How to find partners
and build a consortium?
Why get a partner?
You may be already operating in a partnership, whether it is a consortium or any form of joint venture, or not. Often times in calls for proposals for EU Funding you will see a section describing a consortium as one of the options or a sole requirement in the conditions section of the call. Furthermore, there are criteria considering the legal entity, size etc. of companies that can apply for specific calls. If you are a small business, a partnership could open doors for you to qualify for EU Funding that otherwise would not be attainable.
On this page we take you step by step through the process of finding and registering a partner/partnership for the purpose of applying for EU Funding and creating a project together.
How to build a consortium?
To find partners for your project ideas, you can:
Use the Partner Search function of the Portal. The function allows to:
look for organizations which received funding in the past
create and check Partner Search requests by call/topic
Use other Partner Search tools and services. A list of recommended support sites is offered under the Helpdesks & Support Services page.
Participate in conferences, brokerage events organized by the EU or networks in the Member States (National Contact Points or Desks, Enterprise Europe Network, etc.)
Make sure to have clear roles
The roles should be attributed according to the level of participation in the project. Main participants should participate as Beneficiaries or Affiliated Entities (former Linked Third Parties); other entities can participate as Associated Partners, Subcontractors, Third parties giving in-kind contributions, etc.
Associated Partners and Third parties giving in-kind contributions do not get any part of the grant money and will therefore have to organise other funding sources (bear their own costs, internal reallocation of funding inside the consortium, find investors, etc.)
Subcontracting should normally constitute a limited part of the project and will need to be justified (give reasons). Tasks may NOT be subcontracted inside the consortium (between Beneficiaries or Affiliated Entities).
