“Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) is one of Horizon Europe’s strongest bets in the 2025 work programmes to open innovation to new actors. How does it work and why could it be key to multiplying the impact of projects?”
Although European funding programmes — from the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), through Horizon 2020 (H2020), and now Horizon Europe (HE) — have progressively improved to facilitate access for all actors in the R&D ecosystem, they have always had a reputation for being complex and inaccessible to new participants.
But the EC wants to improve that image with the FSTP mechanism.
With this mechanism, the European Commission sends a clear message: innovation is for everyone, not just for large consortia or entities used to navigating complex projects and financial rules.
Few people know this instrument well, but its potential is enormous: to give access to funds to startups, SMEs, social associations, local clusters, or small research centres that otherwise would never dare (or be able) to enter the European R&D&I ecosystem.
That said, not every project can use FSTP: its use must be explicitly foreseen in the work programme of the respective call. This condition ensures that third-party support is not an improvised add-on, but a strategic part of the project’s design.
A mechanism simple in concept, but demanding in execution
The logic behind FSTP seems simple: a European consortium reserves part of its budget to launch open calls aimed at third parties.
These external entities, after going through a competitive process, receive financial support to contribute to very specific activities: developing a technology, validating a solution, taking part in a pilot, etc.
This way, FSTP turns funded projects into true innovation accelerators: they attract new ideas, open up their collaboration networks, and allow other voices—often more agile and disruptive—to enter the game.
The profile of potential beneficiaries is very broad:
- Startups working in any area such as AI, clean energy, biotechnology, smart mobility, etc.
- Innovative SMEs needing to validate their prototype in a European setting.
- NGOs developing social solutions with high potential impact.
- Research centres capable of contributing early-stage emerging technologies.
- Networks and clusters connecting innovation at local or regional level.
That said, the magic of FSTP has a flipside: managing it well is fundamental. Launching transparent calls, establishing solid evaluation criteria, monitoring fund usage, and justifying every decision to the Commission is no small task.
From Kveloce: Driving FSTP to Broaden Impact
At Kveloce, we’ve learned something key: FSTP is not just an administrative mechanism, it’s a strategic opportunity.
That’s why we help in the proposal preparation phase to design and implement it always thinking about real impact:
- In the proposal phase, we structure how the budget will be reserved, what activities will fund third parties, and how new actors will be integrated into the overall project strategy.
- During implementation, we support the drafting of the call guidelines, the dissemination of open calls, and the coordination of the selection process.
- In the monitoring phase, we ensure that every euro is managed with the traceability and transparency the Commission demands (and that auditors will check).
Our experience confirms that when FSTP is implemented with vision and seriousness, the project grows—not just in results, but in diversity, social impact, and innovation capacity.
