You've submitted your proposal, what now?

What is the evaluation process?

A proposal is evaluated against the following award criteria: impact, excellence, and implementation.

In order to be considered for funding, a proposal must score above a certain threshold for each criterion, and above an overall threshold.

• Phase 1 – 13/15
• Phase 2 – 12/15

Each criterion is scored out of 5 points, however, when the proposals are ranked for funding, the Impact score will be weighted at 1.5 times the other two criteria.

Scoring above threshold does not guarantee funding; this is determined by available budget per topic and call.

The Evaluation process in the framework of H2020 has 3 phases. For the SME Instrument, the evaluation is in compliance with these rules and the procedure is the same for all topics, namely:

• Individual evaluation: 4 independent experts are appointed to evaluate proposals.
• Consensus report: The individual reports from each expert evaluator are put together and the median scores are calculated for each of the three criteria. The total score of the proposal is the sum of the scores of the three criteria.

When will I get the results?

Phase 1 will be available no later than 2 months after submission.
Phase 2 will be available no later than 4 months after submission.

The evaluation time is influenced by the number of applications and availability of expert evaluators for the cut off.

Applicants are notified of the outcome via a letter and their Evaluation Summary Report (ESR) in the Participant Portal

What happens if my project is selected... when do I get the funding?

Successful applicants are invited to prepare and sign a grant agreement with the European Commission. After the signature, the pre-financing payment will be transferred.

The pre-financing amount is generally about 40% of the total requested funding.

The sign the grant agreement it takes on average:

Phase 1 – 27 days
Phase 2 – 96 days

The Commission understands the challenges faced by SMEs and aims to expedite this process wherever possible.

More information is available on

EASME SME Instrument Website 

SME Instrument essential tips for applicants

SME Instrument FAQs