”There are also inno-buster funds in the EU. It's called EuroStarts – it's EU funds that go back to the member states and then they get allocated.
is crucial in legitimising each partner's strengths and the necessary competency contribution to the activities from each of the partners. “Applications consist of three parts; an excellence part, which is research, an impact part and an implementation part, and the last is the project management itself - how do you intend to run the project. Impact and implementation we sometimes write.”
"The EU also has something called Eurostars, which is an intergovernmental collaboration." That goes along with the technology transfer calls. These may be of significant interest for startups in the sports and football industry. A new EU thing is that a company can get capital where it is financed through the European Investment Bank. The EU startup finance options are under the European Innovation Council, and this council also includes the implementation research elements. A further opportunity for small and medium-sized tech companies is the EIC Accelerator Open, that focuses in particular on innovations building on scientific discovery or technological breakthroughs (‘deep tech’).
The EU offers several opportunities in the general health research field to apply for grants, and optimally this may take place in collaboration with NGOs. As such, the football angle will have to be twisted a bit to make the argument for using football as a means. To ensure the societal outcome: “Impact for the EU is very much about including a stakeholder early in the process. Such action research or design research, in focusing on the applied elements of a project, is a really good approach. It matches EU thinking well.”
Business and charity proposals
The EU has also the acquired PhD programme and doctorial networks, possibly built around football research. The final element of seeking financial resources from the EU is the European Regional Development Fund, especially the interReg grants, which require collaboration across borders in two of the European countries. In these projects, it is necessary to include a variety of cross-disciplinary and cross-sectorial regional stakeholders.
If private companies or startups are to receive grants from foundations, they need to document that the money not only drops into and becomes part of the companies' capital base, but that it is used for something that benefits everyone and the common good or the general public. That to some extent also applies for the EU innovation and business development grants. Therefore, companies and startups are often more focused on receiving financial resources from the venture capital pipeline in which patenting, and protection of knowledge and products is easier to manage. Although it is getting more common that business foundations
For the innovation part there are new calls coming up in 2021. At the national level, the inno-buster is offered as a grant opportunity when it comes to collaboration between research and startup establishment – the ‘entrepreneurial track’, so to speak. 46
