Eureka — The European ini­ti­at­ive for mar­ket-ori­ented research and development

Eureka sup­ports and assists com­pan­ies and sci­entif­ic insti­tu­tions in imple­ment­ing cross-bor­der and mar­ket-ori­ented research col­lab­or­a­tions on innov­at­ive topics.

Cross-tech­no­logy, mar­ket-ori­ented and decent­ral­ised, Eureka is an import­ant com­ple­ment to the European Uni­on’s research pro­grammes. Eureka links the fin­an­cial and tech­nic­al resources avail­able in Europe in order to sim­pli­fy access to fund­ing for the imple­ment­a­tion of European research and devel­op­ment projects.

Cur­rently, 43 coun­tries and the European Com­mis­sion are full mem­bers: in addi­tion to all mem­ber states of the European Uni­on, these are Albania, Bos­nia-Herzegov­ina, Ice­land, Israel, Canada, Monaco, Montenegro, the Repub­lic of North Mace­do­nia, Nor­way, San Marino, Switzer­land, Ser­bia, South Korea, Ukraine, Tur­key and the United King­dom. Brazil, Chile, Singa­pore and South Africa have asso­ci­ate status.

Since its found­a­tion in 1985, EUREKA has become an integ­ral part of the European research land­scape. Eureka’s object­ives were set out in the ​‘Han­over Declar­a­tion’ and sup­ple­men­ted by the ​‘Guidelines EUREKA 2000plus’. Since 2010, a multi-year stra­tegic plan, known as the Eureka Stra­tegic Roadmap, has con­tin­ued to define Eureka’s dir­ec­tion and positioning.

Pur­pose & financing

EUREKA pro­jects are inten­ded exclus­ively for civil­ian pur­poses. Eureka pro­jects devel­op new products, pro­cesses and ser­vices in all areas of tech­no­logy. The main tar­get group is small and medi­um-sized enter­prises, but large com­pan­ies, uni­ver­sit­ies and oth­er research insti­tu­tions can also par­ti­cip­ate in Eureka projects.

The object­ives at a glance:

• Pro­mot­ing European com­pet­it­ive­ness on glob­al markets
• Net­work­ing the poten­tial avail­able in Europe in terms of experts, know-how, facil­it­ies and fin­an­cial resources
• Devel­op­ing European infra­struc­tures and standards
• Cre­at­ing access to new markets
• Strength­en­ing the European intern­al market

The fin­an­cing of Eureka pro­jects is reg­u­lated dif­fer­ently from mem­ber state to mem­ber state. Par­ti­cipants fin­ance their pro­jects with their own funds, pub­lic sub­sidies, loans or equity cap­it­al. In Ger­many, the Eureka office, as the nation­al con­tact point for the ini­ti­at­ive, provides advice on find­ing suit­able fund­ing pro­grammes and con­tact points.