Cascade funding—often described in grant documents as financial support to third parties—allows an EU-funded project to run its own open calls. For SMEs and researchers, these calls can offer a more focused and accessible route than joining a large consortium.
What matters most
The intermediary project publishes its own eligibility, evaluation, contract and reporting rules.
Support may take the form of grants, vouchers, experiments, services or access to facilities.
Deadlines can be shorter and topics narrower than major EU calls.
Applicants must verify the official project and call documents because unofficial listings can be incomplete.
State-aid, ownership, data and publicity conditions may still apply.
A cascade call is best treated as a defined experiment with a clear deliverable.
Questions to answer before acting
Use these questions to turn a broad topic into a defined decision, test or work package:
- Who is the authorised call operator?
- What costs, countries and organisation types are eligible?
- What rights attach to the results and data?
- What reporting is required for the support amount?
A practical sequence
- Step 1. Verify the call on the project’s official site.
- Step 2. Read the applicant guide and contract template.
- Step 3. Define a bounded experiment and measurable result.
- Step 4. Confirm cost and IP conditions.
- Step 5. Plan reporting evidence before work begins.
Common traps
- Applying from an aggregator page alone
- Ignoring the contract until selection
- Proposing a project larger than the call can support
Where this fits in the wider system
This topic belongs to the site’s EU programmes and funding pathways pillar. The strongest route normally connects several pillars: a research result may need a testbed, a consortium, an appropriate programme, standards work and a scale-up plan.
Use the planning tools to identify the next uncertainty, then verify the route through the official-source directory.