The EU makes hundreds of millions of euros available each year through its various grant programmes. If you’re interested in applying for EU funding, a good starting point is to become familiar with the policy area that covers the activity you’re trying to get funding for. These policy areas are available at the EU Budget site; there’s a summary of the overall objectives of each area and a link to the Directorate-General responsible for that area.
Each policy area issues its own “Calls for Proposals”. These Calls are in effect invitations to apply for grants. A list of policy areas with links to their Calls for Proposals is available at the Grants of the European Union site. Alternatively, all Calls are also published daily in the Official Journal of the European Union.
It might also be useful to be familiar with the current EU budget; information is available at the Financial Programming and Budget site.
A large amount of EU funding is distributed via three programmes:
- the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – for agriculture
- the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) – for research and development
- the Structural Funds – for regional support
If you think your application could be related to one of these three areas, it may be worth researching further.
The European Information Association (EIA) has a useful page about EU funding, with links to various resources.