I frequently get asked about the application process for the SME Instrument Funding by the EU, so here is a brief overview for every startup that wants to apply:
Proposal writing is the most important part but I am covering this in another post
Choosing an Acronym and Tagline: Each proposal has a short Acronym that is used as a project identifier and a tagline which gives a quick overview of the project. The Acronym does not actually need to have any meaning at all and you can be creative. Here is an example of a fictional health project (“ACRONYM – Tagline”):
- PATIENT NETWORK – Smart & Secure Software for Hospitals to Automate Essential Patient Data Processing and Create a Unified Patient Network in the EU
Keywords: When you create the draft for the submission, you will be asked to select up to 3 keywords with respective sub-keywords from a drop-down list. You can then also add some manual keywords to better describe your project. These keywords will determine the background of our 4 evaluators.
There are many more small things to consider such as legal/financial data and the overall company registration but the points above cover most of the writing parts for the proposal submission.