The European Union offers numerous opportunities to companies to co-finance innovation either through the attribution of grants or through mechanisms that facilitates the access to loans. These funding mechanisms can help companies in the different phases of their development(R&D, prototyping, commercialisation, business expansion, etc.). They can in particular be exploited by SMEs willing to develop new GMES-based products or services.
However, this wide variety of mechanisms is in itself an obstacle for small companies since it is time consuming to analyse and understand what the most appropriate sources of financing are and how to access them.
A Beginner’s Guide has been produced by the GRAAL project with the objective to facilitate the first steps of new comers in the “jungle” of existing funding opportunities.