Eurostars-2: 606 SMEs participated in cut-off 3

On March 5th, the Eurostars-2 programme's third cut-off closed with a total of 266 projects submitted. Eurostars-2 is a programme encouraging international collaboration between R&D SMEs; the top five countries involved in such collaboration are Germany, with 76 projects, Spain (57), Switzerland (57), the Netherlands (52) and the United Kingdom (43). Additionally, 13 project applications are cooperations between European organisations and organisations from the Republic of Korea.

The total cost of applications amounted to € 344 million of which 79% is borne by SMEs. Main technologies represented in the pool of submitted projects are ICT (32%), biotech (27%), and industrial manufacturing and transport (15%).

Eurostars is a programme that supports research-performing small and medium enterprises, which develop innovative products, processes and services, to gain competitive advantage. It is a transnational programme, where projects have partners from two or more Eurostars countries. The next cut-off deadline is September 17, 2015.