Recommendations for preparing successful proposals:

Celtic projects, generally, have a far better chance to receive public funding than e.g. IST projects of the EU framework programmes if certain rules and strategies are observed when composing the consortium and preparing the proposal. The most important recommendations are:

• Each consortium partner should contact the Public Authority (PA) in charge at the earliest possible state. In particular national research agendas and deadlines for national applications must be carefully observed.
• The consortium should be composed only by those partners who have received some positive feedback from their PA.
• Partners with critical or unlikely funding possibilities should not have a crucial role in the project to avoid that the whole project will collapse if that partner will not receive funding.
• Keep the budget figures and shares among partners at reasonable size that will not go far beyond possible funding ceilings. This could lead to a complete rejection of the proposal by the PA.

In addition national funding rules may require your attention to succeed in receiving funding. These rules may not always be the same in the different countries and should be checked before submission.

The following general requirements (EUREKA Criteria) should be observed:

• There is a market for the product or the service to be developed
• There are at least two partners from two different EUREKA Member countries
• The partners are in a position to execute their part of the project
• No country or partner should have an assignment significantly higher than 50% of the total budget
• People involved in a proposal should establish a contact with the respective National Contact Point

As additional recommendation you should assure that you proposal stays within the usual size of a Celtic project in terms of budget, size of consortium and duration.

As an approximate indication you may refer to the figures of the previous calls:

• Duration: average about 27 months (minimum 12 months; maximum 36 months)
• Total budget: average about 7 MEuro (recommended maximum 15 MEuro)
• Total effort: average about 60 PY (minimum 20 PY; maximum 190 PY)
• Number of consortium partners: average = 8 (minimum 2; maximum 16); recommended: 4