Evaluation of the
Eurostars-2 funding programme

Eurostars is a funding programme for research-driven small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe. The programme is supported by the 34 EUREKA member states (EU-27 countries and 7 partner countries) and the European Commission. It is aimed at SMEs that carry out cross-border research and development (R&D) projects with European partners.

On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Prognos and the ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research evaluated the national funding for German grant recipients within the Eurostars-2 funding programme (2014-2021).

Every funding euro leads to more turnover

The programme was evaluated with regard to the achievement of objectives, effectiveness and efficiency.

In the Eurostars-2 funding programme, a total of 685 sub-projects with German participation, reflecting 405 collaborative projects, were funded by the BMBF with almost EUR 142 million. These are the results:

• The programme has achieved its short and long-term objectives in Germany to a very high degree.
• Eurostars-2 particularly addresses SMEs without cooperation experience and SMEs that are cooperating internationally for the first time, thus fulfilling a central objective of the funding.
• Almost all of the SMEs and research institutions supported have achieved commercialisation results. This confirms that Eurostars-2 funding has contributed causally to a higher probability of SMEs introducing new products and processes in the three years following the start of funding.
• Leverage effects of the funding were also identified. For example, additional funding of one million euro generates around eight additional employees and each euro of funding generates an additional turnover of 3.37 euro.

German participation in Eurostars to be continued and expanded

This study analysed whether the objectives of Eurostars-2 were achieved, how effective the national funding was and how economical the project is. Finally, recommendations for the future design of the programme were developed:

• Due to the high effectiveness of the programme, German participation in Eurostars should be continued and expanded. The provision of higher funding ensures that as many international collaborative projects with German participation as possible can also be funded. 
• From a German perspective, consideration should also be given to mechanisms for securing funding after a positive commitment (e .g. national fast-track to ZIM).
• With regard to increasing the efficiency of the programme, efforts should be made to abolish the double reporting requirement or at least to standardise the content requirements more closely. 

Our approach

The evaluation is carried out by means of:

• Literature research
• Analysis of administrative data on Eurostars-2 funding of German participants
• Structural analysis of national Eurostars-2 participants
• Written (online) survey of all national Eurostars 2 participants
• Impact analysis based on comparisons of nationally funded Eurostars 2 participants with a control group of non-funded participants from Germany
• Interviews with Eurostars-2 participants and persons and institutions involved in programme implementation

Links and downloads 

To the evaluation report (PDF, in German)

More on the evaluation of the Eurostars-2 funding programme (ZEW.de)

More on European SME funding (BMBF website, in German)

Project team: Michael Astor, Diana Nadyseva, Dr Thomas Stehnken (project lead), Victor Wichmann (all Prognos); Prof Dr Bettina Peters, Dr Christian Rammer, Markus Trunschke (all ZEW)

Last update: 12.11.2024