Call: Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs

COSME is the EU programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) running from 2014 to 2020 with a planned budget of 2.3 bn. €.

Accessing finance

COSME aims to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to access finance in all phases of their lifecycle – creation, expansion, or business transfer. Thanks to EU support, businesses have easier access to guarantees, loans and equity capital. EU ‘financial instruments’ are channelled through local financial institutions in EU countries. To find a financial institution in your country, visit the Access to Finance portal.

Opening markets

COSME helps businesses to access markets in the EU and beyond. It funds the Enterprise Europe Network that helps SMEs find business and technology partners, and understand EU legislation; the Your Europe Business portal that provides practical information on doing business within Europe; and the SME Internationalisation Portal for companies who want to develop their activities outside Europe. It also finances a number of IPR (intellectual property rights) SME Helpdesks.

Supporting entrepreneurs

COSME supports entrepreneurs by strengthening entrepreneurship education, mentoring, guidance and other support services. Actions support specific groups who may find it difficult to reach their full potential, such as young people, women and senior entrepreneurs. The programme also aims to help businesses access opportunities offered by digital technologies.

Improving business conditions

COSME aims to reduce the administrative and regulatory burden on SMEs by creating a business-friendly environment. COSME also supports businesses to be competitive by encouraging them to adopt new business models and innovative practices. This complements actions in areas with high growth potential such as the tourism sector.  

Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs is a mobility scheme that allows potential or newly established entrepreneurs to spend a period of time collaborating with an experienced entrepreneur in another participating country. 

The specific objectives are:

1. To provide on-the-job-training for new entrepreneurs with established host entrepreneurs in small and medium-sized enterprises elsewhere in the COSME Participating Countries in order to facilitate a successful start-up, and development of their business ideas;

2. To foster sharing of experience and information between entrepreneurs on the obstacles and challenges of starting up and developing their businesses;

3. To enhance market access and identification of potential partners for new and established businesses in other EU and COSME Participating Countries;

4. To support networking between entrepreneurs from different COSME Participating Countries by building on knowledge and experience from other COSME Participating Countries.

5. The Intermediary Organisations (IO) will aspire high quality standards so as to deliver the following expected output for this call for proposals: 

• Further develop a network of new entrepreneurs (NEs), host entrepreneurs (HEs) and Intermediary Organisations (IOs).
•  Enabling new entrepreneurs to work alongside and learn from a host entrepreneur in another COSME Participating Country.
•  Create new businesses, joint ventures and spin-off companies and foster cross-border business cooperation.
•  Enhancing the international activities and innovation potential of host entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this call is to conclude 'Framework Partnership Agreements' (FPAs) for the period 2016-2021 (five years) to organisations to which specific grant agreements might be awarded in order to implement Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (EYE) projects beyond the COSME programming period. To this end the Executive Agency for SMEs (EASME) will select consortia of Intermediary Organisations (IOs) to conclude long term framework partnerships in the form of FPAs. If the Agency decides to award a specific grant, it will propose the partners to conclude a ‘Specific Agreement (SGA)’. 

Applicants can be public or private loegal entities whose core activity is in the field of business support.

• Applicants need to form consortia.
• Consortia must be composed of minimum 5 and maximum 10 legal entities.
• Consortium partners must come from at least 5 different COSME participating countries and maximum 2 partners can be from the same country in one consortium. 

It is not allowed that a partner participates in more than one proposal. Nevertheless, should this happen, the respective organisation will be excluded from all the proposals it applied. The respective consortia that will be affected by the exclusion of (a) partner(s) must still fulfil the eligibility criteria as stipulated in 6.1 and 6.2 in order to be considered eligible. 

The grant reimburses up to 90 % of the action's eligible costs incurred by the beneficiaries (IOs). The EU contribution shall not exceed 75 % of the programme management costs of the IO but may be up to 100 % of the sum allocated by IOs to third parties (sub-grantee. i.e. new entrepreneurs) participating in a mobility action. 

The maximum grant amount per project will be 500 000 €.

Applicants are requested to go to https://ec.europa.eu/easme/en/cos-eye-fpa-2016-4-01-erasmusyoung-entrepreneurs and follow the procedure for submitting an application.

Questions about this call for proposals should be submitted only in writing by sending an e-mail to: easme-cosme-eye-call@ec.europa.eu.

Find your local contact point for this call on this link. 

The Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) manages COSME on behalf of the European Commission.