)	The American name for a published call: the document that announces money, states who may apply and sets the deadline.
Assistance Listing (ALN, formerly CFDA)	The catalogue number identifying a US federal funding programme, for example 93.243. Every award traces back to one.
SAM.gov registration and the UEI	Before any US federal award reaches you, your organisation must be registered in SAM.gov and hold a Unique Entity ID.
Grant versus cooperative agreement	Both hand over money; a cooperative agreement also hands the agency a role in running the work.
Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200)	The single rulebook for US federal awards: what costs are allowable, how procurement must work, when an audit is required.
Indirect cost rate (F&A)	The percentage you may charge for overheads, negotiated with a federal agency, or taken as a flat 10% if you have never negotiated one.
Cost sharing and matching	The portion of project cost you cover yourself. US notices state THAT a match is required far more often than how much.
Sub-recipient versus contractor	A sub-recipient carries out part of the funded programme; a contractor sells you goods or services. The distinction decides who is bound by the award terms.
Single audit	An organisation-wide audit required once federal spending in a year passes a threshold, not an audit of one grant.
Merit review	The US equivalent of European evaluation: independent reviewers score against published criteria, and a programme officer recommends.
Program officer	The named agency staffer who runs a funding programme, and, unlike in most European calls, someone you are expected to talk to.
Forecasted opportunity	A call the agency intends to publish but has not yet opened, with estimated dates rather than real ones.
Award ceiling and floor	The largest and smallest individual award an agency expects to make under a notice.

Canada and Australia

Contributions rather than grants, stacking limits, GrantConnect IDs, the Commonwealth grant rules: two systems that look British on the surface and behave differently underneath.

Term	What it means
Contribution versus grant (Canada)	A grant is paid against eligibility; a contribution is paid against performance conditions and is audited.
Repayable contribution	Money that must be paid back, usually conditionally (often on reaching commercial success).
Stacking limit	A cap on how much total government funding (federal, provincial and municipal combined) one project may receive.
GrantConnect and the GO ID	Australia's whole-of-government grants register, where every Commonwealth opportunity gets an identifier like GO8429.
Selection process (Australia)	Every Australian grant opportunity states how recipients are chosen: open competitive, targeted, or demand-driven.
NRC IRAP	Canada's Industrial Research Assistance Program: non-repayable contributions to small firms, delivered through an advisor rather than a call.
SR&ED	Canada's research tax incentive, the largest source of federal R&D support, and not a grant at all.
Business Benefits Finder	The federal front door where Canadian programmes are listed together, across departments.
Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines	The rulebook every Australian federal grant follows, including the obligation to publish it.
Grant opportunity guidelines	The single Australian document that decides eligibility, assessment and money, the equivalent of reading a topic plus the work programme plus the annexes.
ARC and NHMRC	Australia's two research councils: one for research generally, one for health and medicine.

Japan, Korea and India

Commissioned expense versus subsidy, the 30% indirect rule, the specialised institution named in every Korean title, lakh and crore: 198 calls whose vocabulary shares nothing with Europe.

Term	What it means
e-Rad (Japan)	Japan's cross-ministry research funding system, where calls from NEDO, JST, AMED and the ministries all appear together.
KAKENHI and awarded-project databases	KAKENHI is Japan's main academic research grant, and its public database lists projects already funded, not calls you can enter.
IRIS (Korea)	Korea's integrated national R&D announcement system, carrying every ministry's calls with an explicit reception status.
委託費 and 補助金 (commissioned expense vs subsidy)	Japan funds through two legally different instruments, and which one a call uses decides whether you pay anything yourself.
Indirect expense (間接経費) and the 30% rule	Japanese competitive research funding adds 30% on top of direct costs for institutional overheads.
JST, NEDO and AMED	Three agencies publish most of Japan's competitive funding, each with a different idea of what research is for.
Researcher number (研究者番号)	An eight-digit identifier issued through e-Rad, without which a Japanese application cannot be submitted.
전담기관 (specialised institution)	The agency a Korean ministry delegates a programme to, and the reason so many Korean call titles end in IITP, KEIT, KEITI or KISA.
NTIS (National Science and Technology Information Service)	Korea's record of what has already been funded, the counterpart to IRIS, which is where calls are announced.
National R&D Innovation Act (국가연구개발혁신법)	The 2021 law that gave every Korean ministry one set of R&D rules instead of each writing its own.
주관연구개발기관 (lead research institution)	The organisation that signs the agreement and answers for the whole Korean project, the coordinator, with more liability.
민간부담금 (private contribution)	The share a company participant must put in itself, part of it in cash rather than staff time.
Lakh and crore	Indian amounts are written in units of 100,000 and 10,000,000, not in millions.
BIRAC	India's Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, a public-sector enterprise that funds biotech companies rather than laboratories.
BIG (Biotechnology Ignition Grant)	BIRAC's entry-level scheme: early-stage money for an idea that has not yet become a company's product.
DBT, DST and ANRF	India's three principal research funders, and the one that recently replaced a name you may still be searching for.
Call for proposals round (India)	Indian agencies publish in discrete rounds, and the listing keeps closed rounds visible beside the open one.

Words every system uses

Concept notes, letters of intent, in-kind contributions, rolling intake: the ideas that survive translation between funding systems.

Term	What it means
Rolling intake (continuous call)	A programme that accepts applications continuously, with no closing date.
Letter of intent and concept note	A short first submission that decides whether you are invited to write the full proposal.
In-kind contribution	Non-cash resources counted towards the project: staff time, equipment, facilities, donated services.
Period of performance	The window during which costs may be incurred and charged to the award.
No-cost extension	More time to finish the work, with no more money.
Eligibility gate	A condition that decides admissibility before quality is considered at all.
Fiscal year	Funders bunch their deadlines at the end of their own budget year, and no two of Bemzu's systems use the same one.
Currency of the award	A call is published in the funder's currency, and that is the currency you will be paid in.

Grant funding glossary.