We write ERDF proposals with deep expertise.
Three projects at a time. Every word written by the founder.
Five questions. Thirty seconds. We'll tell you where you stand.
From the European Commission to your bank account, ERDF money passes through a chain of institutions. Understanding each layer tells you who your proposal is really written for.
ERDF is distributed across five policy objectives. We know the logic of each — the eligible activities, the evidence standards, the language that wins.
Technology transfer, R&D facilities, university-industry linkages. S3 alignment is non-negotiable — your project must sit within a declared S3 priority area of the region.
Support for SME growth, digitalisation, and market access. Evaluators demand evidence of market failure — why does the SME need public money rather than bank finance?
Energy efficiency, renewables, smart grids. Proposals must quantify CO₂ reduction targets and prove additionality — what happens without the funding?
Waste reduction, biodiversity, nature-based solutions. Now a growing share of PO2 allocations. Evaluators expect concrete material flow metrics, not aspirational language.
Multimodal mobility, rail, active travel. Technically demanding — robust traffic modelling, modal shift data, and environmental assessment are expected as standard.
High-capacity networks, 5G, digital infrastructure. Market failure justification must be watertight. Coverage targets and take-up projections are heavily scrutinised by regulators and evaluators alike.
Buildings, equipment, facilities for VET and higher education. ERDF covers infrastructure; ESF+ covers trainers and curriculum. Keeping these distinct is an eligibility requirement, not a preference.
Healthcare buildings, social housing, community infrastructure. Population demographics and territorial need data anchor the strongest proposals here.
At least 10% of each Member State's ERDF allocation is ringfenced for integrated urban development. ITIs and Community-Led Local Development are the delivery vehicles. Bottom-up governance is non-negotiable.
Islands, border areas, sparsely populated regions, areas facing demographic challenges. The geographic disadvantage must be the driver of the concept — not an afterthought added for eligibility.
Where your project is located determines your co-financing rate, your eligible activities, and the competitive landscape. These are not interchangeable categories.
Central and Eastern Europe, southern Italy, parts of Greece and Spain. The largest per-capita allocations sit here. Evaluators are experienced and competition is intense — but the funding envelope is substantial enough to fund ambitious infrastructure.
Regions catching up or at risk of falling behind. Common in Portugal, Czech Republic, Poland, and parts of Germany. The narrative challenge here is demonstrating structural need without the raw data of a less-developed region — this is where writing quality matters most.
Western Europe, Scandinavia, the Benelux. Lower allocations per capita, higher scrutiny on additionality. The question of why public EU money is needed when the private sector could fund it is asked loudest here. The S3 alignment argument must be airtight.
The current programming period introduced significant regulatory changes. If your understanding of ERDF comes from the previous period, there are things you need to unlearn.
ERDF calls open and close throughout the year, managed by each country's Managing Authority. These illustrate the types of calls active in a typical programme period.
Illustrative examples only. Always verify current calls with the relevant Managing Authority's official portal.
Every country has its own operational programmes, its own Managing Authorities, and its own competitive landscape. Click a country to understand the territory.
ERDF never funds 100% of a project. Your co-financing requirement depends on your region type and project category. Use this to understand the funding structure before you commit.
Co-financing rates depend on the specific operational programme, project type, and whether public or private co-financing applies. These figures are indicative. Always confirm with the published call documentation.
ERDF proposals are evaluated by people, not algorithms. Understanding who they are, how they think, and what they are looking for is the single most underused advantage in grant writing.
Your ERDF evaluator is typically a programme officer within a regional or national ministry. They understand the policy landscape and the OP intimately. They are not a technical expert in your field. Proposals written in dense domain jargon fail because the evaluator cannot follow the argument — not because the science is wrong.
Every evaluator has a structured scoring grid in front of them. They are not reading for enjoyment — they are scanning for evidence against specific criteria. A proposal that buries the answer to a criterion in the middle of a paragraph will lose marks even if the evidence is there. Structure is scoring.
The evaluator has read the OP, the S3, and the call guidelines dozens of times. They will notice immediately when your project's territorial narrative doesn't match the region's actual challenges. Generic alignment claims are transparent. Specific, documented fit is what scores.
Evaluation is relative, not absolute. A proposal that would score 75/100 in isolation may not be funded if ten others score 82. The question is not whether your proposal is good — it is whether it is better than the competition on the criteria that carry the most weight.
Popular calls receive hundreds of applications. Evaluators have limited time per proposal. A proposal that is hard to read — dense paragraphs, buried evidence, unclear structure — costs the evaluator effort. That effort creates friction, and friction creates doubt. Clarity is competitive advantage.
Evaluators are specifically trained to spot overclaiming, implausible budgets, weak partnerships, and territorial arguments that don't hold up. They have seen every version of the same generic proposal. What they are looking for — and rarely find — is a project that clearly belongs in this OP, in this territory, at this moment.
These are not edge cases. They appear in the majority of unsuccessful bids. Every one is avoidable.
Both options are built around ERDF calls. No packages, no tiers, no upsells.
You have a draft. We go through it the way an ERDF evaluator would — alignment with the Managing Authority's programme, territorial narrative, budget logic. What comes back reads like it belongs in that specific call.
We take the lead from the start — reading the operational programme, mapping your project to its priorities, building a proposal written for this Managing Authority, this call, and no other.
Every project follows the same sequence. No shortcuts, no hand-offs.
EU Grant Studio exists because the grant writing industry has a quality problem. Most firms scale by hiring junior writers and running 30+ projects simultaneously. The result: generic proposals that read like they were assembled from a template library. Because they were.
We took the opposite path. Every proposal is written by the founder — someone with focused experience in ERDF, the programme we have chosen to know completely. The project cap of three ensures each proposal receives the time and attention it deserves.
This isn't the right fit for everyone. If you need a proposal in two weeks, or your project sits outside ERDF, a larger generalist firm will serve you better. But if you have an ERDF call in front of you and want it written by someone who has made this their sole area of work — we should talk.
We take on three projects at a time. If a slot is open and your project fits, you'll hear within 48 hours.