Check the latest FSTP opportunities
What is "Financial Support to Third Parties"?
Some of the calls for proposals in Horizon Europe specify that consortia are expected to reserve a certain amount of their budget for so-called Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP). This portion of the budget must be distributed to third-party organisations via grants, the idea being that these third parties should contribute to the project's expected outcomes through their grants while not actually being part of the consortium. This is a good way of including for example start-ups and SMEs in the EU projects ecosystem without them having to be full project beneficiaries with all the associated paper work.
The EC has published a guidance document on FSTP which we recommend to read for orientation, no matter whether you are a project beneficiary handling FSTP or interested in applying for FSTP grants yourself.
Currently open FSTP Calls from EU Projects
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CYberSynchrony 1st, 2nd and 3rd open calls focus on strengthening cybersecurity infrastructure and operational readiness in NIS2-regulated sectors, supporting solutions that enhance sector-specific resilience and enable rapid, coordinated cyber response.
Funding up to: 200,000 €
Deadline: 1 March 2026 -
The cascading grant of the STREAMING project aims to advance sustainable trade regimes between Europe and Africa by mapping innovation ecosystems and promoting the uptake of new technologies
Funding up to: 25,000 €
Deadline: 2 March 2026 -
2nd Open Call of MAGICIAN aims to fund and support innovative proposals from SMEs and start-ups that extend and demonstrate the robotics and AI capabilities of MAGICIAN’s defect detection and repair solutions in new industrial use cases beyond automotive
Funding up to: 200,000 €
Deadline: 2 March 2026 -
DIGI4ECO call aims to address critical data gaps limiting the performance of its Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO)
Funding up to: 60,000 €
Deadline: 15 March 2026 -
The First Open Call of the SECURE4SME project aims to strengthen the cybersecurity resilience of EU/EEA micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (mSMEs) and help them comply with the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) by funding concrete projects that improve cyber practices and compliance.
Funding up to: 30,000 €
Deadline: 29 March 2026 -
NGI Zero Commons Fund aims to foster the delivery, maturation, and large-scale adoption of new internet commons across the full technology spectrum, from libre silicon to end-user applications, through a holistic, full-stack approach
Funding up to: 50,000 €
Deadline: 1 April 2026 -
The NGI Fediversity project’s call is designed as a key pilot within the European Commission's NGI initiative to build a human-centric, open, and secure web infrastructure
Funding up to: 50,000 €
Deadline: 1 April 2026 -
Within the FORWARDS Horizon Europe project framework, the European Forest Institute call for grants G-01-2026 aims to develop applications and AI solutions that leverage the ForestWard Observatory for monitoring European forests
Funding up to: 150,000 €
Deadline: 3 April 2026 -
The ROB⁴GREEN 1st round of Open Calls aim at enhancing European forestry and agriculture through the integration of advanced robotics and AI-driven automated technologies
Funding up to: 60,000 €
Deadline: 4 April 2026
Forthcoming FSTP Calls
- The Second Call for Pilots Work Strand 3 - New Advanced AI-Based Tools to the LDTs Toolbox (LDT4SSC Project) last open call aims to fund pilot projects across Europe that develop, connect and scale Local Digital Twins for Smart Sustainable Communities
(More information coming soon, launch 13 May 2026)
Have you spotted an FSTP opportunity that we have missed? Or are you planning to run an FSTP call related to digital technologies in your EU project and would like to advertise it here? Then please send an e-mail with the relevant information to Diego Coglitore ([email protected]) and Jessica Bonanno ([email protected]).
Where to find further FSTP opportunities
Finding FSTP opportunities is not always easy. Some EU projects publish their FSTP calls on the Funding & Tenders Portal, while others have beneficiaries like who are specialised on running FSTP calls and publish these on their own portals. Some others publish FSTP calls only on their project website. Portals you can check regularly yourself include:
- The Funding & Tenders Portal
- The Cascade Funding Hub
- The OnePass portal
- The F6S portal
Ongoing initiatives regularly offering financial support for third parties
- Smart Networks and Services Joint Undertaking (SNS JU)
- Next Generation Internet (NGI)
- EU Cloud Edge IoT (CEI)
- European Institute of Innovation & Technologu (EIT) Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC)
- AI on-demand platform (AI4EU)
- Quantum Flagship (QT)
Past initiatives
Do you want to learn about previous initiatives and results of cascading grants?
- Innovation for Manufacturing SMEs (I4MS)
- Smart Anything Everywhere (SAE)
- Open Data Incubator Europe (ODINE)
- European Data Incubator (EDI)
- European Coordination Hub for Open Robotics Development (ECHORD++),
- Access Center for Photonics Innovation Solutions and Technology Support (ACTPHAST),
- Supercomputing Exercise for SMEs (SESAME NET)