The Success Rate For Receiving Government Funding

This version considers the SME Instrument 2016-2017. Once the 2018 topics are released, it will be updated.

A list of all beneficiaries for the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument can be found here (both Phase 1 & 2).

To find out what topics are generally eligible for funding, please read What Types of Industries Receive Funding?.

Topics and Budget

To understand the success rates of the H2020 SME Instrument, a major factor is the budget. There are 13 topics available and they all have different budgets :

*Note: We are only considering the 2015 topics because they are the only ones with available statistics. The topics have almost entirely been continued in 2016/17 with some minor differences. The "Nr (2016/17)" indicates the topic numbers for the current topics discussed in What Types of Industries Receive Funding?.

The Number of Applicants

The number of applicants usually varies in between cut-off's but one can make general assumptions by taking the November cut-off statistics from 2015. 175 Phase 1 proposals were funded out of 2057 which gives a success rate of 8.5%. This number will vary considerably from topic to topic depending on the budget and number of applicants. The following table shows the success rate for the individual topics:

If we consider all topics we find that the success rate (funded/applicants) ranges between 0 and 21% with a mean success rate of 9%. Following these statistics, it is best to choose a less "crowded" topic which has a relatively high budget. Before we get into recommendations, we should take a closer look at the previous statistics.

The Funding Threshold

Keep in mind that in the analysis above, we were considering all applications including the ones that did not make the general funding threshold (for information on the proposal score, please read My Proposal has a High Score But Was Rejected, What Now?). A better indicator as to how successful an application will be is to consider the number of proposals that have made the threshold.

If we consider only the high-quality proposals than the numbers change significantly. We now have success rates from 28 to 100% depending on the topic. From these statistics we can make a toplist of topics that are the most promising for future applications.

*Note: The current SME topic "SMEInst-13-2016-2017: Engaging SMEs in security research and development" was excluded from the statistical analysis because it was not part of the previous program.

Since the budget size and the success rate does not correlate sufficiently, it is best to use the 2015 data as a general guide for choosing the topic. Still, it is important to realize that the Topic 01 (Open Disruptive Innovation) is still a worthwhile topic for application even though it is the most difficult to get funding.

Summary

• 0 - 21% of all applications get funded averaging at a 9% success rate
• With a high-quality proposal, the success rate rises to 28 - 100% and averages at 70%
• The top 3 topics for applications are
  • 09 (Low-Carbon and Efficient Energy),
  • 07 (Agri-Culture, Food and Bio-Based Sectors) and
  • 06 (Health, Well-Being and Ageing Well)
• Still, all projects that fit a topic can get funded!  How to increase chances for a project is described in How To Improve Your Chances of Getting Funded

These tips are not only useful for European startups, professional writers, consultants and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) but are generally recommended when writing a business plan or investor documents.

Deadlines: Post-Horizon 2020, the EIC Accelerator accepts Step 1 submissions now while the deadlines for the full applications (Step 2) under Horizon Europe are:

The Step 1 applications must be submitted weeks in advance of Step 2. The next EIC Accelerator cut-off for Step 2 (full proposal) can be found here. After Brexit, UK companies can still apply to the EIC Accelerator under Horizon Europe albeit with non-dilutive grant applications only - thereby excluding equity-financing.

Contact: You can reach out to us via this contact form to work with a professional consultant.

AI Grant Writer: ChatEIC is a fully automated EIC Accelerator grant proposal writer: Get it here.

EU, UK & US Startups: Alternative financing options for EU, UK and US innovation startups are the EIC Pathfinder (combining Future and Emerging Technologies - FET Open & FET Proactive) with €4M per project, Thematic Priorities, European Innovation Partnerships (EIP), Innovate UK with £3M (for UK-companies only) as well as the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants with $1M (for US-companies only).

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