MENU

EUREKA support for Collaborative Research, Development and Innovation

With its bottom-up approach, EUREKA supports the development of rapidly marketable innovative products, processes and services that help improve the daily life of everyday people. The commercialisation of the innovative products, processes and services from hundreds of successfully completed projects have added billions of euro to national economies.

Established in 1985 and present in over 40 countries, EUREKA is intergovernmental network and international platform supporting collaborative market-oriented Research, Development and Innovation projects carried out by industry, research centres and universities across all technological sectors.

Participation in Network projectsEurostars and Clusters amongst other EUREKA instruments raises participants’ international profiles through EUREKA label award, facilitates access to finance for companies involved, offers high degree of flexibility and bottom-up approach to project generation with greater chance of project proposal success.

In practice, EUREKA instruments are considered when there is: 

1.     Interest in international collaboration for innovation development and post-R&D project commercialisation business opportunities;

2.     Interest to do something that is too big to develop alone;

3.     Interest to collaborate across the value chain / to enter new markets;

4.     Access is needed to someone else’s science / technology / skills / sector knowledge;

5.     Realisation that existing solutions could be adapted to a different industry / sector;

6.     Interest to reduce innovation development risks through sharing; and

7.     Access is sought for funding and international recognition helpful to attract further investment in the business.

Based within Malta Enterprise, the National Project Coordinator assists and guides Malta applicants on EUREKA instruments with project participation subject to R&D 2014-2020 incentive guidelines. Submissions for Network projects are ongoing, while Eurostars and Clusters issue specific calls.

With various success stories available, the 2017 Impact Assessment study of EUREKA Network Projects and Cluster Projects further highlighted the following key results:  

  • Annual turnover of participating firms 15% higher for Network projects and 13% higher for Cluster projects one year after project end;
  • Annual employment growth is 4% higher for Network Projects and 7% higher for Cluster projects one year after project end;
  • Participating firms recognised or expected a strengthened economic position through the EUREKA project, in particular by entering new markets, improved market share or increased exports;
  • The high degree of flexibility of EUREKA, building upon a strong bottom-up approach whereby project theme is suggested by project partners, is a an essential asset for many participating firms; and
  • Aside from the rapid exploitation of research results, improved behaviour in managing and performing international R&D collaboration leads to a variety of benefits to participating organisations; intangible changes pertain in particular to improved strategy and competitiveness. 
  • Shorter projects involving smaller consortia were more successful in bringing their products and services to market in a short period of time

Further information may be obtained by contacting the National Project Coordinator within Malta Enterprise.