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

 

• 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

• The FSTP for the Digital Europe CYRESRANGE project targets independent cyber range operators, providing financial and technical support to onboard their infrastructures into a federated network for cross-border training and exercises.
  Funding up to: 15,000 € to 25,000 €
  Deadline: 16 April 2026

• The 2nd Open Call of StandICT.eu 2029 project intends to enable specialists to contribute to a fully integrated European Standardisation Ecosystem, strengthening Europe’s position in global initiatives.
  Funding up to: 10,000 € long-term, 5,000 € short-term
  Deadline: 24 April 2026

• The 1^st Open Call of COP-PILOT project seeks to select innovators to integrate and test their digital solutions within the COP-PILOT framework, providing financial support and mentoring to accelerate technology adoption.
  Funding up to: 200,000 €
  Deadline: 4 May 2026
  

• The 3rd Open Call of AUTOASSESS project intends to integrate innovative technology solutions from startups and SMEs to solve specific technical challenges, ensuring the final inspection tools are market-ready.
  Funding up to: 150,000 €
  Deadline: 5 May 2026

• The 1st Call of EDITO 2 intends to integrate mature digital ocean applications, models and datasets into the EDITO platform to enhance data flows and modelling capacity for biodiversity and climate scenarios.
  Funding up to: 40,000 €
  Deadline: 6 May 2026
  

• The project Open Horizons's Open Call is geared towards supporting 39 startups through equity-free funding, co-creation of pilot projects with major corporations and tailored mentoring to accelerate their digital market entry and scaling.
  Funding up to: 45,000 €
  Deadline: 19 May 2026

• The InDiCo Global Third Open Call aims to provide training for staff of non-EU/EFTA digital/ICT standards bodies and landscaping studies.
  Funding up to: 50,000 €
  Deadline: 1 June 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)

Share on: