A collaborative project that generates new knowledge or tests a new technology, funded at 100% of eligible costs.
A research and innovation action generates new knowledge or explores the feasibility of a new technology. It sits at the low-maturity end (roughly technology readiness levels 2 to 5) and its output is understanding and demonstrated principle rather than a product.
It is funded at 100% of eligible costs for everyone in the consortium, company and university alike, plus the flat 25% for indirect costs. That single rate is why RIAs attract industry that would not otherwise touch collaborative research: there is no co-financing to find.
The default eligibility condition is three independent legal entities from three different Member States or Associated Countries, at least one established in a Member State. Independent means what it says. A parent and its subsidiary count as one. Most real consortia run to eight or twelve partners, not because the rules require it but because the impact section is easier to defend with a supply chain in it.
Evaluation is on Excellence, Impact and Implementation, each scored out of five with one decimal place, each needing at least 3, and the total needing at least 10. In practice funded proposals sit above 13, and in oversubscribed topics above 14, meaning a proposal can clear every threshold, be objectively fundable, and still be ranked out. That is the normal outcome, not a sign of a bad proposal.
Typical size is €3–6 million over three to four years, though the topic's own expected number of grants is a far better guide than any average. Ask what the topic budget divided by the expected grants comes to, and build a consortium that can absorb that number sensibly. Proposing €8 million into a topic that expects to award €4 million per project reads as not having read the topic.
| 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%. | |
| Technology Readiness Level (TRL) | A one-to-nine scale of maturity, from an observed basic principle (1) to a system proven in operation (9). | |
| Funding rate | The share of eligible costs the EU reimburses: 100%, 70%, 60% or 50% depending on the action and your organisation type. | |
| Eligible costs | Costs that may be charged to the project: actually incurred, during the project, necessary, identifiable and recorded in your accounts. | |
| ERC grants | European Research Council grants funding one researcher's frontier science, judged on excellence alone. | |
| COFUND | An action where the EU co-finances someone else's funding programme rather than funding projects directly. |
Eight questions, no account, nothing sent anywhere. You will know which of the 1526 open calls you can actually enter before you finish your coffee.
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