General Approach
General Approach
Methodology
On your behalf, FOAG can handle all tasks related to funding application writing and submission. FOAG has developed a successful, customisable methodology which can be used with a wide variety of regional, national and European grant programmes.
Key steps include:
• Identification, from with FOAG’s network and in agreement with you, of consultants specialised in the technical field of your project.
• A detailed discussion to enable us to fully understand your project idea.
• A review of suitable funding programmes for your project idea. If you already have a funding programme in mind, a rapid, honest and expert review by our consultants of your project idea’s chance of success.
• Agreement about the process for developing your proposal, with lines of communication defined and a clear timeline for the production and delivery of the final application.
• Detailed review of all aspects of the underlying funding programme guidelines and evaluation criteria to allow first development of the workplan for your project.
• Working through several versions of increasing maturity of your application (from initial draft through to definitive proposal) to be in a position to submit a very solid application before the deadline.
• Review of your complete proposal by a second expert not involved in the preparation of your application, thus revealing potential weaknesses.
By following this methodology, FOAG has raised more than €100 million in funding for in excess of 200 charities, companies, research centres and public administrations from a variety of funding programmes since 1998. A selection of significant clients appears in the next image (click image to enlarge):
Horizon Europe – our core area of work
Horizon Europe is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €95.5 billion of funding available over 7 years (2021 to 2027).
By coupling research and innovation, Horizon Europe is supported on three main pillars: Excellent Science, Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness and Innovative Europe. The goal is to ensure fuel EU’s scientific and technological excellence and to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA), to tackle policy priorities, including green and digital transitions and Sustainable Development Goals and to boost Europe’s innovation uptake, competitiveness and jobs.
Funding rates are typically 100% (for research projects and research organisations) or 70% (innovation projects). A typical cost allocation is about 1€mn/year for individual projects (EIC Accelerator) and about €300m – €500m/year for collaborative projects. Projects usually have a 2-year to 4-year duration, and average success rates are usually below 20% of the total number of proposals for a given instrument and call because of the strong existing competition. FOAG has been able to continuously beat that average success rate with its well-proven approach to accessing funding.
FOAG has wide experience in securing funding for projects under the following Horizon Europe thematic areas (but not limited to): Health, Culture, Creativity & Inclusive Society, Civil Security for Society, Digital, Industry & Space, Climate, Energy & Mobility, Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture & Environment.
But FOAG’s expertise and background is not limited to Horizon Europe but also to alternative pan-European (and global) R&D support programmes such as Eureka (Eurostars, CELTIC-NEXT, Globalstars, ITEA, SMART, etc), Cascade Funding initiatives (Innowwide, Titan, etc) and so on.
FOAG funding expertise is detailed on next specific sections of the Funding theme.