Qualitative evaluation on the
participation and impact on hightech start-ups from participating
Eureka instruments

Amber van der Graaf (Panteia)
Jacqueline Snijders (Panteia)
Marleen Bax (Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship (ECE)
Katty Hsu (Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship (ECE)

Zoetermeer , 14 April 2020
The responsibility for the contents of this report lies with Panteia. Quoting numbers or
text in papers, essays and books is permitted only when the source is clearly mentioned.
No part of this publication may be copied and/or published in any form or by any means,
or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Panteia. Panteia
does not accept responsibility for printing errors and/or other imperfections.

Table of contents

1

Introduction

5

1.1

Background and objective of the study

5

2

Outcomes of Eureka’s instruments

7

2.1
2.2
2.3

Characteristics of Eurostars Eureka Participations
Characteristics of Eureka Clusters participants
Leverage of Participation in Eureka Instruments

7
10
11

3

Best practices: 8 enterprise case studies

15

3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8

Evalan B.V. (NL)
Wellness Telecom, (ES)
GTX Medical B.V. (NL)
EagleScience B.V. (NL)
LG Sonic
ViNotion (NL)
Industrial Pathways (SE)
Taiger (ES)

15
18
21
22
24
26
28
29

4

Eureka programme instruments: SWOT Analysis

33

4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4

Strengths of the Eureka Programme Instruments
Weaknesses of the Eureka Programme Instruments
Opportunities from the Eureka Programme Instruments
Threats of the Eureka Programme Instruments

33
36
37
40

5

Overall observations and recommendations

43

5.1
5.2
5.3

Outcomes of Eureka’s instruments
Overall observations regarding the use of Eureka instruments
Recommendations

43
44
48

Annex 1: Literature list

55

Annex 2: Technical Annex data analysis and enrichment

57

Introduction
Step 1 - Sub-sample selection for data enrichment
Step 2 – Acquiring data for sub-sample
Step 3 – Analyse data

57
57
64
68

3

1
1.1

Introduction
Background and objective of the study
Eureka is a publicly-funded, intergovernmental network established in 1985, involving
45 countries. Eureka’s aim as a programme is to enhance European competitiveness by
fostering innovation-driven entrepreneurship in Europe, between small and large
industry, research institutes, and universities.
From July 2019 to June 2020, the Netherlands holds the chairmanship for the Eureka
programme. The Dutch chairmanship focusses on two strategic priorities:
1.

developing the Eurostars 3 programme;

2.

setting up a future strategy for the Eureka industrial clusters in key technological
areas such as ICT and microelectronics.

In the context of this chairmanship the RVO (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland),
the Dutch Enterprise Agency, has commissioned Panteia and the Erasmus Centre for
Entrepreneurship (ECE) to carry out a qualitative evaluation of the Eureka Programme,
specifically of three key instruments: Eurostars, ITEA, and PENTA.
Objective of the study
The objective of the study is to provide recommendations to improve the Eurostars,
ITEA, and PENTA instruments of the Eureka programme. Specific attention will be paid
to the way in which the instruments can be made more accessible for start-ups, scale
ups, the complementarity and the alignment with SME subsidy programmes from the
Horizon 2020 program (i.e. SME instrument phase 2), and how to raise follow up
financing through access to venture capital, private investors, and banks.
Based on qualitative and quantitative data this study addresses the following research
questions:
1.

How many start-ups/scale-ups participated in Eureka projects during the last years
sorted by sector, maturity and country in number and budget and what was the
growth in participation or amounts invested via Eureka?

2.

What was the leverage of the participation in Eureka instruments? What did the
subsidy contribute to?

3.

How can the start-up/scale ups be typified based on indicators such as: sector, growth
path in capital, revenue and FTE.

Based on desk research and interviews, eight best practices for high tech enterprises
which participated in Eureka have been developed and a Strengths, Weakness,
Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis for the Eureka programme instruments has
been carried out as well. Finally, recommendations have been developed based on the
findings collected throughout the study.
Structure of the report
Chapter 2 of this report examines the population of enterprises participating in the
Eurostars, ITEA, and PENTA instruments and the outcomes of the analysis. Following
this, eight best practice case studies are presented in chapter 3. Chapter 4 presents the
SWOT analysis for the Eureka instruments. The report closes with chapter 5, which
summarises the main findings of the study and provides recommendations for the nex t
Eureka programme. Annex 1 includes the technical annex providing detailed information
on the data enrichment and analysis.

5

6

2

Outcomes of Eureka’s instruments
As part of the research activities for this evaluation of the Eureka instruments, a quantitative
analysis has been conducted into the participants of Eureka’s Eurostars, ITEA 3, and PENTA
instruments. The aim of the data analysis presented here is to characterise and typify Eureka
participation, to reveal the contribution of Eureka instruments (specifically, potential growth
and investment paths) to its participants, and the leverage of participation.

2.1

Characteristics of Eurostars Eureka Participations
A total of 4,259 participants took part in Eurostars projects over the past 12 years (20082020).1 Participant data from Eureka secretariat show that the companies involved in
Eurostars projects are usually relatively young (in terms of age when starting the projects)
and small (in terms of employee size). The majority of Eurostars participants consists of
companies that are younger than 10 years old (see figure 1), while the average number of
employees (when registering for the project), is around 24. Of the Eurostars project
participants 27% are start-ups (defined as 5 years or younger at the start of the project)2.
Figure 1: Maturity (in years) of participants at the start of Eurostars projects (2008-2020)

Maturity of eurostars participants

12%

1%

3%

Project Start Age
(in years)

27%

5 or less
6 to 10

12%

11 to 15
16 to 20
21 to 35
36 to 40

19%

26%

41+

N = 2,882 (participants for which founding years of companies are available)
Source: Panteia/ECE based on Eurostars Participation data EUREKA Secretariat

For the remainder of this sub-section, a total of 2,8823 participants enterprises involved in
Eurostars projects from 2008 to 2020 are analysed in more detail. Of this number, there were
793 start-ups from 32 countries who participated in Eurostars projects – henceforth referred
to as Eurostars Start-ups. The companies that are not considered as start-ups are hereafter
classified as Eurostars Enterprises.
Eurostars participants can be classified into different participant types: Main, Partner and
Withdrawn. 45% of Eurostars participants are classified as Main participants, while 51% are
Partners, and 4% have Withdrawn from the Eurostars projects. The average age of the
different types all fall within the range of 11-15 years old, with the Partner participants being
the most mature, (with an average age of 14 years), followed by Withdrawn participants
1

These participations do not represent unique companies. Several companies participated in more than one
project and these participations are analysed separately.
2
See the Technical Annex on Data Analysis and Enrichment for more detailed definitions.
3
Not all 4,259 project participations were analysed for comparability purposes. See the Technical Annex on
Data Analysis and Enrichment for more information.

7

(average age of 13 years), while the Main participants appear to be the youngest, (average
age of 11 years). When considering start-up participants, 50% are classified as Main
participants, while 47% are Partners and 3% have Withdrawn from Eurostars projects.
2 . 1 . 1 S ect o r a l lo ca t i on
Participating companies operate in different sectors as is illustrated in Figure 2. For Eurostars
participants in general, Biotech/medical companies seem to dominate the participations while
there are less participating companies involved in Transportation, Environment and
Construction/building.
Figure 2: Sectoral Distribution of Eurostars participations from 2008 to 2020

Sector distribution
Transportation
3%
Industrial
16%
Biotech / medical
40%
ICT
16%

Environment
4%
Energy
8%

Construction / building
3%
Consumer / services
10%

N = 2,882
Source: Panteia/ECE based on Eurostars Participation data EUREKA Secretariat

Figure 3 depicts Eurostars participants in numbers across the different sectors and
according to the different types of participants. The data shows a larger proportion of
Eurostars Start-ups in the Biotech/medical sector, specifically, 45% of all start-ups are
in Biotech/medical sector, compared to 39% of Eurostars Enterprises.
The figure also shows that a larger proportion of Eurostars Enterprises is active in the
Industrial sector. Specifically 18% of all enterprises are in the Industrial sector,
compared to 11% of Eurostars Start-ups.
Despite these differences the sectoral pattern remains largely the same for both
Eurostars Start-ups and Eurostars Enterprises. That is, the sectoral distribution of
Eurostars Start-ups and Eurostars Enterprises is comparable to what is displayed in
Figure 2, with the exception of more noticeable differences in the Biotech/medical and
Industrial sectors.

8

Figure 3: Number of Eurostars Participations from 2008 to 2020 (composed of Eurostars Startups and Eurostars Enterprises), per sector

Eurostars Start-ups vs Eurostars Enterprises, per sector
Biotech / medical
Industrial
ICT
Consumer / services
Energy
Environment
Transportation
Construction / building
0

100

200

300

Number of Enterprises

400

500

600

700

800

900

Number of Startups

N = 2,882 (Participants); N = 2,089 (Enterprises); N = 793 (Start-ups)
Source: Panteia/ECE based on Eurostars Participation data EUREKA Secretariat

1 . 1 . 2 O ri g in c oun tr i es 4
Enterprises participating in Eurostars projects originate from 42 different countries. The
highest number of overall Eurostars participants is based in Germany, which is also the
country with the highest number of Eurostars Enterprises (288). A different pattern emerges
when it comes to Eurostars Start-ups, with the Netherlands representing the highest number
of start-up participants (116). Figure 4 below shows a more a detailed country breakdown for
the numbers of participants in each country for both Eurostars Start-ups and Eurostars
Enterprises.
Figure 4: Number of Eurostars Participations from 2008 to 2020 for Eurostars Start-ups and
Eurostars Enterprises (per country)

300
250
200
150
100
50
0

Germany
Netherlands
France
Spain
United Kingdom
Sweden
Switzerland
Norway
Denmark
Belgium
Italy
Austria
Czech Republic
Finland
Poland
Turkey
Lithuania
South Korea
Slovenia
Israel
Romania
Hungary
Portugal
Canada
Cyprus
Ireland
Iceland
Slovakia
Greece
Bulgaria
Estonia
Latvia
Croatia
South Africa
Luxembourg
Russia
Malta
Mexico
Taiwan

Number of participations

Eurostars Startups vs Eurostars Enterprises in terms of participation
numbers

Country
Eurostars Startups

Eurostars Enterprises

N = 2,882 (Participants); N = 2,089 (Enterprises); N = 793 (Start-ups)
Source: Panteia/ECE based on Eurostars Participation data EUREKA Secretariat
4

Only 39 out of 42 participant countries are shown in Figure 4 because Brazil, The United States and China are
excluded due to the lack of data on the founding years for the companies from these countries.

9

Besides its relatively high number of participating start-ups, the Netherlands also represents
the country with the highest budgets amongst start-ups (i.e. overall participation costs out of
the total amount of money invested in Eurostars participation by the enterprise). However,
the same pattern does not seem to hold for the rest of the countries with high levels of startup participants. For example, French Eurostars Start-ups seem to invest more money in
Eurostars participation than German start-ups in Eurostars do, even though Germany has
more Eurostars Start-ups in terms of numbers of participants. See figure 5 for more detail
concerning the budget per country for Eurostars Start-ups and Eurostars Enterprises.
Figure 5: Budget (i.e., total participation costs for enterprises in millions of euros) of Eurostars
Participations from 2008 to 2020 for Eurostars Start-ups and Eurostars Enterprises

140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Germany
Netherlands
France
Norway
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
Switzerland
Denmark
Belgium
Italy
Austria
Finland
South Korea
Czech Republic
Turkey
Israel
Poland
Slovenia
Romania
Lithuania
Portugal
Canada
Iceland
Hungary
Mexico
Ireland
Slovakia
Greece
Bulgaria
Cyprus
Estonia
Latvia
Luxembourg
Croatia
South Africa
Taiwan
Malta
Russia

Total Participation Costs (in mil. €)

Eurostars Start-ups vs Eurostars Enterprises in terms of budget

Country
Eurostars Startups

Eurostars Enterprises

N = 2,882 (Participants); N = 2,089 (Enterprises); N = 793 (Start-ups)
Source: Panteia/ECE based on Eurostars Participation data EUREKA Secretariat

2.2

Characteristics of Eureka Clusters participants
A total 695 SMEs participated in the ITEA 3 and PENTA Eureka Cluster Projects (specifically,
593 in ITEA 3 and 102 in PENTA) over the past 6 years (2014-2020). Of these participants,
61% of projects are still running at this moment.5 The 695 SME participants represent 49%
of the overall ITEA 3 and PENTA participants (because approximately 49% of these
participants are SMEs).6
Approximately 70% of international SME cluster participants are considered to be start-ups
when joining a project, while 40% of Dutch SME cluster participants fall into the start-up
category of 5 years or younger.7

5

Data source: Panteia/ECE based on ITEA 3 and PENTA Participation data, EUREKA Secretariat
Source: https://www.penta-eureka.eu/projects/project_partners.php ; https://itea3.org/projectpartners/page-all.html
7
These numbers are rough estimates and should interpreted with caution as they are based on subsample
calculations. See the Technical Annex on Data Analysis and Enrichment for more information.
6

10

2 . 2 . 1 S ect o r a l lo ca t i on
The ITEA 3 cluster concentrates on software innovation, while the PENTA cluster focuses on
electronic components and systems.8 The sub-sector in which most SME participants are
active is that of computer software (comprising approximately 43% of the subsample). When
it comes to Dutch SME cluster participants, it is the semiconductor and industrial sub-sectors
(each comprising approximately 22% of the subsample) which seem to dominate.9
2 . 2 . 2 O r ig i n cou nt r ie s
The SMEs participating in Eureka clusters span across 23 different countries, as illustrated in
6. It seems that the amount invested by the participants in the cluster projects is not related
to the amount of participations per country. Although Turkey represents the country with the
highest amount of SME participants, the Netherlands has the largest total project budget. In
other words, the amount invested in cluster projects by Dutch SMEs exceeds those invested
by SMEs in other participant countries.
Figure 6: Number and budget (i.e., total participation costs in millions of euros) of SME Cluster
participations from 2014 to 2020

50

60

40
30

40

20

Italy

Taiwan

Slovenia

Ireland

Denmark

Hungary

Switzerland

UK

Norway

Czech Republic

Korea

Austria

Portugal

Canada

Romania

Sweden

France

Belgium

Finland

Spain

0

Germany

10

0

Turkey

20

(in mil. €)

60

80

Total Participation Costs

70

100

Netherlands

Number of SME Participations

SME Clusters Participation

Country
Number of SME Participations

Total Project Budget (in mil. €)

N = 695;
Source: Panteia/ECE based on ITEA3 and PENTA Participation data, EUREKA Secretariat

2.3

Leverage of Participation in Eureka Instruments
In order to analyse the leverage of participation in Eureka instruments (in addition to the
subsidy received from Eureka grants), a representative subsample was created for Dutch
participants as well as international (i.e., non-Dutch) participants. Using characteristics, (such
as origin country, company age, number of employees, and others), of the total population
data, a subsample of 100 companies (50 Dutch and 50 international) was selected. This
subsample was then enriched with external datasets, (such as Orbis, Tracxn, Dealroom and
Crunchbase), to gauge the growth and investment paths of Eureka participants. It is important
to keep in mind that the leverage of participation in cluster instruments is limited and

8

Source: https://itea3.org/about-itea.html; https://www.penta-eureka.eu/penta/vision-mission.php
These numbers are rough estimates and should interpreted with caution as they are based on subsample
calculations. See the Technical Annex on Data Analysis and Enrichment for more information.
9

11

challenging to measure due to the fact that 61% of the projects are still running, while only
9% of the population data represents participation that is recently completed and only 1% is
completed. 10
2 . 3 . 1 G r ow th pa t h
The first element analysed to determine the leverage of Eureka participation is the growth
path of the Eureka enterprises. The growth paths are examined from the perspective of
participants from the Netherlands as well as international (non-Dutch) participants. The
following section consider several growth factors such as turnover, profitability and
employment.
Eurostars
Several companies participate in more than one Eurostars project. Specifically, around
21% of international companies participated in more than one Eurostars project, while
almost 37% of Dutch companies participated in more than one Eurostars project.
Eurostars - internationally
Approximately 30% of the international Eurostars participants experience some type of
growth upon joining a project, in at least two out of the following three indicators:
revenues, profits or number of employees. Of these companies that experienced growth,
41% can be defined as a scale-up. Overall, 12% of international Eurostars participants
are scale-ups, of which an overwhelming majority scaled up after participating in
Eurostars (80% scaled up after joining a Eurostars project while 20% of were already
scale-ups when joining a Eurostars project).
Out of international companies in the sample, 23% improved their liquidity position after
joining a Eurostars project. 11 This means that they experienced an increase in their
Current Ratio (current assets to current liabilities), demonstrating an improved position
in terms of ability to cover their short-term debts. This could be beneficial in helping
companies divert their resources towards growth rather than covering their operational
expenses. Only 2% of international participants seem to experience bankruptcy after
joining a Eurostars project. Overall, this implies that participation in Eurostars projects
not only helped these companies further develop their technologies but also helped
them overcome their financial constraints, which is highlighted in the literature 12 to be
particularly applicable to younger firms that face high liquidity constraints.
Eurostars – in the Netherlands
Similarly

to

international

participants,

approximately

30%

of

Dutch

Eurostars

participants general experience growth (in employment). 13 Of these Dutch Eurostars
participants which grow, it seems that these companies increase, on average, by 14
employees over a period of 3 years. Although only 2% of the Dutch Eurostars
participants in the subsample are scale-ups by the strict definition (i.e. must have 10
employees at the start of the period), 12% still experienced a scaling up in number of
employees after joining a Eurostars project.

10

See the Technical Annex on Data Analysis and Enrichment for more information about how the subsample
was created and thereby enriched.
11
An improved liquidity position is reflected by an increase in Current Ratio over a period of 3 years, given that
the most recent current ratio is higher than 1. See Technical Annex on Data Analysis and Enrichment for more
information.
12
García-Quevedo, J., Pellegrino, G., & Vivarelli, M. (2014). R&D drivers and age: Are young firms
different?. Research Policy, 43(9), 1544-1556.
13
Only limited consecutive employment data (over a period of 3 years) was available for the Dutch subsample.
Therefore, it is still possible that these companies experienced revenue growth despite the lack of data to
demonstrate it.

12

After joining a Eurostars project, 27% of Dutch companies in the sample were able to
successfully improve their liquidity positions (by increasing their Current Ratio). In other
words, 27% of the Dutch Eurostars participants do not require additional investments
to cover their operational expenses. This implies that there is more space for additional
funding to contribute to company growth and scaling, rather than covering existing
debts. In terms of bankruptcy, less than 5% of Dutch participants become liquidated
after joining a Eurostars project. Nevertheless, this implies that participation in
Eurostars projects not only helped Dutch companies further devel op their technologies
but also helped them overcome their financial and liquidity constraints, which is a
problem that is particularly faced by younger firms.
Clusters
Concerning the cluster participants, no scale-ups could be identified based on the
participant data received via the Eureka Secretariat. Although none have been identified
as scale-up enterprises per se, around half of international cluster SMEs still experienced
growth in the number of employees. Specifically, the median increase in employees over
a period of 3 years is 5 for international cluster SME participants. Similarly, just over
half of Dutch cluster SMEs grow in employment with a median growth of 4 employees
over a period of 3 years.
2 . 3 . 2 I nv es tm ent pa th
Not only is it important to consider the growth path of the Eureka companies after
participating in Eureka projects, but Eureka participation could also have leverage on
the investment path of the project participants. The following addresses the funding
pattern of the Eureka participants.
Eurostars
Eurostars - internationally
23% of international Eurostars participants raise funding (in addition to Eurostars
subsidies). The participants receive investments ranging from €50,000 to over €5
million. 14 Out of the companies that were funded, each company raised on average 4
rounds of funding 15 with majority (73%) of these funding rounds occurring after the
participants have joined a Eurostars project.
Eurostars – in the Netherlands
51% of Dutch Eurostars participants raise funding (in addition to Eurostars subsidies).
The participants receive investments ranging from €50,000 to over €20 million. 16
From the Dutch companies that were funded, each company raised on average 2 to 3
rounds of funding with almost 60% of these funding rounds occurring after the
participants have joined a Eurostars project.
Clusters
For both International and Dutch SME clusters, each participant raises 2 rounds of
funding, on average. Approximately 67% of Dutch SMEs and around 57% of
international SME cluster participants are funded. Most of these funding rounds
occurred before the start of the projects, which is understandable given the more
recent time frame of the clusters projects.

14

This range is based on the subsample analysis so in practice, it could be much broader.
It is possible that these rounds of funding occur across different Eurostars projects.
16
This range is based on the subsample analysis so in practice, it could be much broader.
15

13

Eureka participants in general
Both Eurostars and Clusters participants raise a diverse portfolio of investments, which
include (but is not limited to) those listed below in Table 1.
Table 1: Origin of Investment Raised for a sample of Eureka participants
Grants from a variety of

Investments for different

institutions, such as:

levels of development -

Exits via:

Seed, Series A-C, Post-IPO
from:
European Union (EU)

European Innovation
Council

EASME (Executive
Agency for Small and
Medium-Sized
Enterprises)

Horizon 2020 FET (Future
and Emerging
Technologies)



Venture capitalists



Angel investors



Accelerators



Debt financing



Private equity





Going public, i.e. IPO
(Initial Public
Offering) and listing
on the stock market
Acquisition by
another firm

EUREKA Network
Projects
N = 100; data sources: Tracxn, Dealroom, Crunchbase.

For most participants in the sample, the trend seems to entail first receiving some type
of (EU) grant before joining Eureka projects and thereafter receiving venture capital
investments after joining.
Around 33% of Dutch participants and 20% of international participants raise additional
funding from two or more different sources of investment. When it comes to Eurostars
projects, these companies follow a promising investment trajectory that is independent
of their participation type. This means that regardless of whether they were a Main
participant or a Partner participant, these companies were still able to raise additional
funding from different sources of investment. This could be because companies that
receive a more diverse portfolio of investment often participate in more than one
Eurostars project, where they play different roles as a Main participant in one project
while being a Partner participant in another.
The top Eureka performers in terms of successfully acquiring funding also seem to be
younger and smaller (in employee size) than the participants that raise less (or even no
additional) funding. While the average age of the sample Eureka participants is between
9 and 10 years old at the time the projects started, the average starting age of the “top
Eureka financing performers” is around 7 years old. Similarly, the average size of the
companies (when they register for the projects) in the sample of Eureka participants is
around 30 employees while those that successfully acquire multiple sou rces of funding
only have around 16 employees on average.

14

3

Best practices: 8 enterprise case studies
As part of this evaluation 8 best practice cases have been developed for enterprises who
participated in Eurostars, ITEA, and/or PENTA projects. The main aim is to establish the
experiences with Eureka programmes amongst different enterprises, their growth
trajectories, and to discover how Eureka contributed to the development of the enterprise.
To select and develop best practices and success stories, a list of successful enterprises is
made based the participant data received from the Eureka Secretariat. In this case
enterprises who had participated in both Eurostars and a cluster project were identified,
yielding a list of 54 enterprises to select best practice cases from. Further desk research was
conducted on this long list of enterprises and in cooperation with RVO eight enterprises were
selected17. The RVO and the authors of this report thank the enterprises for their
participation.
The list of enterprises presented are:

3.1

1.

Evalan B.V.

2.

Wellness Telecom

3.

GTX Medical

4.

EagleScience

5.

LG Sonic

6.

ViNotion

7.

Industrial Pathways

8.

Taiger

Evalan B.V. (NL)
Introducing Evalan B.V.
Evalan is an innovation company based in Amsterdam and Philadelphia that aims to
develop, market and sell innovative IoT systems. The company was founded in 2005 by
Mr. Henk Schwietert and two other partners. The start of the enterprise had its ups and
downs and within 6 months the two partners left, leaving Mr. Schwietert as the de facto
founder and CEO.
The idea for the enterprise was born while Mr. Schwietert and his two partners were
working at their previous employer, an American company working in telemetry, now
known as the Internet of Things (IoT). This enterprise was a pioneer in this technological
area but did not see the full market applications for their technology. Around 2000 the
company realised that they were well ahead of most other industrial companies and
decided to spin out the group that was working on the telemetry projects as a separate
company. Anticipating a significant market potential for companies that speciali se in
Internet of Things applications, Mr. Schwietert decided that this could be an area of
interest for a new start-up, and Evalan was established.
At first Evalan engaged in a few different foreign contracts, supplying technological
solutions. These contracts were not overly successful. Then came a contract with a client
where Evalan was requested to develop tailor made monitoring systems to collect data
on how this client’s products were being used. A series of indicators for different aspects

17

At the time of writing this report, global and national health measures in connection with the Corona virus
were existing which made approaching the enterprises more complicated.

15

of product use and consumption was developed by Evalan to meet the client’s needs.
All this information could be sent to and examined via a central server.
A new two pronged business model
This approach of tailoring product solutions to the needs of a client, rather than rolling
out generic technological products became the new way of working for Evalan. This
approach involves a longer term collaboration with clients as product solutions mus t be
maintained and updated when necessary. The client tends to come up with new desires
or requirements for their product and this leads to the further development of the
product solution in question.
During these processes of developing a solution further, Evalan also tends to discover
new chances or opportunities to apply the innovations in question to other areas as well,
thereby expanding on an existing product or concept. This in essence forms a second,
main line of business activity within Evalan. Evalan uses EU funds and subsidies for this
process of further developing an existing product or piece of technology. It is in this
prong of the business model that Eureka financing is used.
Evalan participated in and initiated various Eureka programmes with a wide
assortment of their projects. Evalan has participated in:

Two Eurostars projects: COMFORT and SACON;

Two ITEA projects: MoSHCA and FoodFriend;

The PENTA project PLANtAR; and the Catrene project NEXGEN.

Instead of examining each project in turn, those that made special impact and led to
the development of new technology and new Eureka funded projects are examined
briefly below.
MoSCHA - ‘My Mobile and Smart Health Care Assistant
The first project Evalan participated in was the MoSHCA project, which ran as a part of
the Eurostars programme from October 2012 toll March 2016. MoSHCA is short for ‘My
Mobile and Smart Health Care Assistant.’ Comprised of eleven partners this project
aimed to create a mobile health environment designed to improve the patient-doctor
interaction and control of chronic diseases.
The MoSHCA project yielded various valuable outcomes both in form of dissemination
and exploitation. Over 10 research publications have been made in the context of this
project, over 30 demonstrations of prototypes given at meetings, fairs and events, and
more than 30 presentations given at conferences and symposiums.
The MoSHCA project also led to several valuable products being developed. So far the
research has been used to create an epilepsy app that detects epileptic seizures with a
proprietary sound algorithm. This app is being used to monitor 2000 patients at ‘s
Heeren Loo care group in the Netherlands. Additional apps created include a general
fitness app called Healthify as well as Care Me At Home, an app created to enable
premature babies to be monitored at home. Technology developed in the MoSHCA
project was also used towards developing technology in the COMFORT project, another
of Evalan’s ITEA projects.
From MoSCHA to COMFORT and SensiStep
The COMFORT project was started in September 2015. This project uses innovative IoT
technology to provide real time feedback on the impact of physical activity on the joints

16

of patients rehabilitating from leg or hip injury. It used technolog y from the MoSHCA
project supplemented with new research to create the product SensiStep; an innovative
tool based on IoT technology that provides real time feedback on the impact of physical
activity on the joints of patients rehabilitating from leg or hip injury. SensiStep supports
patients and medical professionals in partial physical therapy by providing feedback that
helps them perform successful load bearing exercises. This technology is currently being
used professionals at UMC Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Evalan’s NEXGEN project kicked off May 2016 and ran till June 2019. This project was
focused on developing different sensor-based body monitoring technology to address
health and healthcare issues. It led to the creation of micro-electronic technologies and
components for mobile and wearable healthcare-systems.
ITEA project outcomes and impact for Evalan
In terms of broader outcomes of the project for Evalan, as the enterprise’s first main
Eureka project, MoSHCA led to many lessons. The collaboration with in the ITEA project
MoSHCA were very interesting for Evalan. Although it was not entirely clear what was
expected from Evalan within this new European programme, the project leader for this
particular consortium was especially good and helpful. As f irst time participants the
exact ways of working and requirements were all new to Evalan and the project leader
gave very good support to the project partners, including Evalan.
After the MoSHCA project, Evalan experienced a growth rate of 100% in turnover,
employees, and profitability each year, in 2016, 2017 and 2018. During that same
period Evalan has added 40 FTEs to the enterprise and expects that growth will continue
in 2019. Evalan’s assets has grown between 2014 and 2018 by approximately 88%. In
terms of a broader technological impact, the technology Evalan developed within the
MoSHCA project has contributed to the further development of related technology and
product.
Though MoSHCA is an example of a good product which was developed and with further
technological possibilities and developments, the impact of a project on an enterprise
varies per project. As a whole, Evalan indicates that participation in Eureka project s has
contributed enormously to its growth and development. One of the projects (Sensi Step)
indeed led to the establishment of a subsidiary enterprise which now has over 30 people
employed and the product is being offered in hospitals all over Europe.
Contribution of Eureka programme financing
Regarding other sources of financing, Evalan has not made use of much external or
public financing for its enterprise or its projects. The enterprise itself was started with
private capital. One of the few sources of public financing came from the ECSEL
programme. However, Evalan focuses its attention and efforts on the Eureka programme
and its instruments. The enterprise consciously invests its efforts in Eureka for the
network, for the financing, and Evalan is active in the Eureka network activities as well;
they go to meetings and conferences, see their partners there and meet familiar as well
as new faces. According to Evalan, once you learn how to use the Eureka programme it
is very manageable to conduct products with.
If there had been no Eureka financing to make use of, Evalan would no doubt have
considered other avenues for its business activities. It is of course difficult to say what
the enterprise would have done without such financing, but Evalan indica tes that it
would most likely have taken on a different business model, using technology from

17

abroad rather than developing it themselves. The shape of the enterprise would likely
have been different too, more of a trading enterprise rather than one with a
technological foundation as is the case now.
In terms of growth, it is difficult to say how much growth is due to the Eureka
instruments and how much is due to Evalan’s own activities. However, Mr. Schwietert
estimates that since using Eureka and now, the turnover has increased tenfold and
employment has increased substantially.
Key success factors for Evalan
Given Evalan’s many projects and the fact that the MoSHCA project was the first
amongst these, this section focuses on the success and fail facto rs for this particular
project.


A number of key factors played a role in the relative success of the MoSHCA
project.



The project leader emphasised the core rationale in cluster projects that
the focus is on technological development which can then be brought to market.
However, cluster projects show a measure of flexibility and freedom for
enterprises to adapt to the innovations and technologies within a sector, which
evolve continuously. The ultimate goal of the projects is to work and develop a
certain technology and to consider its applications. In that spirit changing the
approach to developing the technology is perfectly reasonable as long as it
allows for organisations to indeed develop the technology in question; this
appears to be an important success factor distinguishing Eureka from other
financing programmes.



Another success factor appears to have been Evalan’s own efforts to
contribute in a sound, timely, and reliable manner. It appears that one gets
out what one puts in with these projects. Making efforts to be a good partner
increases a company’s chances of

being invited for a next project

consortium.


Evalan focuses its attention and efforts on the Eureka programme and its
instruments. The enterprise consciously invests in Eureka as its main source of
external financing for product development for the sake of both the network of
collaboration partners and for the financing.



Evalan is also active in the Eureka network activities as well, going to
meetings and conferences, see their partners there and meet familiar as well as
new faces. This in turn has led to networks of collaboration partners in and
across Europe for Evalan. Indeed these networks together with the financing of
innovations are the core reasons for Evalan’s use of the Eureka programme.

All in all, given the growth and technological impact Evalan has reached with the help
of Eureka financing, the enterprise indicates that they are unequivocal fans of the
Eureka programme.

3.2

Wellness Telecom, (ES)
Introducing Wellness Telecom
Wellness Telecom was established in Spain in 2008 and is a high -value technology
company with over 11 years of experience in the development and implementation of
IoT solutions, cybersecurity, Big Data and artificial intelligence. The main mission of the
enterprise is to provide clients with the best possible, quality solutions and products,
simplifying and automating administration and operations by incorporating the
technology into state-of-the art cybernetics and devices. Wellness Telecom has two

18

domains: IT networks and Smart Cities and the enterprise develops products for these
two main business areas.
The smart technology which Wellness Telecom develops, is used to combat issues faced
by cities, regions, public service industries, and business by providing solutions in a
“smart” way. Wellness Telecom’s specialisation includes a large range of multi-vertical
projects which include the design, implementation and operation of integral solutions,
including safe cities, clean and efficient cities, smart destinations and connected
industry.
Evolving technological ambitions
In 2009 the focus area of Smart Cities was less of a prevalent technological area than
today (2020). It was not a common area of work then and Wellness Telecom was a
pioneer in the field. The enterprise started considering basic services in a city and how
to automate and digitise these. The first services they developed included both the hard
and software for municipal waste disposal and lighting. They developed products for
these two main areas and applied for funds. Following this and learning from its
experiences with automating these service areas, Wellness Telecom moved into other
service areas relating to Smart Cities, including water management.
Wellness Telecom developed a prototype for industrialising water using the IoT concept.
However, to further industrialise this prototype and to bring it to market the enterprise
made use of Eurostars. It did so with partner organisations from Hungary and Romania
as these were also countries in which the enterprises wanted to become more active;
Eastern Europe was an interesting region for Wellness Telecom to move into. In
expanding its portfolio in this way, Wellness Telecom achieved access to new market
areas.
Using Eureka instruments
Wellness Telecom engages in end to end development of their products, designing and
producing the hardware all the way to the software. As with most R&D enterprises,
further developing products for its two domains and engaging in the necessary research
and development included a certain degree of (financial) risk for Wellness Telecom. The
enterprise uses funds such as Eureka to reduce the risk of investing to evolve and
develop the enterprise’s products.
To make their products and technologies more competitive, Wellness Telecom uses
external funds. Within the enterprise the policy is that if technology can be applied to
an existing product within the enterprise, a succinct business plan is developed for the
product and how it could be further developed. This business plan takes the form of a
sort of white paper which is presented to the company directors; these then decide if
this product development will be financed internally or if they require external financing.
Following this the enterprise searches for an appropriate programme for financing the
product development.
Wellness Telecom has participated and initiated various Eureka projects. The company
is currently participating in two projects, SWAM in the Eurostars instrument and POLDER
in the ITEA instrument. These two are described below.
 POLDER, refers to POLicy & Data Exploitation & Re-use, and is part of the ITEA 3 program.
The project kicked off November 2018 and is currently running until June 2022. POLDER
aims to design, develop and deploy a software tool-suite to support government, city
councils and related organisations in the elicitation, design and application and validation
of policymaking. POLDER proposes a hybrid policymaking model, where policy is made:

19



Data driven, Model driven Society driven. The consortium of the project consists of 17
partners in total, coming from Finland, Romania, Spain, and Turkey.
The latest project Wellness Telecom participates in is SWAM. SWAM, refers to Smart Water
Management system for better environment sustainability and relates to the sectors
environmental engineering and technology. SWAM aims to support Sustainable
Development Goals and the implementation of EU initiatives (IEP Water) by providing a
vigorous, smart and effective water management system according to the needs of each
region or city. Wellness Telecom has a lead role in this project, which runs from 2018 to
2022, and is doing so in collaboration with enterprises from Romania and Italy.

Eureka project outcomes and impact for Wellness Telecom
Looking at tangible project outcomes, Eureka has helped Wellness Telecom to develop
its market position and has contributed to new business partnerships. Between 2008
and 2011, the enterprise’s revenue grew with 35%. Between 2011 and 2014, while the
LBA Eurostars project was running, the enterprise appeared to scale –up, growing in
revenue in those years by around 145%. Wellness Telecom staff also grew along with
the revenue, from 7 to 54 employees between 2009 and 2013.
One of the company’s key success factors here, is its leadership position within the
market. Another aspect that illustrates Wellness Telecom’s growth is the partnership in
2018 with Enzen. Enzen is a global leader in the Energy and Utilities sector, and the
goal was to expand Wellness TechGroup’s portfolio for smart cities and industry. Besides
this it focusses on the applications of IoT innovation and new technologies on ene rgy
and utilities under the global economy.
From a societal perspective too, projects such as POLDER and SWAM contribute to
helping policy makers understand the behaviour of citizens, will optimise energy
consumption, tourism, transport , waste disposal, health, services, water management
and more, thereby working to improve the quality of life for citizens across Europe.
Next stages of development
Around two years ago (2018), Wellness Telecom consciously decided to scale up and to
move from being an SME to a large enterprise. To do so Wellness Telecom needed
investors. One of the enterprise’s key credentials was its experience in research and
development and its in-house capabilities in that regard, as well as running large
international projects (some over 20 million €). These were motivating credentials for
investors to eventually invest in the company and to allow it to grow. The fact that
Wellness Telecom knew how to innovate and the R&D experience made the enterprise
much more attractive and find investors. The investment allowed Wellness Telecom to
become a global organisation and to work together with partners in South America,
Korea, and other global regions. This is especially due to the R&D experience and this
experience in turn is due to external financing from programmes such as Eureka.
Wellness Telecom has had overall good experiences with the different Eureka
instruments.

Besides

the

financing

and

resulting

technological

evolution

and

development of their products, the international networks are also very valuable.
Adapting to partners and finding common points of interest and cooperating is part of
the process of collaborating with foreign partners in project consortia. However,
Wellness Telecom prefers to think of these project partners as “copetitors” (instead of
competitors); project partners which help Wellness Telecom to further develop certain
products, and which help them enter into new sectors with those products should be
viewed not so much as competitors as collaboration partners, that is, “copetitors”. These
partners allow them to penetrate into different markets and make their products better.

20

Wellness Telecom indicates that it would most likely have grown much more slowly if it
had not been for their use of Eureka programmes. The funds they receive via Eureka
helped catalyse the development of new products, which allows for growth and breaking
into new markets, which in turn requires hiring more people. Research is by i ts very
nature a risky business; outcomes are rarely certain. Wellness telecom cannot always
carry this risk itself and therefore the evolution of the enterprise would have been much
slower.

3.3

GTX Medical B.V. (NL)
Introducing GTX Medical
GTX Medical is a medical device corporation, founded December 2014, splitting off
from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne. GTX Medical is
devoted to treating individuals with a spinal cord injury and providing them with
accelerated recovery and a better quality of life. As such they have, GTX has
participated in multiple Eureka projects to allow them to research develop new
treatments. GTX medical has developed, and is currently running clinical tests, on a
ground-breaking implantable spinal cord stimulation treatment that provides an
opportunity for rehabilitation from a spinal cord injury with Targeted Epidural Spinal
Stimulation (TESS). They do this through an implantable spinal cord stimulation
system with real-time motion feedback. Preliminary clinical results are confirming a
series of scientific breakthroughs developed in animal models over the past 15 years.
The treatment has also already been shown to restore locomotion walking in a select
number of patients with spinal cord injury.
Using Eureka instruments and project outcomes
This research and the resulting medical breakthrough findings originated from three four
Eureka funded R&D projects (DISPERSE, RESTORE, WALKAGAIN, and CONFIRM!), that built
upon each other to led to the creation e of new technological innovative products.










In DISPERSE, funded through the PENTA cluster, GTX Medical and the other partners in
the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland created methods to safely and effectively perform
MRI scanning of patients with multiple implants.
In the RESTORE project (PENTA), the consortium collaborated to create technology that
could more accurately depict the anatomy of a patient’s spine, and allowing medical
professionals (neurosurgeons) to prepare the placement of the stimulation lead on the
spine with high precision to obtain the best possible outcomes: the delicate and
personalised work of attempting to reconnect spinal pathways. The project partners also
started developing a personalised electrode array configurations to use in their therapy.
In the WALKAGAIN project (PENTA), GTX Medical collected locomotion data in people with
a spinal cord injury, to support the development and validation of gait detection algorithms
as well as a wearable device to adjust the stimulation settings in real-time..
Since April 1st 2019, GTX Medical started a new project through Eurostars, named
CONFIRM!. This project aims at research into confirmative neuromodulation surgery for
rehabilitating people with spinal injury.
In April 1st 2020, GTX initiated a new project through Eurostars, called PREP2GO. This
project aims at the development of a pre-operative planning system, based on deep
learning and computational modelling, for neuromodulation surgery in spinal cord injury
rehabilitation.

GTX Medical conducted these interrelated research projects with the help of Eureka funding
as well as with a financial loan from RVO, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. The pioneering

21

nature of the research and the medical, societal value of helping treat spinal injuries and
allowing patients to regain the use of their legs are in part due to the use of both Eureka and
national public financing. The CONFIRM! and PREP2GO Projects indeed commenced during the
running of the DISPERSE, RESTORE, and WALKAGAIN project triumvirate. This suggests that
the CONFIRM! and PREP2GO projects were something of how a spin-offs product area arising
from the work being done in the other three, related projects.
GTX Medical is a privately-held company, backed by venture capital funds and a government
loan. A series A investment round in 2016 resulted in a financing of had received investments
through other channels, including the loan from the Dutch agency, the RVO and through some
€26 million € together with other partners in a Series A investment round in 2016. The degree
to which growth of GTX Medical has grown thanks to opportunities offered by the Eureka
projects above is difficult to quantify concretely. However, from 2016 to 2018, the enterprise
total assets grew from around €4.7M € to € 9.6 M €, and increase of around 103%. Its
employees grew in number from 11 to 35 over the same period. It appears that during this
period the enterprise was able to scale-up.
Swiss ties and next steps
The most considerable factor contributing to the success of GTX is that they address a medical
need for which there is no other solution resulting in reversing the paralysis to some degree.
This makes them highly relevant and competitive in the market and disruptive towards nonrestorative medical aids such as exoskeletons. The international collaboration with partners
in Switzerland appear to have arisen in part due to the origins of the company in Switzerland
and has been expanded further with the financing of collaborative research projects through
Eureka.
In 2019 GTX announced the merger with the US-based NeuroRecovery Technologies Inc. into
GTX Medical B.V. The newly merged company started working on a Targeted Epidural Spine
Stimulation (TESS), “an implantable spinal cord stimulation system with real-time motion
feedback for locomotion” and a Non)Invasive Electrical Stimulation System (NESS), a
transcutaneous stimulation system to treat upper-limp paralysis, according to GTX Medical.
The merger brings together the technical and research expertise of both institutes as well and
turns GTX into a global player.

3.4

EagleScience B.V. (NL)
Introducing EagleScience B.V. (NL)
EagleScience Software BV is a company that creates software for businesses. The
enterprise does not have one specific product it creates as the business model is to turn
the ideas and desires of their clients into software applications; EagleScience adapts to
whatever the client is seeking.
In practice, EagleScience works with different clients: both small and large businesses
as well as scientific institutes. For their products, the innovative ideas are offered by
the client, and EagleScience helps make the ideas reality.
The CEO of EagleScience spent over a decade working in applied research. After
becoming a solo-entrepreneur in the Netherlands, he became involved in valorisation
and consulting on bringing research innovations to market. This grew into setting up
various enterprises, all of which are innovation driven. What became apparent here was
the need across various sectors for tailored software development.

22

In the first phase of innovative product development, a fast, affordable prototype (or
MVP, minimal viable product) is needed, so new ideas can be tested with users. A key
success factor in this process is understanding the idea (vision) of the inventor and the
needs of the future user. With these in mind, a first version of the product is built using
the latest techniques. Subsequently, after a successful evaluation, the prototype can be
scaled to a fully operational product.
The first enterprise set up by Mr. Grootjen, (EagleScience CEO), grew very fast, starting
mainly with students from Delft University and later working with the first fixed
contracts. After a few years this led to the spin-offs of multiple enterprises. EagleScience
grew into the main software development company it is now. The company focus es its
activities on developing new software from the ground up with the newest technology.
This has been the business approach for EagleScience for the last 6 years.
Use of Eureka instruments
EagleScience mainly does project based work for clients. The E ureka project financing
offers more freedom and innovation to develop technologies in ways that are useful to
the company. This freedom to innovate and explore technological innovation leads to
new client propositions and, additionally, own products that can be brought to the
market in a spin-off company. EagleScience has participated in several Eureka projects,
providing the software solutions to make the projects aim possible.
 One of the projects EagleScience participated in was the SenSuit project which kicked
off in March 2016. In this Eurostars project they worked together with a Dutch and German
consortium of three companies and a research institute. The SenSuit project aimed to
develop a state of the art firefighting suit by integrating sensors into firefighting suits
measuring the firefighter’s vitals. It gives the firefighters instant feedback through
vibrations and sends the information to the firefighting trucks so the commander can keep
an eye team. This creation of a terminal for on the firetruck and the communication with
the suit was EagleScience’s contribution to the project. All in all, this suit makes the work
of firefighters safer because it allows them and their commanders to easily keep an eye
on their health while carrying out their work. SenSuit Safety Systems, an addition project
of EagleScience was a continuation of the work that was done in the SenSuit project. The
main success factor of this project is the innovative and useful product. It addresses not
just a gap in the market, but an actual demand.
 The other project EagleScience participated in was Neurostars, a Dutch and French
collaboration which started September 2016. The Neurostars consortium aimed to create
a breakthrough medical imaging device: a 3D brain visualiser that creates a realistic 3D
visualisation of the inside of the human brain. By combining multiple neuro-imaging
sources, and using an algorithm that recognises crucial types of tissue (e.g. veins, brain,
and tumour) and patterns, the imaging device can become accurate and full colour. A
360° specific modelling engine makes the 3D model interactive in a virtual reality
environment and provides an intuitive user interface. This adds a high degree of value
visualisation that is highly relevant for clinical practice.
Project outcomes and impact of Eureka on the enterprise
The financing has led to growth and security within EagleScience, especially in the early
years of the enterprise. EagleScience started with 5 people and now has 22 employees.
The turnover of the enterprise has grown from between 300 k€ and 400 k€, to around
1.3 million€ a year.
The development and growth in terms of both revenue and employees is partially due
to the long-term Eureka financing. Due to the new avenues of product development and
innovation which are made possible through Eureka financing, EagleScience was able to

23

hire people to work on those projects. The innovations and products which arose from
this gave rise to new areas which required hiring more people as the enterprise grew.
The Eureka financing has been especially helpful in hiring employees; the project
financing and the flexibility it offers made it possible to hire people (especially during
the difficult economic years at the start). Beyond this however, the financing and the
way of working made EagleScience an attractive place to work for young people in
particular; having space for research and development is an appealing aspect of working
at EagleScience and one which the enterprise actively tries to maintain in his enterprise.
A further positive outcome was the establishment of the enterprise Elitac, set -up partly
based on the Sensuit project. While this enterprise was not established because of
Eurostars, the collaboration between Elitac and EagleScience became deeper and closer
due to Eurostars financing. Similarly, with Braincarta, partner in the Neurostars project,
was first a client and then became a collaboration partner through the intense
collaboration which arose during the Neurostars project.
It should be noted that during the Eurostars project duration, the system behind the
Sensuit was not yet working well enough, in part because some of the consortia partners
were unable to deliver what they had hoped to deliver within the project plan. This was
quite unforunate but these things happen indicates EagleScience. This happens and is
inherent to innovation. Now another larger multi-national company has taken on the
further development of the Sensuit which EagleScience views as a natural progression
in technologicla devleopment.
Eureka and other sources of financing
If EagleScience had not made use of Eureka financing, it would probably have opted for
Horizon2020 funding instead. However, the enterprise would not have made this
decision lightly, being a smaller enterprise. It costs much time, effort and money to
prepare a H2020 project application and the research tends to be of a more fundamental
nature. This means collaborating more with universities or research institutes, which
tend to have other goals and expectations as to enterprises. Furthermore, H2020
involves larger projects where the oversight and role of individual organisations tends
to become smaller.
EagleScience has made use of MIT subsidies on occasion. Other Dutch subsidies have
lower subsidy rates, are less financially attractive, and tend to have stricter application
assessment. Furthermore, they make use of WBSO financing (a Dutch subsidy for R&D
in SMEs of all types).
The Eureka financing was very important in the growth of EagleScience; it made it
possible to hire people and this in turn made it easier to research and innovate and try
new things, which in turn led to the need for more people. The enterprise is unsure
whether other subsidies or financing could have helped him achieve the same.
EagleScience also estimates that it would not have grown as rapidly if had not used
Eureka financing.

3.5

LG Sonic
Introducing LG Sonic
LG Sonic is a company that was originally founded in 1999 and saw reorientation and
restart in 2011. LG Sonic is a leading international manufacturer of algae control and

24

bio-fouling prevention systems. Their main aim is to reduce or eliminate harmful
chemicals in our global water environment. They do so in part by offering a chemicalfree ultrasonic technology that controls algae without disturbing the natural balance
within water ecosystems. LG Sonic looks for end-users that face algae problems in their
water reservoirs.
Some of LG Sonic’s main clients include municipalities, drinking water treatment plants,
owners of power plants and wastewater treatment companies. The company has a large
presence on both the European, and the North and South American market.
Use of public funds and Eureka
In the past, LG Sonic has coordinated and participated in several European Funded (non Eureka) projects, through FP7 amongst other things. They kicked off their participation
in Eureka with a 2009 project called FISH-CWUS on which the Faculty of Health Studies
at the University Of Ljubljana was the main partner. The project aimed to create a water
process control instrument to use in water recycling. They specifically focused on two
things: units for vertical constructed wetland and units using ultrasound for sensitive
water treatment systems where chemicals are an unsatisfactory solution.
LG Sonic’s most recent project was Eurostars project LiceSonic which started in May
2017. This project had as a goal to create an environment friendly ultrasonic solution
to control sea lice in open finfish production. LG Sonic is primarily responsible for R&D
whereas the other two consortium partners are responsible for the exploitation of the
ultrasonic solution LG Sonic will develop.
The growth of LG Sonic and the role of Eureka
The role of this project was very important to the development of LG Sonic. LG Sonic is
active in the water sector, their mission is to work towards a water sector without
chemicals. Upon entering the field, it was important to get to know the market. The
water sector is quite large, with drinking water, waste disposal, cleaning, and
aquaculture being some of the main fields within the sector.
Upon closer inspection of the sub-sectors LG Sonic discovered that the aquaculture
sector suffers billions of euros worth of damages worldwide due to pest and
environmental problems. This then became the area for LG Sonic to target with the
LiceSonic project. This required information on the aquaculture sector, the main players,
the challenges, and how to market their product in that context.
As LG Sonic needed information and insight on the market and sectors they were
targeting, they needed knowledgeable partners. For this reason, LG Sonic teamed up
with a Norwegian start-up who was very familiar with the sector; they knew how the
market worked and the end-users for the product. This start-up was included in the
Eurostars project team amongst others.
After much time investigating and developing the project in the office, the project team
wanted to test the product (an ultrasound device to clean chemicals out of water in this
case). The first tests were done in the field (not as pilots in controlled sur roundings),
and showed a reduction of some 60% in the chemicals in water at around 10 times
chapter than competitors at the time. LG Sonic and its partners seemed to have
developed a new state of the art in the technology.

25

After the first successful round of testing, more tests were conducted with end-users to
ensure that the first positive results were not some fluke or due to environmental
reasons. The results were verified in new tests as well amongst end -users. The results
were amazing and almost seemed too good to be true says Mr. Yousef.

Overall impact of Eureka on LG Sonic
The product development and success would not have happened without Eurostars.
There was too much risk, too many unknown factors (such as partners, the way the
water sector worked, etc.). LG Sonic needed to partner up with European partners to
get the product off the ground and into markets and would not have taken on the
financial risk of developing and commercialising this product without Eurostars.
LG Sonic is currently active in some 96 countries. It has various different end -users for
its products but they mainly fall in the public and government institutions category. It
has offices in USA, the Arab Emirates, and is working to set up in Brazil as well. The
external public financing provided a significant boost, and LG Sonic grew with about
35% every year after establishment in 2011. During 2019 the growth was closer to
300%.
LG Sonic has been expanding swiftly in recent years and the enterprise is a scale -up at
the international level. To do this LG Sonic needed between 2 and 4.3 million € of
investment. Until now they have received around 3 million € in investment; 50 to 60%
of this investment has been private and the rest public investment. Scaling up in
technological and innovative sectors is difficult without external funding and the
rationale and design of the Eureka instruments are a very good way to do so.

3.6

ViNotion (NL)
Introducing ViNotion
ViNotion is a specialised high-tech limited liability company in the field of image analysis
technology. Founded in March 2007 as a spin-off of the Video Coding and Architectures
research group at Eindhoven University of Technology, the enterprise uses its
technology to build systems to detect objects in video. The technology works by using
pattern recognition and machine learning techniques, or to analyse ob ject behaviour,
so called intelligent video analysis. ViNotion aims to innovate by building upon their
specialized experience in the development of video content analysis, optimized for real time traffic analysis. As such, they participate in both national and international
innovation projects.
ViNotion primarily develops surveillance systems that learn and model specific objects
from photo- and video input. For example: surveillance systems that analyse traffic
(pedestrians, cyclist, crowds, and motorized vehicles) but also waterway analysis and
management systems.
ViNotion and the Eureka programme
ViNotion is an innovative enterprise and first participated in the Eureka programme as
a start-up. It was established as a spin-off from another enterprise and aimed to put a
specific product into the market. This required a significant effort because although the
idea for the product was clear, it needed to be further developed, tested, and put int o
market. In terms of both time and money this was a very intens ive process.

26

As ViNotion works with software, they needed employees with the right technical
backgrounds

and

experience

so

that

the

software

could

be

developed

and

commercialised. This process alone can take years. The market of course a lso changes.
As such, between the conceiving a product idea to the generation of revenue from a
marketable product can take years (up to around a decade in fact). To finance all of this
was not possible for a young enterprise such as ViNotion. To bring an innovative product
into the market requires a lot of investment, which is especially challenging for startups and scale-ups usually.
For this reason ViNotion looked for external public funding and came across the Eureka
programme. To date, ViNotion has run a large number of projects within the Eureka
programme and clusters. ViNotion’s first Eureka project was project ViCoMo, which ran
from September 2009 till December 2012. ViCoMo, standing for Visual Context Modeling
(ITEA), developed video-enhancing algorithms and improved intelligent visual systems
enabling recognition project. The key achievements in the field of 3D modelling during
this project included full automatic infrastructure recognition in geo-referenced images
along with autonomous simulation from video inputs. Beyond this, behaviour tracking,
logistics control and transportation tracking were improved with technology gained in
this project.
Other projects include:
 TASPAIR, a project that develops technology that analyses traffic through motion sensors;
 PS-CRIMSON (via ITEA), a project that concerned itself with solving some of the major
logistical issues of smart cities;
 MACH, or Massive Calculations on Hybrid systems (ITEA), focussed on the development of
new high profile computing hardware to be used by the members of the consortium in their
own application domains (and was used by ViNotion to develop software used by the Dutch
government);
 APPS, a project that improved surveillance systems in the maritime domain;
 SMART, or Spatial Modelling Analytics and Real-time Tracking (ITEA), which is currently
developing a tracking system that can be used to minimise urban traffic congestion.
Outcomes and impact of Eureka projects
Not only does the financing help to bridge the time between conceiving of an idea and
developing it, the cooperation with project partners facilitated by Eureka participation
was also an important benefit for ViNotion. Universities can be valuable resources as
they have researchers and research projects running, which enterprises like ViNotion
collaborate on. They can keep track of the research progress when they collaborate with
a university, and universities in turn benefit from enterprises’ skills in bringing
innovations to market. It is almost impossible to research, develop, and market
technological innovations alone and collaborations are a must, especially for SMEs.
The financing and collaboration with partners were the two main reasons for ViNotion
making use of the Eureka programme. If it had not been for this financial injection to
develop and commercialise their software ViNotion estimates they would have gone
bankrupt. Regular investors are usually not willing to take technological risks and
typically need to see returns on their investments on relative short notice, something
which is difficult in an R&D stage with large technological challenges for innovation. For
this reason using a public source of financing like Eureka fit the enterprises needs better.
The exact growth due to Eureka is difficult to distinguish. However, Eureka projects did
lead to hiring more people as the company’s need for expertise grew. This in turn led
to more innovation and more profit, requiring more employees in turn. Currently

27

ViNotion has 18 employees of which ViNotion estimates one third to one half have been
hired as a result of Eureka programme participation. Since 2018, ViNotion has also been
awarded further public financing (to the amount of 50,000 €), through the European
Innovation Council Grant.
ViNotion has recently started to orient and look for investors to scale up the enterprise.
This is a recent process and the enterprise is being careful with what type of external
investment it would ideally like to use.

3.7

Industrial Pathways (SE)
Introducing Path Solutions Sweden
Industrial Path Solutions (IPS) is a Swedish company that was founded in 2012 as a
spin-off from the Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre to manage and sell the IPS software
which Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre created. IPS software is a software suite for virtual
project realisation. This means that it allows whoever is using it to have a virtual space
in which they can design and test products or optimise their existing systems.
Finding suitable financing, Eureka!
IPS had looked at other subsidy programmes to expand their business activities, but
struggled to find the right fit. Due to its history and establishment the enterprise has a
strong commercial as well as a research focus. Finding both these principles emphasised
in programmes was not easy as not many subsidies or financing instruments have such
a dual focus. Eureka was an exception in this regard. The first project IPS engaged with
was

a

Eurostars

project.

The

Eurostars

rationale

is

very

much

focused

on

commercialising research results for markets. This was a good fit for IPS in 2015 and
turned offered a substantial boost. Their products went to market quicker through
Eurostars than through national industry partners or through academic or research
entities.
IPS has been a part of several Eureka subsidised projects:
 DDA-Flex, short for a Digital Tool for Durability Assessment of Flexibles, is a Eurostars
project that kicked off in July 2016. The project aimed to develop a software tool for
simulation based assessment of the durability of cables and hoses, to be used in the digital
validation of assembly and disassembly processes.
 The ITEA project, MOSIM, started in 2018. This project aims to create a library, open
modular framework and a co-simulator to enhance the availability of efficient and
interactive simulation and analysis of realistic human motions for professional applications
in different fields of industry.
 In 2019 IPS started another Eurostars project called ED-VIMA. This project is meant to
improve and evaluate assembly processes for rigid, and in particular flexible, components
with regards to ergonomic human motions.
The outcomes and impact of Eureka instruments
The Eureka projects have helped to strengthen the IPS workforce. Due to two projects,
IPS has hired new employees. This was possible thanks to the financing which was
received. For an enterprise that started out with two employees this was a large jump.
In terms of concrete, measurable indicators, IPS revenue grew between 700 ,600€ in
2015 to 1.853.900 € in 2018, an increase in revenue of around 164%.
While the precise contribution of Eureka financing is of course difficult to establish, IPS
indicates Eureka financing played an important role in the enterprise’s growth. The
financing enables productive development and the strengthening of the software. During

28

the Eurostars project however, there was a real need to develop its software further.
IPS would not have developed further product applications and prototypes if not for the
project; they would have needed to see more concrete demand or need to have had
capital available to warrant such further development. Eurostars contributed to the
improvement and further innovation of IPS’ software applications. This and the ITEA
project in turn led to job creation within the enterprise.
Looking at international networks and collaboration, IPS knew their German and
Swedish partners before going in to Eurostars the project. The ITEA project on the other
hand, put IPS in contact with new partners, including big enterprises like Daim ler, which
IPS indicates they would otherwise not have gotten into close contact with. This also
works in reverse, with project partners coming to Sweden and IPS introducing them to
other Swedish partners. The contact and physical visit in this case were g ood steps and
contributed to the IPS’ international network.
The Corona situation has shown incidentally that much of the communication and
contact can go via telecom calls quite well too. More contact is usually a favourable
thing for a consortium of partners and using telecom platforms, this could be facilitated
further in future.

3.8

Taiger (ES)
Introducing Taiger
Taiger, founded in 2009 in Spain, provides AI solutions which use human-like reasoning
to automatically read, comprehend, and extract data. Taiger is based in Spain with
headquarters in Singapore. Since 2009, this Spanish enterprise assists and provides
solutions and options to enterprises, industry leaders and governments with cost
efficient services.
The enterprise implements technological innovations for current societal challenges. It
has operations focusing on transforming unstructured data

into

implementable

knowledge for industry leaders across financial services, insurance and government
sectors. The company has gained various awards and recognition from multiple
companies. Taiger is currently allocating resources and investment towards expanding
its presence globally such as in South Korea and Japan, Mexico, USA and the United
Arab Emirates. Furthermore, in September 2019 it initiated its official global technology
and commercial collaboration with Microsoft. Through this cooperation, enterprises can
access improved automation capability with more cost efficient techniques to process
information.
Use of Eureka instruments
Taiger has participated in multiple Eureka projects, such as the APP project, under the
Eurostars instrument, and EMOSPACES, SOMEDI, CITISIM and DEFRAUDify under the
ITEA instrument.
 The EmoSpaces (Enhanced Affective Wellbeing based on Emotion Technologies for
adapting IoT Technologies), is an ITEA project which kicked off in May 2016, running until
September 2019 in the (smart) health sector. The main innovative aspect of this project
are the emotion and sentiment, key for improving the intelligence services in IoT. Overall
there were 19 partners involved in the project from Romania, France, Korea, and Spain.
 The SoMeDi project, is referred to Social Media and Digital Interaction Intelligence, was
initiated on December 2016 and ran until December 2019 and is part of the ITEA. The
main objective is to research machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, which
can be used to convert interaction data into interaction intelligence and approaches that

29





can be used in social media so as to systematise this development. Overall, there are 10
partners involved from Spain, Romania, and Turkey.
The CitiSim project, referred to Smart City 3D simulation and monitoring platform,
kicked off December 2016 and lasted till December 2019. The rationale behind this project
is the need for to create a platform for a smart city ecosystem. The aim is to distribute
important information on various urban dimensions via a platform which can have
significant impact on a large spectrum of users such as citizens, companies, city councils.
CitiSim allows a development of urban areas through technology that aims for energy
savings and efficiency, mobility and emergency management. Five different partners were
involved, from Romania and Spain.
The DEFRAUDify project, refers to Detect Fraudulent Activities in dark web and clear
web to protect your business. The project kicked off in March 2020 and currently is running,
due in to finish March 2023. The rationale of the project is to develop mechanisms to assist
private business to detect suspicious conduct that occurs online. 19 partners are involved
in this project from the Netherlands, Romania, Turkey, and Spain.

Project outcomes, social impact, and impact for the enterprise
Prior to participating in Eureka programme instruments, Taiger appears to have been
scaling up. Database information for the enterprise, shows that between 2012 and 2015,
staff increased from 6 to 16 employees, and revenue grew strongly with 132%. Taiger
started participating in Eureka projects during the scale up process and continues to do
so, evidenced by its continued global expansion.
Looking at project outcomes, for EmoSpaces, the project report estimates that the e Health has a great impact on the consumers and the internet users. Individ uals use
health apps for their convenience with the possibility to enhance their quality of life.
There is a total 31.35% increase on the usage of these apps between 2016 and 2020.
Since the EmoSpaces offers education on an interactive format and trainings according
to the emotions of the employees that can assist them to increase their performance, it
is estimated that such e-learning and trainings can increase revenues of the companies
up to 42%.
The social impact is also significant. E-learning is not always possible without taking
into consideration the social demands of citizens and the information society. The
project and the enterprises involved avoid social exclusion as they believe that in order
to have a digital society must not socially exclude its citizens and they must take into
account all their needs. It is also estimated that the project can bring approximately
between 200.000€ and 600.000€ euro annually.
For Taiger, there has been a visible, significant growth in recent years. As with other
enterprises participating in Eureka, the exact impact of projects to enterprise growth is
difficult to define concretely. However, the enterprise’s workforce has grown as it
develops and expands its scope of activities into further sectors. A good example is the
establishment of a new centre for R&D in artificial intelligence in Segovia in Spain.
New sectors, new collaborations
As the company is expanding Taiger seeks to hire more people in the sectors of research,
training in programming, engineering, and computer linguistics. Besides this evident
growth in employment, Taiger is expanding its activities and entering new research
avenues. This is evident in turn in Taiger’s ambition to invest 3.7 million € in its AI
research centre in collaboration with the Spanish local government of Castile-Leon,
increasing the number of employees from 5 to over 75 within three years and to 150
within five years.

30

As the Spanish representative for ITEA policy, Ayuso Gonzalez states, the importance
of Eureka clusters and the Spanish involvement is vital not only for the EU market access
but also for networking relationships. Spain has a quality software solutions and Eureka
programs provide the organisational and monitoring framework to extend to the EU and
even further. Taiger has, through its Eureka projects, engaged in various collaboration
projects with partners in and outside of Europe, contributing to national authorities’
goals as well.
It would appear then that as with other enterprises, Taiger has benefited from
participating in Eureka projects as these have contributed to the enterprise moving into
new product areas and sectors (such as AI, E-health through EmoSpaces, and transport
and city management areas through the CitSim project). The projects engaged in have
a societal benefit, thereby contributing to the broader objectives of the Eureka
programme. While it is not clear what the exact growth has been in terms of revenue
of Eureka participation, the new sectors, international collaboration, and profitable new
areas of activity are all positive impacts for the enterprise.

31

4

Eureka programme instruments: SWOT
Analysis
This chapter examines the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the
Eureka Programme on the basis of desk research. Where relevant differences between startups compared to scale-ups, are included.

4.1

Strengths of the Eureka Programme Instruments
S t r en g th s o f E u ro s t ars , I TE A, an d PE N TA
Reduces financial risk associated with R&D, leading to innovation, and growth
 R&D and innovation are by definition less secure investments; one is pushing the
boundaries and it is not certain what the outcomes will be. Investment is needed to
research and innovate, however. If enterprises do not have a large enough, concrete need
or demand from clients and/or financial capital, they tend to innovate less.
 A key strength of both Eurostars and cluster projects (ITEA and PENTA), is that they help
to reduce the financial risk for enterprise to innovate. This is a huge added value,
particularly for SMEs and especially so for start-ups and scale-ups. Innovations made
during projects often lead to an enterprise exploring different technological and innovative
avenues, advancing their existing products and services.
 This innovation and R&D facilitated by Eureka financing has led to enterprises entering
new market areas, new sectors, hiring new employees to meet these new demands within
the company, and in some cases, the set-up of spin-offs. Enterprises indicate they would
most likely not taken the time to further research and develop many of their products
developed under Eureka without the financing it provides. This applies to SMEs especially
who on average, have less resources to engage in intensive R&D, and particularly to startups.
Programme rationales and design: bottom-up, near-to-market approach
 Another unique factor of both the Eurostars and cluster instruments is their bottom-up
approach. According to participants this flexibility created by the bottom-up approach,
compared to other funding programmes, is an important advantage of the programme.
 The programme rationale of both the Eurostars and cluster instruments is a dual focus on
technological development and innovation as well as on commercialisation of innovations.
There is a difference in the emphasis on each of these two focus areas between Eurostars
and cluster instruments, which is reflected in the instrument design, as illustrated below.
 Eurostars has a stronger market and commercialisation focus. This is reflected in the
programme design as the budgets and duration for projects are lower compared to
cluster projects. The application procedure and requirements are less burdensome and
criteria to entry are easier to comply with. This is especially attractive to SMEs and
start-ups in particular; they can make use of Eurostars financing more easily and
flexibly work to develop and market a technological product. For start-ups the
comparative added value of having R&D financed and bringing a project to market
tends to be higher than for a more established enterprise.
 Cluster projects on the other hand have a more technological and research focus.
Thought it remains important that technological areas have a potential to be
commercialised, there is a stronger focus on benchmarking the technology within a
given cluster. Projects are on average of a longer duration, involve higher levels of
financing, and more partners from different countries. The emphasis here is on more
long-term, technological R&D which can be applied and used in other parts of a given
industry. The application procedure is lengthier and more complex, involving more
administration, including from project partners.
 Furthermore, there is, flexibility in deadlines and thematic focus. This arguably allows
Eureka projects to start faster compared to other European R&D funding programmes. This

33

is most relevant in industries where technologies change and evolve quickly. This flexibility
gives industrial partners the independence to decide the focus of the project and ultimately
have a market-oriented project. In practice this approach seems to work, with 73% of the
Eurostars SME main partners reporting successful commercialisation of their project
results.
Generates experience in international R&D projects for enterprises
 A further strength of both the Eurostars and the cluster instruments are that they provide
enterprises with experience in international R&D projects. Both instruments require
working with partners from other countries, though in the ITEA and PENTA case there is a
requirement for larger consortia with partners from different countries. Having participated
in an international research project gives enterprises good track record, which can make
them more eligible to apply for further research, or makes an enterprise an attractive
partner to invite into other research or project consortia. The Eureka project label provides
concrete certification of a partner’s involvement in Eureka projects. This effect is important
for both scale-ups and start-ups though again, particularly so for start-ups. The
comparative added value of experience and track record is higher for a younger enterprise.
 Besides making an organisation attractive for further project involvement, it also makes
them attractive for investors. Having R&D experience and experience in international
projects has helped lead to concrete investment in some participants of Eureka
programmes, allowing them to grow and in some cases, to scale-up.
Role of national agencies and national level support
 A strength of the Eureka programme is the decentralised approach of having national
authorities and funding bodies co-finance Eureka projects. This means that authorities and
enterprises have room to finance areas of technological development and research which
align with the national interests. In its design the Eureka programme tries to embed the
national as well as the European relevance of R&D and innovation projects.
 Furthermore, the national agencies involved in implementing the Eureka programme
provide national level support to project applicants and partners. Being able to support
participants within the national context, knowing the national administrative and business
customs as well as understanding the Eureka programme, allows for nationally tailored
support to participants. Additionally, unlike a more centralised support system, support at
the national level can be provided in the native language.
Tools and aids developed to support project applications and implementation
 In connection with the point above is the fact that especially within the Eurostars
instruments, more tools and supports have been developed which help project participants
in both their applications and their project implementation. For Eurostars especially the
online participant portal is said to work well, it is fairly intuitive to use. Furthermore,
besides the coaching provided by some national agencies, the Eurostars programme also
involves a questionnaire of around 50 questions for participants to go through. If they have
gone through these questions project partners can have a large proportion if not all of their
application prepared. While such aids exist for other Eureka instruments, such coaching
and guiding materials and tools were seen as particularly good in the Eurostars instrument.
 The availability of such support tools is especially valuable for start-ups and new users
who are likely need extra guidance during their first encounters with Eureka programme
financing.
 The clusters also include coaching and support to project partners during both the
application and the project implementations processes. Specifically, project applications
receive feedback on their applications and on how to improve them, helping to develop
applications from a project outline to a fully-fledged proposal. If a project is approved, the
national agency and the programme instrument coordinators assign industry experts to
annually check and monitor project process. These experts can brainstorm and provide
coaching and feedback to the project participants, which is considered to be valuable by
project stakeholders. The fact that it is industry experts and not necessarily Eureka

34

programme stakeholders offering such coaching works especially well; partners can more
easily accept the substantive feedback on the content and technical progress of their
research from a peer.
S t r en g th s o f th e Clu st e r in s tru men t s
International collaboration and networks of mixed organisations
 Eureka is unique in that fact that it provides an international dimension to a national
funding scheme. Because the project consortia must consist of multiple nationalities,
Eureka programmes provide access to international markets and organisations, within and
outside of Europe. According to a 2017 study, Eureka participants perceive the benefits of
Eureka’s international nature in the form of entering new markets (69% of surveyed
participants; local or foreign markets), improvements of their market share (68%), and
increases of exports (67%).
 The access to international collaboration is a particular strength of the cluster instruments
as consortia tend to be bigger, involving more and different types of organisations. Projects
provide access to a network of like-minded enterprises, as well as organisations such as
research institutes and universities. This helps establish networks for enterprises (which
has a comparatively larger added value for SMEs and particularly, start-ups), and creates
ecosystems of value chains within different cluster projects.
 For start-ups especially this is an important added value of the cluster programmes. In
participating in cluster projects they come into contact with large enterprises in their
industry which they would otherwise not have been able to reach. Having access to the
top players in an industry tends to be an especially big networking boost for SMEs, and
start-ups in particular.
Cluster efforts to increase the chance of funding
 A particular strength of the PENTA instrument is that together with the Euripides cluster,
the two clusters work to develop a bottom-up Strategic Research Agenda. This Agenda
sets the main themes and direction of research and development which industry experts
consider most relevant and useful to work towards during the coming years.
 Added to this, PENTA coordinators try to promote dialogue between the national agencies,
project partner applicants, and national authorities. In what some call a “guided bottomup” approach, industry are encouraged to establish directions for research but to consider
national interests in developing their project proposals. In this way the chances of having
projects receiving a favourable evaluation and getting financed are increased.
 Like PENTA, ITEA also develops a research agenda, known as a Roadmap. ITEA specifically
refers to this as a Living Roadmap and develops this with industry players. The Living
Roadmap covers the state of the art of technology relevant to ITEA sectors, and updates
the Living Roadmap with outcomes from ITEA projects. The Living Roadmap provides a full
text search mechanism to find information on the State of the Arts (SotAs). Other project
consortia may use this living document on the state of the art of technology in the ITEA
cluster sectors to promote technological collaboration and development.
S t r en g th s o f th e E u ro s t a rs in s t ru m en t s
Simple(r) application process
 The Eurostars programme has a streamlined online system and the national agencies offer
support throughout the process. According to Eurostars 2 participants, the application
process was straightforward, and furthermore the evaluation of the application was fast
and transparent.
 The application process for Eurostars has been described by stakeholders as a
straightforward application approach. The projects and by extension, the applications
involve smaller consortia, and less administration, with a stronger focus on bringing
products to market. The programme set-up lowers barriers to entry for SMEs in particular;
an application can take one to a few weeks which is a more manageable investment of
resources for SMEs compared to not only clusters, but compared other financing
instruments as well.

35

4.2

Weaknesses of the Eureka Programme Instruments
W e ak n e ss es o f E u ro st a r s, I TE A, an d PE N TA
Lack of project management financing
 Project management is an area of activity which is necessary to running international
projects, whether the consortia of partners be large or small. Coordinating the application
process and the project once it starts running requires resources from the coordinating
enterprise. However, project management is not financed in Eurostars or the clusters ITEA
and PENTA.
 For clusters especially the application process and implementation of a project can be time
consuming and demand significant capacity from the main or leading partner. In consortia
with sometimes up to 30 partners, not financing project management can mean that a
partner has to put in more resources than budgeted for in a project plan to carry out the
project management. This lack of financing can also be a detriment to (smaller) partners
taking a more active role.
 For SMEs, in Eurostars or clusters, not having project management financed can be a
definite challenge within Eureka programmes. In Eurostars, where SMEs and start-ups are
more likely to take a coordinating or main partner role compared with the clusters, the
lack of project management financing means such an enterprise would have to finance this
activity themselves. For smaller or younger enterprises with less capacity this can be a
real challenge to participating in Eureka.
Lack of harmonisation of funding rules and decisions
 For both the Eurostars instruments and the clusters, the decentralised nature of the Eureka
programme has led to some challenges with the harmonisation and synchronisation of
funding rules and decisions between participating countries. For instance, budget
deficiencies in some countries have led to some projects in Eurostars 2 not receiving
funding although they meet all the other requirements. Additionally, each country has their
own funding rate, making it relatively difficult for some organisations to participate from
countries with low funding rates.
 The difference in funding rules affects both Eurostars and cluster instruments. If certain
project partners in a consortium do not receive approval from national funding bodies and
do not get financed, the composition of the consortium changes. Work tasks and planned
activities within a project need to be changed and this can be challenging and undermine
the project plan originally submitted by the consortium.
 A further aspect is the difference in the timing of decisions by Eureka evaluators and
national bodies. There can sometimes be a lot of time in between a Eureka level decision
on a project and the national decision, sometimes of up to a year. In the fast-paced,
technical sectors, innovations and evolutions happen fast. Therefore if decisions for funding
take too long, a project which was planned to start months to a year ago, is no longer as
relevant or pioneering as the technology or innovation has already been further developed
by others in the sector. This applies to both Eurostars and the ITEA and PENTA clusters.
Differences amongst national agencies
 Besides the differences in funding levels and national funding rules, there are differences
amongst agencies as well. Some national agencies have a lot of expertise and experience
and can offer very good support. Other agencies in turn who have less experience are not
always able to help project partners as efficiently and this can lead to delays or shifts in
project plans.
Administrative burden
 Though Eureka has made efforts to ease the administrative burden on SMEs, it is still
considered an issue. According to a European wide survey of firms, approximately 40%

36







claimed administrative burden of Eureka projects as a barrier to participation when
surveyed in a 2017 study.
Additionally, according to a survey of High Level Representatives, in comparison to
Eurostars 1, the proceeding Eurostars 2 had a greater administrative burden, with the
addition of self-assessments and ethic requirements. However, according to Eurostars 2
participants, in comparison to other financing programmes in general, the administrative
burden is much lower for Eurostars, as the process is comparatively easy and fast.
Despite the strides made in reducing administration involved in Eurostars projects, the
applications still remain a calculated risk for SMEs, especially for start-ups. Eurostars
applications still require administration to organise and a good application takes anywhere
from between 40 to 100 hours if not more to prepare. For an SME, this is a lot of man
hours and capacity which go into an application. Added to this is the fact that chances of
success are usually not clear when submitting, so that SMEs have trouble making the
calculation of whether go through the effort of submitting an application is worth it. Helping
SMEs to discuss the perceived changes of success of their project application could help to
mitigate this somewhat, (though the aforementioned risk is somewhat inherent in
application procedures).
Cluster projects tend to be more complex and long-term projects, involving higher
financing, and different types of partners. As a result, for clusters the administrative
burden involved is much higher. More administration is needed, including from consortium
partners which tend to be more numerous. Preparing an application takes more time and
resources, to the point that SMEs have difficulty in leading a cluster proposal in practice.

Insufficient promotion of Eureka programme instruments
 A weakness of the three programme instruments here is that they have not been
sufficiently promoted in recent years. Though ITEA has its success stories for particularly
good projects which do help to highlight what can be achieved from ITEA funding, overall,
more could be done. National authorities as well as enterprises are not fully aware of the
Eureka programme and how it can help work towards national economic and technological
interests or how it can benefit an enterprise.
 A factor which appears to contribute here is that it is not always clear who the main target
group is for the programme and its instruments. Not having a clear view of the end-users
or target groups of the programme makes it difficult to tailor the content of promotion and
to use suitable communication and dissemination channels to spread said content.
W e ak n e ss es o f th e C lu s t e r in s t ru m en ts
Difficulty finding suitable partners and building consortia
 According to a European wide survey of firms, about 43% of surveyed firms report finding
suitable partners is a barrier to participating in Eureka projects. Eureka has implemented
measures to ease this challenge, such as online platforms where companies can post
inquiries for partners, as well as the designation of the NPC to help with finding suitable
partners for SMEs within their country.
 The national financing rules can make project consortia less stable. If a project is approved
but partners from a country do not receive national funding, they usually cannot participate
in the consortium and the project plan has to be adapted.
 For the cluster programmes, ITEA and PENTA both try facilitate a matchmaking of good
project partners through events. However, though these help to finding consortium
partners, stakeholders indicate that this does not indicate much about the actual ease and
quality of the collaboration. Dealing with partners who, for whatever reason, do not deliver,
or who face difficulties when engaged in the project can remain a challenge for a
consortium.

4.3

Opportunities from the Eureka Programme Instruments
In contrast to the sections above on strengths and weaknesses, many of the opportunities
identified here apply both to the Eurostars and Cluster programme instruments, though

37

sometimes to different degrees. As such little distinction is made in the opportunities and
threats of the Eurostars, ITEA, or PENTA programme instruments.
Compared to other programmes, SMEs have a high chance of receiving
funding through
 Because start-ups and scale-ups have a relatively better chance of receiving funding when
applying to Eureka programmes compared to other programmes (higher success rate),
more of these businesses should be encouraged to apply. On the other hand, as more
apply, the success rate will inevitably decline (given funding does not increase
accordingly).
 Eurostars has made efforts to become more streamlined and accessible, for instance
through the reductions of administrative burden involved in applying for and using the
instrument. SMEs especially have a good chance of receiving financing through the
Eurostars channel as the requirements are more straightforward when compared to
clusters, but also when compared to other funding instruments. Interviewees indicate that
Horizon2020 funding for instance requires comparatively more time and is more
administratively complex.
 Clusters too provide SMEs with opportunities by inviting them into larger consortia with
large enterprises, research institutes, and universities.
 As has been indicated throughout this chapter, many of the strengths, weaknesses, as well
as opportunities apply more acutely to start-ups compared to other SMEs or enterprises;
having less financial and human resources available compared to larger or older
enterprises, the added value of such strong international partners and the financing of R&D
projects is higher for start-ups.
Promotion of Eurostars, ITEA, and PENTA programmes: expand and include
impact on enterprises
 For Eurostars, ITEA, and PENTA, there is room to improve the promotion of the Eureka
instruments to enterprises and in so doing, to enhance the complementarity of the different
instruments of the Eureka programme. Promotion could be improved for Eurostars and the
cluster programmes. More promotion of the value of participating in projects, innovations
achieved, and the impact of participation on enterprises would boost the awareness and
hopefully, the use of the programme.
 The differences in the programme instrument aims and design could be highlighted so that
applicants get a better idea of which instrument suits them best.
 PENTA has for instance taken, a leaf out of the ITEA book and in recent years has started
developing success stories to demonstrate the value of Eureka project participation for
enterprises. An added element could be to further emphasize what a project has meant
for the participating enterprises; currently the ITEA (and PENTA) accounts focus on the
technological advancements made during a project. This could be complemented with
more information on how enterprises have benefited. Indeed such promotion could also be
extended to Eurostars projects.
 Promotion and dissemination of Eureka projects could be further enhanced by exploring
dissemination avenues which reach both enterprises, policy makers, and other
technological stakeholders.
More coordination in funding rules and decisions between Participating
Countries
 One of the strengths of Eureka is the role of national agencies and authorities in the
programme. However, as indicated above, this also creates vulnerabilities. An exploration
could therefore be made by national stakeholders and the Eureka instruments to
harmonise certain aspects of the decision-making, such as the timing of national decisions
to fund. An investigation could be made of the degree to which the decision-making timing
could be better aligned with Eureka instruments.
 More coordination in funding rules and decisions will ultimately make Eureka projects more
successful and prevent delays in projects, changes to project plan implementation, and

38

reduce the chance of technology being developed by other competitors. This applies to
both Eurostars and cluster instruments.
Support further pre-networking and networking
 As finding suitable partners is a known challenge for those wanting to participate in Eureka,
further efforts to support networking may help and encourage start-ups and scale-ups to
participate in Eureka. According to a Swedish study, pre-existing networks are essential
for having a successful Eureka project, as new networks are considered more risky. For
this reason, cluster programmes tend to involve networking events to help matchmaking
between potential project participants.
 Especially for start-ups, with smaller or no networks, it may be helpful for Eureka provide
more support in pre-networking (networking before the application process). Start-ups
tend to have less resources to go and visit networking events compared to larger or more
established enterprises and so exploring approaches which make it easier for start-ups to
attend is another opportunity for the Eureka. There is an opportunity here for Eureka
instruments to explore other approaches to helping start-ups especially to find project
partners.
 This will also be beneficial to scale-ups, as more than one-third of European scale-ups
report consider networking effects and/or partnerships as a key advantage compared to
their competition.
More support for follow-up funding and other sources of funding in general
 Follow-up activities of Eureka projects cannot all be financed by Eureka. Eureka could
cooperate more with European and international funds to secure funding for follow-up
projects of Eureka participants. They could also support Eureka participants in finding the
right investors by maintaining lists or contacts for sources of national external financing
which are interested in innovative SMEs. National agencies can play a pivotal role in
bringing sources of external financing in touch with Eureka participants after a project is
finished.


Start-ups: crowdfunding and business angels are usually particularly useful
sources of external financing.



Scale-ups: venture capital and corporate/strategic investors are key, followed
by business angels, in order to raise the large amounts needed to fund scale -ups.
The average amounts raised from external financing such as venture capital and
corporate/strategic investor is a lot higher than amounts from subsidies thus
helping scale-ups receive these types of external financing is highly beneficial.
Additionally, Eureka can play a role in connecting scale-ups with foreign investors
specialized in scale-ups. Foreign investors tend to be bigger and thus more
capable to meet a scale-ups financial needs. Furthermore, foreign investors can
also provide access to foreign markets external equity is correlated with better
HR practices in scale-ups.

Expand support tools for start and scale-ups – coaching, mentoring, investor
readiness programmes
 Eureka could expand the more soft support tools. The national agencies engage in coaching
and support already for clusters and Eurostars instruments, during the application
procedure and the project implementation. However, this support could be made more
standardised across national agencies on the one hand, and tailored support to different
types of enterprises could be provided. For instance, specific materials and aids could be
developed for start-ups and for enterprises looking to scale-up. These materials could be
produced by Eureka together with national agencies to ensure that similar though
nationally relevant material is used across national agencies.
 Tailoring the information to target groups of organisations could also be considered. For
instance, some of the E!InnoVest networking programme events are selective. Eureka
could provide alternative avenues for start-ups and scale-ups that are not given access to

39





these event to expand their financial networks. Eureka could also host financial networking
event specifically for scale-up and start-ups, which connect these businesses with the
appropriate investors for each. For instance, scale-ups are in more need to venture capital,
while business angels are more appropriate for start-ups. The Eureka programme could
further improve the levels of financial literacy of start-ups through their E!Innovest
programmes.
Scale-ups seem to need helps in terms of recruitment and HRM practices. According to a
2019 study, only 25% of scale-ups use recruitment agencies and/or head-hunters to find
potential employees; 36% have an on boarding process in place; 78% prefer to firing
employees slowly rather than rapidly (could be interpreted at inefficient).
Furthermore, the national agencies could take up a more supportive role in bringing
together information on the different sources of available, external financing in their
country. Inventorying different sources of external financing and the preferred types of
enterprises such finances invest in, national agencies could play a matchmaking role,
bringing together SMEs (notably start-ups and scale-ups), with possible suitable sources
of external financing, public or otherwise.

Widening the network of country partners
 More cooperation with third countries and Associated Member States would expand access
to international markets for start-ups and scale-ups.
 Investigating other programme countries could not only help the expansion of international
networks for enterprises, but could also help achieve the societal impact goals of the
Eureka programme. By sharing expertise and resources with more countries outside of
Europe the shared impact of technological projects could be widened across national
stakeholders as well.

4.4

Threats of the Eureka Programme Instruments
As with the section on opportunities, the threats identified to the Eureka programme
instruments were not overly specific to either the Eurostars, ITEA, or PENTA instruments. As
such little distinction is made here between threats to these three instruments.
Uncertainty of (national) funds and timing of decisions
 The uncertainty of pledged national funds can be due to several reasons, such as an
economic crisis. In any case, if national funds of each participant are not all secured, the
Eureka project cannot commence. This leads to lost projects and budgets of other
Participant Countries not spent.
 National interests and the timing of decision-making regarding the funding of a project can
introduce uncertainty as well. Aligning the timing of national level decisions with Eureka
timelines could prove challenging. Indeed one of the strengths of the programme is the
space for national authorities to guide project which align with their national interests.
Finding a balance between providing such space and efficient, more homogenised decisionmaking timelines will be challenging.
Administrative requirements: a necessary evil
 The administration involved in Eureka instruments, during the application as well as the
project implementation phase has been simplified in recent years. However, some research
shows that enterprises still find it challenging. This may however, be a necessary evil; a
certain degree of administration is required to ensure that parties receiving public financing
adhere to certain criteria. Certain requirements such as relating to reporting during
projects also appear necessary to maintain focus and direction during a project of several
years. Expectation management amongst project participants could be considered to
mitigate this threat somewhat.

40

Insufficient promotion project outcomes and impact, especially to national
authorities
 A further threat here is that if the added value and impact of participation in Eureka
programmes is not highlighted more, that national interest and funding may decline. As it
stands, Eureka contributes to growth, job creation, and technological product development
for enterprises, as well as often producing societally valuable innovations. While the
technological advancements are documented and reported on, the contribution of products
to enterprises and society as a whole may need to be highlighted more for national
stakeholders. This may highlight the value of the programme and help to achieve (more)
sustainable financing channels.
Table 2

SWOT Analysis for Eureka instruments

Strengths

Weaknesses

Eurostars, ITEA and PENTA:
 Reduces financial risk associated with
R&D, leading to innovation, and growth
 Programme rationales and design:
bottom-up, near-to-market approach
 Generates experience in international R&D
projects for enterprises
 Role of national agencies and national
level support

Eurostars, ITEA and PENTA:
 Lack of project management financing
 Lack of harmonisation of funding rules
and decisions
 Differences across support from
national agencies
 Administrative burden
 Insufficient promotion of Eureka
programme instruments

Clusters:
 International collaboration and networks
of mixed organisations
 PENTA efforts to increase the chance of
funding

Clusters:
 Difficulty finding suitable partners and
building consortia

Eurostars:
 Simple(r) application process
 Tools and aids developed to support
project applications and implementation
Opportunities

Threats

Eurostars, ITEA and PENTA:
 Compared to other programmes, SMEs
have a high chance of receiving funding
through
 Promotion of Eurostars, ITEA, and PENTA
programmes: expand and include impact
on enterprises
 More coordination in funding rules and
decisions between Participating Countries
 Support further pre-networking and
networking
 More support for follow-up funding and
other sources of funding in general
 Expand support tools for start and scaleups – coaching, mentoring, investor
readiness programmes
 Widening the network of country partners

Eurostars, ITEA and PENTA:
 Uncertainty of (national) funds and
timing of decisions
 Administrative requirements: a
necessary evil
 Insufficient promotion project
outcomes and impact, especially to
national authorities

41

5

Overall observations and recommendations
Based on the desk research, the data enrichment and analysis, the best practices developed,
the SWOT analysis, and the interviews conducted within this study, a number of general
observations can be made. The various strengths and weaknesses of the Eureka programme
are summarised here and based on these, a series of recommendations are made at the end
of this chapter.

5.1

Outcomes of Eureka’s instruments
The main observations resulting from the data enrichment and analysis are summarised
below.
Characteristics of Eurostars participants
The majority of Eurostars participants consists of companies that are younger than 10
years old while the average number of employees (when registering for the project), is
around 24. Almost one third (27%) of Eurostars project participations are start-ups,
defined as 5 years or younger at the start of the project. When considering start-up
participants, 50% are classified as Main participants, while 47% are Partners and 3%
have Withdrawn from Eurostars projects.
For Eurostars participants in general, Biotech/medical companies seem to dominate the
participations while there are less participating companies involved in Transportation,
Environment and Construction/building. Amongst start-ups in Eurostars, 45% are active
in

the

biotech/medical sector,

compared

to

39%

of

enterprises

in Eurostars.

Furthermore, relatively more of the Eurostars start-ups are active in the ICT sector than
in the Industrial sector.
The highest number of overall Eurostars participants is based in Germany. Germany
also has the highest number of Eurostars Enterprises, with 288, followed by the
Netherlands and France. The highest number of Eurostars Start-ups are based in the
Netherlands followed by Denmark and Switzerland.
The Netherlands also represents the country with the highest budgets amongst startups (i.e. overall participation costs out of the total amount of money invested in
Eurostars participation by the enterprise).
Characteristics of cluster participants
A total 695 SMEs participated in the ITEA 3 and PENTA Eureka cluster projects
(specifically, 593 in ITEA 3 and 102 in PENTA) from 2014 to 2020. The 695 SME
participants represent 49% of the overall ITEA 3 and PENTA participants (because
approximately 49% of these participants are SMEs).
Around 70% of international SME cluster participants are start-ups when joining a
project, while 40% of Dutch SME cluster participants are start-ups.
The ITEA 3 cluster concentrates on software innovation, while the PENTA cluster focuses
on electronic components and systems. The sub-sector SMEs are most active computer
software (approximately 43% of the subsample). For Dutch enterprises this is the semiconductor and industrial sub-sectors.
The SMEs participating in Eureka clusters span across 23 different countries. Although
Turkey represents the country with the highest amount of SME participa nts in clusters,
the Netherlands has the largest total project budget for clusters, with Dutch SMEs
spending more on cluster projects than their counterparts from other countries.

43

Leverage of participation in Eureka instruments
Overall, Approximately 30% of the international Eurostars participants experience some
type of growth upon joining a project in terms of revenue, profit, or employees. For
Dutch enterprises this was also around 30%. Broadly speaking, of the participant dat a
used in this study, some 12% of international Eurostars participants are scale -ups, of
which 80% scaled up after joining a Eurostars project while 20% were already scaleups when joining a Eurostars project. For Dutch enterprises only 2% of the Eurostars
participants in the subsample are scale-ups by the strict definition and 12% experienced
a scaling up in number of employees after joining a Eurostars project.
Within the cluster participant data scale-ups could not be identified. In any case, around
half of international cluster SMEs still experienced growth in the number of employees.
The median over a period of 3 years is an increase of 5 employees. Similarly, just over
half of Dutch cluster SMEs grow in employment with a median growth of 4 employees
over a period of 3 years.
For most participants in the sample, the trend seems to involve first receiving some
type of (EU) grant before joining Eureka projects and thereafter receiving venture
capital investments after joining. The top Eureka performers in terms of successfully
acquiring funding also seem to be younger and smaller (in employee size) than the
participants that raise less (or even no additional) funding. While the average age of
the sample Eureka participants is between 9 and 10 years old at the time the projects
started, the average starting age of the “top Eureka financing performers” is around 7
years old.

5.2

Overall observations regarding the use of Eureka instruments
R a tio n a le an d g o a l s o f th e E u rek a in s tru men ts
A first and important observation is that the Eureka programme leads to growth amongst
enterprises. This assessment came forward almost unequivocally from the research
conducted. Enterprises who made use of the Eureka instruments experienced the freedom
and capacity to further continue their research and innovation for their existing products and
services. This has often led to an enterprise exploring different technological and innovative
avenues, advancing their existing products and services. This in turn has led to enterprises
entering new market areas, new sectors, needing new employees to meet these new demands
within the company, and in some cases, spin-off companies which focus their energies on
these new products or services. Interviewees indeed indicate that it is not just the growth
which Eureka helps to achieve, but the pace of the growth it helps enterprises reach which
makes it an attractive instrument to use.
Interviewees were also asked what they would have done without Eureka financing. While it
is difficult to say this with certainty, most estimate that their growth would have been
substantially slower at the very least and that in some cases their business models and growth
trajectory would have been different as well.
An especially positive feature of the Eureka programme, notably the clusters, is that it
provides access to a network of like-minded enterprises, as well as organisations such
as research institutes and universities. In bringing such partners together, there is exchange
of knowledge and approaches and technological learning. Different types of organisations
bring different expertise and this is seen as a favourable way of creating ecosystems of value
chains within different cluster projects. Beyond this, the consortia establish networks which
are useful to enterprises outside of a cluster project. Indeed it seems that together with the

44

flexibility of this R&D enterprise focussed Eureka programme, the networks it helps to provide
are a second key reasons for making use of the programme.
A key goal of Eureka projects is to allow SMEs, large enterprises, research institutes, and
universities is to work and develop a certain technology and to consider its applications.
Another goal of the Eureka programme is for enterprises to be able to achieve product
results with the technology they develop. There is an emphasis on the fast exploitation
of technologies which is good for enterprises, particularly in the Eurostars instrument.
Eureka allows a degree for flexibility amongst enterprises to adapt their approaches to
developing a given technology so that the project development benefits the enterprise and its
activities as well. The focus is on marketable innovations which not only enhances further
technological innovation in a sector but which also help enterprises to grow.
This flexibility, together with the amounts of financing Eureka helps to provide and the
duration of the projects financed are all positive features of the programme which sets it
apart from other R&D or innovation subsidies aimed at (small and medium) enterprises.
Horizon2020 for instance has also been used by some of the enterprises interviewed.
However,

with

comparatively

more

complex

application

procedures

(with

more

administration), and a more fundamental focus on the research and development compared
commercial interests, Horizon2020 is less flexible concerning research and development
activities within a project.
P ro g r am me d e s ig n : ap p li c a t io n s an d p ro j ec t i mp le men t at io n o f E u rek a
i n s t ru m en t s
At a more operational level, the experiences with the application processes for Eurostars
are generally seen as positive. Especially in Eurostars, the application process and
requirements involved are considered to work well. The project consortia in Eurostars
tend to be smaller, more manageable, and often easier to set up as enterprises may
know one another beforehand. The application administration is also seen as fair and
not overly burdensome, and with concentrated effort for a week or two, most
enterprises, (including SMEs), feel confident of being able to prepare and submit good
proposal. Dutch enterprises indicated that the Dutch Agency, the RVO, provides good
support and coaching to navigate the administrative requirements with Eureka
instruments; the degree to which this applies for other national agencies is not clear.
Though the applications procedures for the cluster instruments are also seen as positive
over all, there are some issues which make it more challenging compared to
Eurostars applications. As project consortia are larger, it takes more time and efforts
for a lead partner to set up. More administration is required for an application, including
from consortium partners of which there may be many, which takes time and effort. The
scope of project proposals are also wider so that all in all, they take longer to prepare.
This means that in practice only large enterprises and organisations can submit
applications and this makes it more challenging for SMEs to take more dominant roles
in an application process. While it is technically possible for a small enterprise to do so
as well, it costs comparatively more resources (time specifically and by extension,
money). Project coordination can involve approaching some 30 partners for input,
chasing partners which do not deliver or which do not deliver up to standard for instance.
A note to add here is that while not ideal for start-ups, there is an underlying rationale
to the application procedure design for Eurostars and clusters; the rationale and
programme designs differ. As indicated above, cluster projects tend to involve more
partners from more countries (on average 4 countries with around 20 partners), a higher

45

budget, longer project duration, and larger project impact. As these projects work on
the state of the art and benchmarking of a given technology and its further application
for an industry, the impact of cluster projects is generally budget broader as well. The
complex administration procedures, though challenging (and especially so for SMEs),
there is a sense of proportionality with the scope and expected impact from these cluster
projects.
Indeed, it is important to bear in mind the opportunities offered by both Eurostars and
clusters. Eurostars is more accessible to start-ups as well as scale-ups than the cluster
projects. In principle, by using Eurostars, gaining (further) international R&D and
innovation project experience, putting a project into the market ideally, and gaining a
Eureka label, enterprises (including SMEs), can move more easily into cl uster projects.
Having participating in a Eureka project can create useful track record which puts an
enterprise on the proverbial map, raising the chances of it being invited into a cluster
consortium. This is of course not the only means by which enterpr ise get invited into
cluster consortia, but other Eureka programme experience can certainly be helpful.
The evaluation of applications is said to be good and straightforward for Eurostars.
An enterprise can prepare a good proposal and knows that there is a good chance of it
being honoured. For cluster projects the evaluation process is a bit less transparent.
There appear to be more factors at work when it comes to evaluating a cluster project
compared to Eurostars.
This observation seems to relate to the role of national authorities in Eureka and the
approach to financing projects. With ITEA for instance, a proposal can be developed
by a consortium and approved by the ITEA coordinator. Only then are the countries of
origin of the consortium partners involved to discuss whether or not they want to finance
the input required for their country. In this way a consortium is very dependent on
the type of partners selected for financial reasons as well as technical ; if the
partner comes from a country where the technology or sector in question is less
prominent, the national financing body may choose not to finance the project. In that
situation the partner from that country cannot participate. If this happens several times
within one consortium there is the risk that the composition changes, and in some cases,
significantly so.
In PENTA projects the assessment is similar, with national authorities deciding after a
project application is technically approved whether they accept the financial proposal
for the project. National authorities and agencies have their own national interests and
sectors or markets of focus. The added value of this approach to financing is that
national authorities can finance projects which tie in with their strategies for
R&D and innovation in their countries. However, it does introduce a degree of
uncertainty for consortia compositions and the execution of a project.
In PENTA and ITEA projects attempts have been made to mitigate space between
project proposals and the interest areas of national authorities. By encouraging
national agencies for Eureka to engage with national authorities and to understand
where their focus areas lie, the PENTA programme tries to promote the development of
project proposals which match with national interests. Besides this, PENTA (and another
cluster, Euripedes), develop a multi-year Strategic Research agenda, highlighting key
directions of research and innovation in their relevant sectors. This agenda is developed
from the bottom-up, by the industry across Europe. This gives organisations who wish
to apply for PENTA financing an idea of which areas are especially interesting to conduct

46

a project on. In so doing, the PENTA programme coordinators try to maximise the
chances of project proposals being accepted.
A further aspect of the application process and the assessments thereof relates to the
timing of the decision making. The Eureka coordinators and technical experts assess
a project proposal while a decision to finance a project is sometimes made up to a year
later. In some cases this means that within a consortia, some partners can and want to
start the work but are restricted because their collaboration partners cannot start yet.
Some enterprises are in a position to pre-finance some of their work, but this is not the
case for all. The very reason for making use of Eureka is usually to reduce the financial
risk of conducting R&D and technological innovation after all. Disconnect between the
timing of the technical decision and decision to finance from national authorities can
negatively affect the consortia composition and the implementation of a project.
Furthermore, as many of the enterprises using Eureka are active in highly technological
sectors, the sometimes lengthy decision-making time can mean that a project idea is
no longer as relevant a year later; the technology in question may have already
advanced or been further developed by other organisations by the time a project can
start. While the fast-paced development the sector is inherent to such high tech areas,
exploring possibilities of aligning the timing of decision making procedures in countries
could be a way to remedy this phenomenon.
Regarding the actually implementation and running of a project, once a project is
won this seems to go relatively well and enterprises benefit from participations. There
are some issues which at times can make implementation less than smooth. One is that
in big consortia, such as in the cluster programmes, it can be difficult to coordinate a
project. Project management of large consortia of some 30 organisations requires
time and money; the amount time needed to coordinate and manage but also to followup with partners, or chase those who do not deliver inputs, can be large. Project
management however, is not financed in projects. This means that here too SMEs are
less likely to take a more coordinating role in a consortia as they have on average less
capacity to do so. This means that the chances to build experience in that area on
average are lower for SMEs. A further aspect relating to project implementation is that
there is an element of luck involved with consortia partners; every so often an enterprise
may find themselves in consortia with a project partner who (for whatever reason) is
unable to deliver their inputs. This can lead to delays and frustration for the rest of the
consortium.
A final point of observation is that while the impact of the Eureka programme seem to
be strong for enterprises, the promotion of this fact has been less strong. Some
interviewees indicate that the return on investment for enterprises as well as national
authorities has not been highlighted enough and that this could use further attention.
PENTA some years ago opted to start using ITEA like success-stories to show project
achievements. However, the added benefit of Eureka to enterprises has not been
promoted as strongly as it could have been. Historically part of the reason for this
appears to have been that technological sectors are difficult to promote due to their
complexity. In recent years however, the world and its laymen (politicians and citizens)
have become more tech savvy. With technology underlying consumer products like
phones and tablets, or discussions on climate change, the average person is more
familiar with technological developments. There would appear to be more room now to
promote a programme like Eureka, which supports R&D focuses enterprises.

47

All in all, research demonstrates that while there are some areas for improvement, the
Eureka programme has a positive impact on enterprises in terms of their growth,
notably, the pace of that growth, and on international networks and collaboration. Both
these aspects have contributed to the performance of the enterprise s participating in
Eurostars, ITEA, and PENTA. R&D and innovation have by their very nature, unsure
outcomes. Advancements and progress are by no means a given, which is why R&D are
economically less sure investments. However, if sectors and countries are to develop,
research must be able to continue. For societies and enterprise to benefit, technological
innovation and R&D must be able to be marketed as well. For this reason, subsidies for
R&D performing enterprises are key to Europe and other partner coun tries to advance.
Such subsidies and financing helps to reduce the financial risk inherent to R&D activities,
risks which enterprises cannot always carry, or are less inclined to carry. While other
European and national subsidies for enterprises exist, enterprises interviewed in the
context of this evaluation indicate that the set-up of the Eureka programme makes it
more accessible, flexible, and focused on both R&D and innovation as well as enterprise
growth.

5.3

Recommendations
Based on the observations outlined above, a number of recommendations can be
made.
Explore further alignment in the timing of project proposal decisions
The role of national authorities in the financing of Eureka projects is one of its strengths
in many ways. National authorities can support technological areas and innovation which
align with their own national strategies for technological development. However, this
approach of involving national authorities in this way can be a double -edged sword. As
indicated above, a lack of alignment between the timing of decision-making between
national authorities and with Eureka instrument coordinators mean that delays can enter
into projects. To remedy this, the Eureka programme and its national agencies could
explore the possibility of aligning the decision-making time lines further to reduce the
time between a technical assessment and the national decision to finance a project.
Explore further alignment of industry and national authority interests
The ITEA instrument maintains a Living Research Agenda with the state of the art of the
technology described and updated using ITEA project outcomes. The PENTA and
Euripedes clusters work with a Strategic Research Agenda, developed bottom -up by
experts from their respective industries. This Strategic Research agenda helps
enterprises by indicating which areas of research are deemed important for the coming
years by the industry and which countries are pioneering in those areas. This Agenda,
combined with more consultation by national agencies of the national authorities in a
country, could help participants of Eureka instruments to set-up project proposals which
align both industry goals and the goals of national authorities. This in turn could increase
the chance of a project being financed and the return on investment for authorities.
Such approaches used here could be explored further for the Eurostars and ITEA
instruments. This observation regarding alignment of interests has in fact also been
made by the current Eureka chairmanship. The RVO will amongst other activities, spend
its year as chair (July 2019 to July 2020), exploring how to better align national industry
with national authority interests.
Financing project management of larger consortia
Another recommendation relates to project management and consortia. Project
management could become a financed component within projects. This is a fairly time

48

consuming activity in the case of big consortia and an activity which can also provide
enterprises with valuable management experience. In not financing this activity only
large enterprises tend to be able to take coordinating roles. It could therefore be an
idea to finance project management as well, not only to include SMEs more but also
because this is part of project implementation also simply demands resources.
Project partner lists and project partner feedback
A further idea could be to introduce an evaluative element at the end of a project cycle
so that enterprises can offer feedback on project partners. This in turn could help other
enterprises in future when searching for project partners. As the Spanish national
agency has a list of possible partners for bilateral funding programmes, a similar list
could be produced and maintained centrally for the Eureka programme participants:
who operates in which areas, their core business activities, past involvement in Eureka
projects, and how others found working with them. This would naturally require some
careful consideration to ensure that enterprises are also safeguarded from potentially
unfair criticism in the feedback they receive from other project partners.
Investigate options for common supportive and information materials across
national agencies
Regarding the application processes, while complex for clusters, the Dutch enterprises
indicate that the coaching and support receive from the national agency is very good
and helpful. While other national agencies no doubt also offer similar support, further
developing and, where possible, sharing of coaching materials across the national
agencies implementing Eureka could be beneficial. This would help standardise the
support to a degree regarding Eureka procedures and requirements.

Preparing

information on the assessment procedure, the benefits and the risks could also be
considered to provide enterprises with more transparency in this front.
Adapt the promotion of the Eureka programme
One of the final recommendations would be to re-evaluate the promotion of the Eureka
programme. The promotion of the programme could be made more harmonious across
the Eureka programme instruments. For instance, PENTA adopting success stories
similar to ITEA success stories a good step. Using such tools could be extended to other
Eureka instruments. The promotion and dissemination channels could also be expanded
to include spaces which both enterprises, institutions, and policy makers use. A
suggestion would also be to include more content in these success stories on the
contribution which the programme makes to the development of an enterprises. While
the focus on technological and product innovation is of course very good, this could be
supplemented with information on the value of the programme and how it has helped
an enterprise’s growth and development.
Defining the target groups for Eureka programme instruments
Related to the insufficient promotion of the programme is the fact that it could be clearer
who the proverbial client is of the Eureka instruments: does it chiefly target policy
makers? Enterprises? Or multiple groups? Having a clear sense of who is targeted as
the end-user of this programme is important. This allows for a defined strategy and
approach in both promotion of the programme and the implementation of the
programme. If it is clearer who the main target is of the programme, it becomes easier
to establish what kind of supports or tools this target group requires (part of programme
implementation), what kind of challenges they may face, and in which areas of the
programme design more (or less) flexibility needs to be introduced. Having a clear sense
of the client(s) or end-user(s) of the Eureka programme is therefore an important step

49

to better tailoring the programme to the needs of the target group. In aid of this, the
rationales and target groups of the different instruments Eurostars, ITEA, and PENTA
could be clarified further and promoted accordingly.
Explore other pre-networking options to improve accessibility amongst SMEs
Concerning

SMEs,

and

especially

younger

or

smaller

enterprises,

a

further

recommendation would be to explore how to make pre-networking events more
accessible. Especially for cluster instruments, where consortia are larger and more
diverse, getting in with the right partners is important, and the pre-networking events
help in this process. However, for SMEs, who have on average less resources, attending
such meetings (requiring travel costs and the human capacity to physically attend) can
be a challenge. If the Eureka programme wishes to include more SMEs, and notably,
start-ups and scale-ups, exploring other support activities in aid of networking could be
useful. Start-ups could for instance receive a small subsidy for their travel, or the
opportunities for digital(ly transmitted) presentations could be explored so that even if
enterprises cannot attend, they can still get an impression of interesting themes and
players in a given sector or technological area.
Expand support tools for start and scale-ups and level the playing field across
national agencies
If Eureka wishes to include more SMEs, notably start-ups and scale-ups in the Eurostars
or cluster instruments, an option could be to further develop specific tools and supports
for these types of enterprises. For start-ups more information could be developed and
made available on what to expect during a Eureka project, how to develop project work
plans, how to administrate the finances, etc. Practical level information for enterprises
which are not only younger, but new to the Eureka programme.
For scale-ups, similarly tailored aids and supports could be prepared. How to go about
finding investors for your enterprise to help you scale-up for instance, how to market
your Eureka label in a good way to as to highlight your experience and track record,
etc.
Having such practical guides and supportive tools could not only help start-ups and
scale-ups navigate Eurostars, ITEA, and PENTA instruments, but could also serve the
purpose of helping to reduce differences across national agencies and the support they
can offer project partners.
C o mp l em en t a r it y b e tw e en H o r i zo n 20 2 0 SM E I n s tru men t an d E u rek a
National authorities and the EU each try to make various funding tools and subsidies
available for R&D, for SMEs, or both. One EU instrument in particular is examined here
and compared with the Eureka programme for its alignment and complementarity. In
accordance with the requests for this study, a brief analysis is provided here of the
Eureka programme and the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument, specifically, Phase 2.
The SME Instrument, Phase 2 within Horizon 2020 centres on helping enterprises to
generate an innovative project idea and to develop a prototype of the this innovation.
This innovation should be accompanied by a business plan by the end of this Phase 2.
The SME Instrument makes financing available to SMEs and is divided into three phases,
each with a different focus, different requirements and desired outcomes. Phase 2 is
the Innovation Project Phase and is followed by the Commercialisation Phase (Phase 3).
Complementarity SME Instrument Phase 2 and Eurostars
At first glance there appears to be overlap between this SME Instrument Phase 2 and
the Eureka programme instruments. However, the Eureka programme instruments may

50

be better placed in between Phases 2 and 3 of the SME instrument. Eurostars for
instance specifically aims to support enterprises who have an innovative product or
service which is close to market. In many cases this means a prototype has been
developed. The Eurostars instrument seems to be particular complementary to Ph ases
2 and 3 of the SME instrument.
While Eurostars is similar in its focus to Phase 2 (and 3) of the instrument, there are
notable differences. Eurostars focuses specifically on R&D intensive enterprises and
requires that enterprises work with at least one partner from another country, thereby
promoting international networks and collaboration. These are often deemed especially
useful for SMEs which have on average less access to such networks compared to larger
enterprises. The SME Instrument in turn focuses on SMEs generally and restricts the
involvement of larger enterprises (which do not receive funding if they join an SME
instrument consortium). The international project partner element in Eurostars is a
distinguishing feature here.
Complementarity SME Instrument Phase 2 and ITEA and PENTA
Clusters such as ITEA and PENTA have a different rationale compared to Eurostars;
there is a stronger technological development focus than the Eurostars instrument and
the emphasis on international networks is much stronger. Indeed, getting into touch
with large enterprises and industry leaders across countries is one of the key benefits
of cluster programmes for participating enterprises.
A further factor is that enterprises that make use of Eureka programmes, cit e the dual
focus on technological innovation as well as a market focus (though the balance between
these principles varies per Eureka instrument), as especially attractive features of the
programme. This gives rise to the often cited higher level of flexib ility which these
enterprises experience when taking part in Eureka programmes. This flexibility is a very
attractive aspect, and especially given that the R&D and innovation heavy sectors tend
to evolve very fast; project plans must be able to adapt accordingly.
Therefore, while the target groups for the SME Instrument and Eureka instruments are
similar, they are not the same. Added to this, the way the Eureka programme has been
designed makes it attractive to R&D enterprises in particular, the flexibilit y and
importance of international networks, as well as the importance of national interests in
the programme are key features which distinguish Eureka from the SME Instrument.
F u r th er ex p lo r in g a ven u e s fo r fo l lo w -u p f in an c in g
Turning to the issue of other sources of financing for SMEs, the national agencies
involved in implementing the Eureka programme could play a pivotal role. Often these
agencies are well placed within business and industrial networks to be aware of other
sources of external, public or private financing. Two comparable suggestions could be
made here to improve the access to financing amongst Eureka programme participants:
1. The first is to provide a comprehensive overview the European funds and subsidies
available, highlighting which types of enterprises can apply to which. Eligibility
requirements and descriptions of the nature of the support to be provided can be displayed
on one place or platform to make it easier for enterprises to navigate the various
international subsidies. One page of the Agency website, or a tool which is regularly
updated which allows enterprises to compare subsidies and instruments could be
beneficial. This would help to highlight the complementarity as well as the differences
between international, notably European, instruments.
2. The same thing could be done for national level sources of financing, both private and
public. National agencies could try to make a list of private financiers and the types of

51

enterprises they like to fund. Business Angels, Crowdfunding groups, venture capital, or
micro funds could all be collected and maintained in a database of sorts. Enterprises
looking for financing could consult a national agency and gain an overview of different
public and private sources of external financing available. The national agency could then
engage in a sort of match-making to bring enterprises together with sources of financing
which are likely to fit their needs.
A number of the recommendations sketched above could be implemented to help and
enterprises to gain follow up financing. The inventory of both European and national
level subsidies described above is an important first step. Following this, other efforts
can be made by both project partners and the national agencies implementing Eureka.
These include preparing common support information materials across national agencies
and tailoring support materials to the different end-users of Eureka projects. As
indicated earlier in this chapter, these could include how to help start -ups find suitable
project partners, how to make a project plan for an international project, but also how
to market and promote R&D&I experiences, or how to market and maximise the use of
the Eureka label once it has been gained. Such activities can help start-ups and scaleups on the path to finding further financing.

52

53

Annex 1: Literature list

Aernoudt, R. (2017). Executive Forum: the scale-up gap: and how to address it .
Venture Capital, 361-372
Astor, M., Polder, M., Cincera, M., Kramer, J.P., Nellen, J. Biela, J., Streicher, J., &
Fombasso Toyem, G. (2017), Impact Assessment of Eureka Network Projects
and Cluster Projects, available at:
https://www.eurekanetwork.org/sites/default/files/impact -assessment-eurekanetwork-projects-and-cluster-projects-main-findings-andrecommendations.pdf, accessed on 24.02.2020
Bayona-Sáez, C., & García-Marco, T. (2010), Assessing the effectiveness of the Eureka
Program, available at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048733310001721,
accessed on 03.03.2020
Bormans et. al (2019) European Startup Monitor 2019, available at:
http://europeanstartupmonitor2019.eu/ESM_3.0Color.pdf, accessed on
09.03.2020
Collewaert, V., Manigart, S., Standaert, T. (2019), European Scale -up Report,
available at:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/595b81a486e6c029dc25c3e0/t/5e1edd
b293fea070e54b195d/1579081143363/European+Scaleup+Report_study_Startups.beScale-Ups.eu-VlerickBusinessSchool.pdf
accessed on 09.03.2020
Damvad (2012), The Impact of Eureka in the Netherlands, available at:
https://www.eurekanetwork.org/content/impact-eureka-netherlands, accessed
on 24.02.2020
Duruflé, G., Hellmann, T., & Wilson, K. (2017), From start -up to scale-up: examining
public policies for the financing of high growth ventures, available at
https://bruegel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/WP-2017_04.pdf, accessed
on 11.03.2020
Eureka Network (2020), Brexit: no impact for British participants, available at:
https://www.eurekanetwork.org/content/brexit-no-impact-british-participants,
accessed on 03.03.2020.
European Commission (2016), Europe's next leaders: the Start -up and Scale-up
Initiative, accessed on 25.02.2020
E!Innovest (no date), EUREKA Innovest Programme, available at
https://eurekainnovest.eu/about/overview.html accessed on 06.03.2020
Faber, J., van Dijk, J., & van Rijnsoever, F. (2016). Incentives and barriers for R&Dbased SMEs to participate in European research programs: An empirical
assessment for the Netherlands. Science and Public Policy, 43(3), 414-428.
Accessed on 24.02.2020
FFG (no date), EUREKA, available at: https://www.ffg.at/en/program/eureka,
accessed on 24.02.2020
Hedin, S., Mattson, H., & Sandén, P. (2012), Eureka Impact Evaluation - Effects of
Swedish participation in EUREKA Projects, available at:
https://www.vinnova.se/contentassets/d79807a978114659b973db227fb69975
/va_12_08.pdf, accessed on 03.03.2020
Innosuisse (no date) Eureka: cross-border innovation, available at:
https://www.innosuisse.ch/inno/en/home/go-global/EUREKA.html, accessed on
03.03.2020

55

Patton, D. & Huynh, T. (2018), What are the barriers to start-up and scale-up in R&D
intensive firms?, available at: https://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2018/11/No11-SOTA-What-are-the-barriers-or-enablers-ofstart-up-and-scale-up-D.Patton-1.pdf accessed on 09.03.2020
Shaton, M., Lehmann, A., Pando, E., Vicini, I., Cincera, M. (2017), Interim Evaluation
of Eurostars-2 Joint Programme, available at:
https://ec.europa.eu/research/evaluations/pdf/report_interim_evaluation_euro
stars2_051011.pdf, accessed on 24.02.2020
Vervaeck, J. (2019). Analysis of The Belgian Scale-Up Gap (Doctoral dissertation,
Ghent University).

56

Annex 2: Technical Annex data analysis
and enrichment
Introduction
This technical annex provides supporting detail to the analysis conducted within the
Qualitative evaluation on the participation and impact on high -tech startups from
participating in EUREKA instruments. The outcome of the analysis is reported in
Section 3 of the full report.
The annex covers the following areas:
1. Definitions: describes the accompanying calculations used to define the companies.
2. Methodology: describes the methods that were employed to:
 select the subsample for the data enrichment (STEP 1)
 acquire the data for the subsample (STEP 2)
 analyse the data (STEP 3)
Definitions:
The following definitions are used in the research. They are simplified due to:
 the innovative nature of the EUREKA network: all companies involved in the projects are
already considered to be high-tech
 the limited company-level information available18
Startup: a company that is less than or equal to 5 years old when starting the
project. 19
Scale up: a company which has experienced an average annualised growth (in
employment, revenue or profitability) of at least 20% over 3 years - with at least 10
employees at the start of the period. 20
SME: small and medium-sized enterprises with a staff headcount that is less than
250. Further categorisation using staff headcount is as follows: micro < 10; small <
50; medium < 250. 21

Step 1 - Sub-sample selection for data enrichment
The following information for EUREKA projects was provided, of which participation
can be broken down into the following data entries:
 4,259 participations for 1881 Eurostars projects
 102 participations for 22 SME-partnered PENTA projects
 593 participations for 70 SME-partnered ITEA 3 projects

18

E.g. it was only possible to calculate whether a company is a startup for 67.67% of the Eurostars dataset
since only 2882/4259 entries provided the correct information for the companies’ registration year. For Clusters
(ITEA3 and PENTA): we were only provided with SME partners datasets, thus no calculations were possible at all
(before enrichment stage) as there is no data for registration year.
19

Adapted from the OECD definition of a young firm (from 0-5 years old).
20 Adapted from the OECD definition for a ‘scale up business’, we will instead measure whether a company has
scaled up before or after their participation in the Eureka projects (rather than adhere to the strict definition of
whether a company is a scale up or not).
21
See https://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/business-friendly-environment/sme-definition_en for more
information.

57

To enrich this data, we have selected a subsample of 100 EUREKA participants
comprising of:
 50 Dutch EUREKA participants
 50 International (non-Dutch) EUREKA participants
To ensure that the subsample can represent the entire population of EUREKA
participation as accurately as possible, we employed a multi-phase stratified
random sampling methodology. In stratified sampling, categorical variables (in our
case, the characteristics that were taken into consideration) are selected to form
strata, or subsets, of the total population by dividing the data up into number of
strata such that within each of the strata the values of the variable of interest are
expected to be relatively similar. Stratified sampling is therefore performed to
preserve the strata proportions of the population within the sample as it focuses on
the most important subpopulations and ignores irrelevant ones. 22

T h e se le c t io n o f th e 5 0 Du t c h E U R E K A p a rt i c ip an ts
The entire population (i.e. full dataset) of Dutch EUREKA participation comprises of
506 data entries:


411 participations for Eurostars projects



95 participations for SME-partnered Cluster projects 23
o

30 for SME-partnered PENTA projects

o

65 for SME-partnered ITEA3 projects

The entire Dutch population (of 506 participations) was first isolated then
proportioned into strata per instrument. From these proportions, we were able to
calculate how many companies per instrument subsample was necessary to create a
total subsample of 50 Dutch EUREKA participants. See Table A1 below for how the
Dutch subsample comprising of Eurostars, ITEA3 and PENTA Clusters instruments was
determined.
Table A1: Proportionately Stratified Dutch Subsample
EUREKA

Dutch

instrument

population

Proportion

Stratified

Eurostars

411

81%

41

ITEA3

65

13%

6

PENTA

30

6%

3

506

100%

50

subsample

Eurostars
For Eurostars, a proportional distribution of the following characteristics was taken
into consideration when constructing the Dutch Eurostars subsample:
o

Sector (Market Area)

o

Size (Number of Employees)

o

Participant Role (Main, Partner or Withdrawn)

o

Participation Costs (in M€)

o

Age (when starting the project)

See Table A2 below for how the subsample for Eurostars was constructed based on the
above characteristics.

22

Hassan, H. A., & Idrees, A. M. (2010, March). Sampling technique selection framework for knowledge
discovery. In 2010 The 7th International Conference on Informatics and Systems (INFOS) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
23
Only data from SME participants in Cluster projects was provided.

58

Table A2: Proportionately Stratified Eurostars Dutch Subsample
Sector (Market

Eurostars

Area)

Population

Proportion

Stratified

Biotech / medical

249

61%

25

ICT

42

10%

4

Consumer /

27

7%

3

Industrial

27

7%

3

Energy

24

6%

2

Environment

22

5%

2

Transportation

12

3%

1

Construction /

8

2%

1

411

100%

41

Subsample

services

building

Size (#

Eurostars

Employees)

Population

no data

13

3%

1

0-10

214

52%

21

11-20

77

19%

8

21-30

34

8%

4

31-40

20

5%

2

41-50

13

3%

1

51-60

6

1%

1

60+

34

8%

3

411

100%

41

Proportion

Stratified

Participant Role

Eurostars

Proportion

Stratified
Subsample

Population

Subsample

Main

242

59%

24

Partner

156

38%

17

13

3%

0

411

100%

41

Proportion

Stratified

Withdrawn

24

Participation

Eurostars

Costs (M€)

Population

<=0.5

167

41%

17

(0.5-1)

170

41%

17

>=1

74

18%

7

411

100%

41

Subsample

24

Since the purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of high-tech startups participating in EUREKA
instruments, no withdrawn participants are included in the subsample.

59

Start Age

Eurostars

Proportion

Population
no data/

Stratified
Subsample

95

23%

9

0-5

116

28%

12

6-10

91

22%

8

11-15

52

13%

5

16-20

26

6%

4

21-35

22

5%

2

36-40

2

0%

0

41+

7

2%

1

411

100%

41

incorrect
entries

Clusters
For the PENTA and ITEA3 clusters, a proportional distribution of the Participation
Costs was taken into consideration when constructing the Dutch Clusters subsample.
See Table A3 below for how the Clusters Subsample was constructed using the
participation costs criteria.
Table A3: Proportionately Stratified Clusters Dutch Subsample
Participation

PENTA

Costs

Population

Proportion

Stratified

no data

3

10%

0

<=€500,000

8

27%

1

(€500,000-

11

37%

1

8

27%

1

30

100%

3

Participation

ITEA3

Proportion

Costs

Population

no data

1

2%

0

<=€500,000

21

32%

2

(€500,000-

37

57%

3

6

9%

1

65

100%

6

Subsample

€1M)
>= €1M

Stratified
Subsample

€1M)
>= €1M

T h e se le c t io n o f th e 5 0 I n t e rn a t io n al ( n o n - Du tc h ) E U R E K A
p a rt ic ip an ts
The entire population (i.e. full dataset) of International (non-Dutch) EUREKA
participation comprises of 4,448 data entries:


3,848 participations for Eurostars projects



600 participations for SME-partnered Cluster projects
o

528 for SME-partnered PENTA projects

o

72 for SME-partnered ITEA3 projects

After isolating the Dutch population from the data, the entire International population
(of 4,448 participations) was proportioned into strata per instrument. From these
proportions, we were able to calculate how many companies per instrument

60

subsample was necessary to create a total subsample of 50 International EUREKA
participants. See Table A4 below for how the subsample for Eurostars and Clusters
was determined.
Table A4: Proportionately Stratified International Subsample
EUREKA

International

instrument

population

Proportion

Stratified

Eurostars

3848

87%

43

ITEA3

528

12%

6

PENTA

72

2%

1

4448

100%

50

subsample

Eurostars
For Eurostars, a proportional distribution of the following characteristics was taken
into consideration when constructing the International Eurostars subsample:
o

Participant Country

o

Sector (Market Area)

o

Size (Number of Employees)

o

Participant Role (Main, Partner or Withdrawn)

o

Participation Costs (in M€)

o

Age (when starting the project)

See Table A5 below for how the subsample for Eurostars was constructed based on the
above characteristics.
Table A5: Proportionately Stratified Eurostars International Sub sample
Country

Eurostars

Proportion

Population

Stratified
Subsample

Germany

562

15%

6

France

399

10%

5

Spain

359

9%

4

United Kingdom

343

9%

4

Switzerland

302

8%

3

Sweden

285

7%

3

Denmark

270

7%

3

Norway

214

6%

2

Austria

139

4%

2

Italy

121

3%

1

Belgium

115

3%

1

Czech Republic

74

2%

1

Finland

69

2%

1

Israel

57

1%

1

Turkey

50

1%

1

Portugal

48

1%

1

Poland

47

1%

1

Lithuania

45

1%

1

South Korea

42

1%

1

Hungary

41

1%

1

Greece

39

1%

0

Slovenia

35

1%

0

Romania

28

1%

0

Canada

26

1%

0

61

Cyprus

25

1%

0

Iceland

20

1%

0

Estonia

19

0%

0

Ireland

18

0%

0

Slovakia

14

0%

0

Bulgaria

12

0%

0

Latvia

10

0%

0

Croatia

6

0%

0

Luxembourg

3

0%

0

South Africa

3

0%

0

Russia

2

0%

0

Taiwan

1

0%

0

Brazil

1

0%

0

Malta

1

0%

0

Mexico

1

0%

0

United States

1

0%

0

China

1

0%

0

3848

100%

43

Eurostars

Proportion

Subsample

1377

36%

16

ICT

683

18%

7

Consumer /

414

11%

6

Industrial

675

18%

6

Energy

272

7%

3

Environment

152

4%

2

Transportation

168

4%

2

Construction /

107

3%

1

3848

100%

43

Sector

Population
Biotech /
medical

services

building

62

Size (#

Eurostars

Employees)

Population

no data

91

2%

1

0-10

1781

46%

20

11-20

769

20%

8

21-30

331

9%

4

31-40

238

6%

4

41-50

133

3%

1

51-60

87

2%

1

60+

418

11%

4

3848

100%

43

Proportion

Stratified
Subsample

Participant Role

Eurostars
Population

Stratified

Proportion

Subsample

Main

1636

43%

20

Partner

2066

54%

23

Withdrawn 25

146

4%

0

3848

100%

43

Participation

Eurostars

Proportion

Stratified

Costs (M€)

Population

<=0.5

2314

60%

27

(0.5-1)

1253

33%

12

>=1

280

7%

4

no data

1

0%

0

3848

100%

43

Eurostars

Proportion

Start Age

Subsample

Population

Stratified
Subsample

no data

1261

33%

15

incorrect

20

1%

0

0-5

673

17%

9

6-10

657

17%

9

11-15

479

12%

4

16-20

323

8%

3

21-35

322

8%

2

36-40

29

1%

0

41+

84

2%

1

3848

100%

43

entries

Clusters
Based on calculations of the marginal distribution of the population per EUREKA
instrument (as demonstrated in Table A4), only 1 PENTA participant should be
included. As such, the country with the highest amount of PENTA participation has
been selected, i.e. Germany (with a participation of 32). From the German population,
the company selected is within the category of participation cost that dominates the
dataset (i.e. less than €500,000). See Table A6 below for a complete participation cost
breakdown of the German PENTA population.
Table A6: Participation Cost Breakdown for German PENTA Population

Participation Costs

PENTA Population

<=€500,000

16

(€500,000-€1M)

11

>= €1M

5
32

25

Since the purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of high-tech startups participating in EUREKA
instruments, no withdrawn participants are included in the subsample.

63

For the ITEA3 cluster, a proportional distribution of the Participant Country was first
taken into consideration when constructing the ITEA3 Clusters subsample. See Table
A7 below for how the 6 countries (Turkey, Spain, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Belgium)
were selected for the ITEA3 Subsample. The same method as per Table A6 was
employed to select the participants for each of these 6 countries in the ITEA3
international subsample
Table A7: Proportionately Stratified ITEA3 International Subsample
Country

ITEA 3

Proportion

Population

Stratified
Subsample

Turkey

110

21%

1

Spain

88

17%

1

Finland

60

11%

1

Germany

59

11%

1

Sweden

39

7%

1

Belgium

30

6%

1

France

30

6%

0

Canada

29

5%

0

Romania

27

5%

0

Portugal

16

3%

0

South Korea

15

3%

0

Austria

8

2%

0

Czech Republic

5

1%

0

Norway

3

1%

0

Hungary

3

1%

0

Denmark

2

0%

0

Switzerland

1

0%

0

Italy

1

0%

0

Slovenia

1

0%

0

Taiwan

1

0%

0

528

100%

6

Participation

ITEA3

Costs

Population

no data

12

2%

0

<=€500,000

360

68%

4

128

24%

1

28

5%

1

528

100%

6

(€500,000€1M)
>= €1M

Proportion

Stratified
Subsample

Step 2 – Acquiring data for sub-sample
The following databases are used to acquire the relevant variables to enrich the
subsample: Orbis, Tracxn, Crunchbase and Dealroom. The aim for this enrichment
stage is to identify the trend of capital invested in EUREKA participants using data
from Tracxn, Crunchbase and Dealroom, while the aim is to identify scale-ups using
EUREKA participants’ company data over time provided by Orbis. See Table A8 for the
variables offered by each database.

64

Table A8: Variables available 26 per Database
Tracxn
Company name, founding year,
city, state, country, company
stage, editor’s rating, business
models, facilitators, IPOs, News
articles, founder information,
Funding:

total funding

funding rounds

funding amounts per
round,

institutional investors

Crunchbase/Dealroom

Number of funding
rounds

Total funding amount

Founding date

Founders

Operating Status

Funding Status

IPO Status

Company descriptions

Orbis
Company data:

Industry
Financial data:

revenues

profit/loss
Employment data:

number of employees
Ownership data:

shareholders’ funds

shareholders names

E u rek a p ar t ic ip an t s
The list of 50 Dutch companies that have been enriched are as follows:
Eurostars
1.

Amsterdam Scientific

PENTA
1.

Instruments B.V.
2.

ITEA3
D4T Systems

1.

bunq B.V.

SA

2.

SynerScope B.V.

Technobis

3.

Recore Systems

2.

Bioceros BV

3.

BrainCarta B.V.

Fibre

4.

CAPILIX, B.V.

Technologies

5.

DS TAGS Group B.V.

BV

6.

Elitac B.V.

7.

FlexGen B.V.

8.

Lead Pharma Holding

3.

Novioscan BV

BV
4.

Prodrive
Technologies BV

5.

Verum Software
Tools BV

6.

Datenna BV

BV
9.

Meatless BV

10. Merus BV
11. MIMETAS
12. Omnigen B.V.
13. Optics11
14. Delmic B.V.
15. Pepscan Therapeutics
BV
16. Quantib
17. RiverD International
B.V.
18. Solarus Sunpower BV
19. Soteria Medical BV
20. Thirona BV
21. UbiQ Bio BV
22. XYZTEC BV
23. 2M Engineering ltd
24. FeyeCon Development
& Implementation B.V.
25. Opra Turbines B.V.
26

Variables available does not guarantee that such data is available for each company in the subsample.

65

26. Vostermans Ventilation
B.V.
27. AIM BV
28. Brapa Consultancy
29. LG Sonic BV
30. EagleScience
31. Future Diagnostics
Solutions B.V.
32. HippoLine BV
33. IBR Consult BV
34. Lighthouse
International
Dataservices B.V.
35. Low Vision Totaal BV
36. Pamgene International
B.V.
37. R&R Mechatronics
International B.V.
38. TubaScan Ltd.
39. Vabrema BV
40. Self-screen BV
41. Quest Photonic Devices
B.V.

E n ric h men t o f th e 5 0 I n te rn a tio n a l ( n o n -Du tc h ) E U R E K A p a r t ic ip an ts
The list of 50 Dutch companies that have been enriched are as follows:
Eurostars

PENTA

Germany

Germany

1.

CellTool

1.

2.

SICOYA

Infrarotsensorik

3.

UltraFast Innovations GmbH

und

4.

InnLas Laser GmbH

Messtechnik

5.

Supracon AG

1.

6.

E-Flox GmbH

Germany

1.

6MOUV

Turkey

2.

BIONEXT

1.

3.

FASTLITE Sarl

4.

ENERBIM

5.

CQFD Composites

France

InfraTec GmbH

Spain
1.

S.L.
Belgium

BEONCHIP S.L.

2.

ZUBIOLA, S. COOP.

3.

Progenika Biopharma SA

4.

Tecnologías Digitales Audiovisuales,
S.L.

United Kingdom
1.

Izon Science Europe Ltd.

2.

Glycomar Limited

3.

Kromek Limited

Apogado
catkin GmbH
Medron Medikal
Teknolojiler
LTD

Finland
1.

1.

Alerion
Technologies

1.

Spain

66

ITEA3

Intopalo Digital
Oy

Sweden
1.

Digital Nordix
AB

4.

BioDot Ltd

Switzerland
1.

Consulteer, AG

2.

ID Quantique SA

3.

GBiotech SARL

Sweden
1.

Cathprint AB

2.

Askalon AB

3.

Biomotif AB

Denmark
1.

Innogie ApS

2.

PentaBase ApS

3.

Pipeline Bioresearch ApS

Norway
1.

Maritime Robotics

2.

Bilde og Røntgenanalysesystemer AS

Austria
1.

NBG FOSA GmbH

2.

tatwort Nachhaltige Projekte GmbH

Italy
1.

Molecular Stamping

Belgium
1.

Adaptive Eyeworks

Czech Republic
1.

FOLLER

Finland
1.

Silicon Laboratories Finland Oy

Israel
1.

CollPlant Ltd.

Turkey
1.

Normmed Medikal

Portugal
1.

FiberSensing - Sistemas Avançados de
Monitorização, S.A.

Poland
1.

AVSystem sp.j.

Lithuania
1.

Geozondas Ltd.

South Korea
1.

COWeaver

Hungary
1.

Saniplant Biotechnological Research
and Development Ltd.

67

Step 3 – Analyse data
An a l ys in g E u ro st a r s p o p u l at io n
Cleaning the data
From the 2908/4259 participants that had data for their registration year, only 2882
were correctly recorded. We therefore excluded 26 companies that had incorrect
entries for their registration year and only performed analysis on the data entries with
a registration year. The maturity of the companies that were included in analysis are
as follows:
Start

# Eurostars

Age

Participations

5 or

793

less
6 to 10

750

11 to 15

536

16 to 20

350

21 to 35

345

36 to 40

31

41+

77
2882

The main variables considered in the analysis are:


the number of (start-up and non-start-up) participations



Total Costs (M€) – sum of the project costs contributed by the participants
in a specific category



Total Subsidy Received (M€) – sum of (national and EU) grants received by
the participants in a specific category

From the 2882 participations, we found 793 start-up participations thus amounting to
a proportion of 27.52%. The following calculations were then performed based on the
start-up participations:
Country

68

# start-up

Total Costs

Total Subsidy

participations

(M€)

Received (M€)

Netherlands

116

72.03

8.8

Switzerland

81

53.03

20.42

Germany

80

34.77

12.68

Denmark

78

32.11

14.6

France

71

43.83

15.35

UK

65

28.44

11.7

Sweden

54

31.11

14.95

Spain

51

21.55

8.89

Norway

44

35.9

18.81

Austria

32

16.1

8.8

Finland

16

7.26

3.71

Belgium

15

7.02

4.32

Turkey

11

3.47

2.94

South Korea

8

4.61

2.94

Italy

8

2.79

0.87

Lithuania

7

1.74

1.18

Israel

6

5.2

1.88

Czech Republic

6

2.5

1.29

Iceland

6

2.15

0.83

Poland

5

1.22

0.57

Portugal

5

1.41

0.42

Cyprus

5

0.77

0.31

Canada

5

3.73

1.84

Slovenia

5

1.02

0.45

Greece

3

1.07

0.24

Estonia

2

1.13

0

Croatia

2

1.11

0.37

Hungary

2

0.46

0.3

Bulgaria

1

0.22

0.16

Ireland

1

0.51

0

Slovakia

1

0.16

0.08

Luxembourg

1

0.51

0

793

418.93

159.7

Sector (Market Area)

# startups

Total Costs

Total Subsidy Received

Biotech / medical

354

(M€)

(M€)

211.08

90.33

Construction / building
Consumer / services

23

7.56

3.42

81

31.81

13.48

Energy

54

34.03

13.38

Environment

29

12.36

4.26

ICT

130

70.95

32.43

Industrial

90

35.45

16.07

Transportation

32

15.67

5.44

793.00

418.91

178.82

Maturity

#

Total Costs

Average Costs

Total Subsidy

Average Subsidy

(years)

startups

(M€)

(M€)

Received (M€)

Received (M€)

<0 years

2

0.84

0.42

0.40

0.20

0 years

11

5.85

0.53

3.03

0.30

1 year

82

44.09

0.54

16.59

0.24

2 years

174

89.76

0.52

37.60

0.24

3 years

169

88.19

0.52

40.30

0.25

4 years

177

94.05

0.53

42.72

0.27

5 years

178

96.13

0.54

38.18

0.26

793.00

418.91



178.82

From the rest of the 2882 participations, 2089 non-start-up enterprises (Eurostars
Enterprises in the report) were then analysed, yielding the following results:

69

Country

# participants

Total Costs (M€)

Total Subsidy Received

Germany

288

141.3058599

53.95917654

Netherlands

200

128.2191932

53.94196

France

195

122.621096

43.526555

Spain

182

87.84490356

39.21733051

United Kingdom

178

81.30229508

33.74949252

Switzerland

139

77.00591315

31.38018395

Sweden

150

86.58671646

41.67437305

Denmark

115

48.55054517

24.17322545

Norway

123

104.1189719

47.3632132

Austria

54

24.07778158

11.451237

Italy

60

24.42775617

8.26622363

Belgium

67

31.77487932

18.28429866

Czech Republic

36

11.706521

6.33800997

Finland

31

18.32570852

8.13806

Israel

19

10.013984

1.722178

Turkey

23

11.44701246

9.12543048

Portugal

16

5.20590899

1.90194315

Poland

24

9.05839475

4.44698177

Lithuania

23

5.6197115

3.468578

South Korea

22

16.92306052

11.19268458

Hungary

17

4.82692

1.8260972

Greece

7

2.705269

0.74773321

Slovenia

20

8.0051684

3.70783879

Romania

19

6.117442

3.42107239

Canada

12

5.02260293

1.98304049

Cyprus

12

1.64523

0.8327372

Iceland

10

4.97514898

2.70930215

Estonia

5

1.58570003

0

Ireland

11

3.9004133

1.233275

Slovakia

10

3.0126042

1.6896384

Bulgaria

7

2.0887695

0.66716561

Latvia

5

1.453858

0.89833661

Croatia

2

0.47777772

0.33320305

South Africa

2

0.439266

0.24801818

Luxembourg

1

1.00289

0

Russia

1

0.090143

0

Malta

1

0.20625

0.11449152

Mexico

1

4.277

0

Taiwan

1

0.24

0

2089

1098.208666

473.7330853

(M€)

70

Market Area

# participants

Total Costs (M€)

Total Subsidy

Biotech / medical

813

494.4578732

210.3452751

Construction / building

52

21.3094332

9.72155958

Consumer / services

211

91.41202066

41.30986655

Energy

171

87.59840235

34.43412967

Environment

82

37.76228004

16.30222471

ICT

319

172.3283342

75.16695896

Industrial

372

160.5019794

74.65467426

Transportation

69

32.8383431

11.79839641

2089

1098.208666

473.7330853

(M€)

The following correlations were found in the Dutch Population:

71

The following correlations were found in the International Population:

72

An a l ys in g c lu s te rs p o p u l at io n


593 ITEA3 SME participations:
Country

#SMEs

Final costs (€)

AUT

8

3076967

BEL

30

14039909.06

CAN

29

21921071.41

CHE

1

91000

CZE

5

1303625

DEU

59

28687610

DNK

2

182300

ESP

88

35476586.48

FIN

60

30665984.04

FRA

30

16747123.77

HUN

3

388800

ITA

1

56000

KOR

15

6268672.983

NLD

65

40274383.06

NOR

3

2662600

PRT

16

4029088.29

ROU

27

12023341.83

SVN

1

256000

SWE

39

12462969.5

TUR

110

30074002

TWN

1

390000

593

261078034.4

73



102 PENTA SME participations:
Country

#SMEs

Final costs
(€)



BEL

10

4863596

CAN

2

1825000

CHE

1

343000

CZE

1

285100

DEU

32

22726170

ESP

6

3143100

FIN

2

829900

FRA

12

11992000

GBR

4

1844500

IRL

1

626000

NLD

30

23882187

PRT

1

1060000

102

73420553

The two cluster datasets were then merged to create the population Clusters
dataset, yielding the following numbers:
Country

Total Number of

Budget (€)

SMEs
Netherlands

95

64156570.1

Germany

91

51413780

Spain

94

38619686.5

Finland

62

31495884

Turkey

110

30074002

France

42

28739123.8

Canada

31

23746071.4

Belgium

40

18903505.1

Sweden

39

12462969.5

Romania

27

12023341.8

Korea

15

6268672.98

Portugal

17

5089088.29

Austria

8

3076967

Norway

3

2662600

United

4

1844500

Czech Republic

6

1588725

Ireland

1

626000

Switzerland

2

434000

Taiwan

1

390000

Hungary

3

388800

Slovenia

1

256000

Denmark

2

182300

Italy

1

56000

Kingdom

74

695

334498587

Project Status

#SMEs

proportion

Completed

10

1%

FPP Decision Pending

17

2%

Labelled

183

26%

Recently completed

64

9%

Running

421

61%

695



Based on project websites 27:
o

43% of PENTA partners are SMEs

o

54% of ITEA3 partners are SMEs

An a l ys in g en ri c h ed su b - s amp l e d a t a
International sub-sample
Eurostars
-

9/43 participated more than once in Eurostars

Growth path:


12/43 grew in revenues, profits or number of employees



5/43 are scale-ups



1/43 bankrupt



10/43 improved liquidity position: increase in current ratio to greater than 1

o

4/5 after project start; 1/5 before project start

Investment path:


10/43 receive additional funding
o

40 rounds in total – 4 rounds on average




27/37 (only 37 had dates to check this) after joining a project

10/43 have 2 or more additional sources of finance

Clusters
-

5/7 of SMEs are startups when joining a clusters project

-

0 are scale-ups

International Company

LinkedIn Sector

InfraTec GmbH Infrarotsensorik und

Electrical & Electronic Manufacturing

Messtechnik
Alerion Technologies S.L.

Computer Software

Apogado

Information Technology & Services

catkin GmbH

Logistics & Supply Chain

Intopalo Digital Oy

Computer Software

27 https://www.penta-eureka.eu/projects/project_partners.php ; https://itea3.org/project-

partners/page-all.html

75

Digital Nordix AB

Information Technology & Services

Medron Medikal Teknolojiler LTD

Computer Software

Growth path:


3/6 (only 6 companies had consecutive data to see if they grew) experience
employee growth

Investment path:


4/7 receive additional funding
o

1/7 have 2 or more additional sources of finance

Dutch subsample
Eurostars
-

15/41 participated more than once in Eurostars

Growth path:


11/41 grew in number of employees



1/41 is a scale-up (by strict definition of having 10 employees at the
beginning of the period)
o

5/41 scaled up



2/41 bankrupt/liquidated



11/41 improved liquidity position: increase in current ratio to greater than 1

Investment path:




21/41 receive additional funding
o

51 rounds in total – 2.43 rounds on average

o

30/51 after joining

13/41 have 2 or more additional sources of finance

Clusters

76

-

4/9 of SMEs are startups when joining a clusters project

-

0 are scale-ups

Dutch Company

LinkedIn Sector

D4T Systems SA

Semiconductors

Technobis Fibre Technologies BV

Mechanical Or Industrial Engineering

Novioscan BV

Medical Device

bunq B.V.

Banking

SynerScope B.V.

Information Technology & Services

Recore Systems BV

Semiconductors

Prodrive Technologies B.V.

Electrical & Electronic Manufacturing

Verum Software Tools BV

Computer Software

Datenna BV

Information Services

Growth path:


5/9 of SMEs grew in number of employees

Investment path:


6/9 receive additional funding
o

3/9 have more than 2 additional sources of finance

Dealroom
 From 2007-2019: “Eurostars SME programmes” and “Eureka Network Projects” as
“investors” contributed to 5,501 investment rounds
 265/5501  around 5% are exits
 59% of participants are startups & scaleups (2,737/462,766 recorded on Dealroom that
use Eurostars)
Dealroom qualifies startups based on the following qualifying characteristics:
1. Innovative by design: the product and/or business model are innovative. In most
cases, the company is tech-enabled: proprietary tech/software or business processes
heavily enabled by tech.
2. Rapidly scaling/scalable: as a result of #1, this means that the company can achieve
high growth by leveraging its platform.
In other words, these are venture-backable companies.
Scaleup: A startup in its growing phase (Growing revenue and over 51 employees)

77