EKOO

At least two independent participants must work together, including at least one company. Partners participate at their own cost and risk and must make roughly comparable financial and substantive contributions. Related companies alone do not form the required consortium. Hired suppliers are not participants, and you cannot outsource the whole project. If you outsource part of the work, you and the supplier must not be linked through the same group or through a Dutch commanditaire vennootschap (a limited partnership with a silent investing partner), vennootschap onder firma (a general partnership whose partners contribute money, goods or work), or maatschap (a professional partnership whose members practise together under a common name). Record the subcontracting relationship in a subcontracting agreement. Research-organisation participation is optional; the eligible category covers universities, universities of applied sciences and the five Dutch applied-research institutes Deltares, MARIN, NLR, TNO and Wageningen Research, and equivalent institutions abroad.

Foreign partners may participate, but every participant’s activities must positively affect the Dutch economy. A foreign company needs a permanent establishment or subsidiary in the Netherlands with lasting premises, staff or equipment sufficient to operate independently and supply customers; a Dutch mailbox is insufficient. You must substantiate the innovation’s chance of success in the Dutch market with market knowledge, sources and arguments. Circular routes require first application in the Netherlands within ten years of project start; this means demonstrating the solution in an operational setting, rather than necessarily deploying it at scale.

To receive the higher company rates, either the consortium consists only of companies, includes an SME and no company bears more than 70% of costs; or research organisations bear at least 10% of costs and may publish their own results. When a research organisation participates, sign a collaboration agreement before starting. It must cover cost contributions, risks and outcomes, dissemination and intellectual-property allocation. Avoid indirect company aid by allocating rights to the research organisation’s own work, paying it a market price for transferred rights, or allocating rights according to participants’ work, contributions and interests. An alternative is for participants to bear all costs, with no grant to the research organisation.

Your work must be technically and economically feasible, novel, creative, uncertain and systematic, with transferable and reproducible results. Show the unresolved problem, a planned programme of research and tests, and how you will record and share results apart from commercially sensitive information. RVO also checks that participants can carry out the work and that the project would face significant delay without the grant. Projects with excessive economic, ecological or social risks for the Netherlands can be rejected.

Do not start work, incur costs or enter commitments before submitting the application, even if you have not yet paid. Start within six months of the award letter. Electricity, industry, built-environment and Biobased circular projects may last at most four years. Circular economy, Circular plastics and Critical raw materials projects may last at most two years. First application must be possible within ten years of project start, or within five years for the built-environment route. These limits describe the published route rules; a closed route’s old window does not make it available again.

Have financing for your own contribution arranged when you apply, including ineligible costs; financing may be conditional on receiving the grant. Explain and document this with evidence such as a bank or investor commitment and accounts. Under the fixed-hour method, your own contribution cannot consist solely of your staff hours. Participants normally must not be enterprises in difficulty under the EU state-aid definition. Complete RVO’s decision tree and declaration. From 2026 an enterprise in difficulty can instead seek de-minimis aid if it has sufficient allowance: no more than €300,000 over three years per enterprise, while the whole-project cap still applies. Include the de-minimis declaration and completed decision tree.

Budget only reasonable costs directly connected with the research and development. Staff hours, equipment use, consumed materials and external services can qualify under the chosen cost method. The 2026 energy-innovation rules set €80 per hour where the fixed hourly rate applies; this is a cost-calculation basis, not the grant paid per hour. Keep equipment-use records. For existing equipment, calculate use costs from normal utilisation, the historical purchase price and a depreciation period of at least five years. Deduct residual value from equipment bought specifically for the project, normally using straight-line depreciation over at least five years. Record consumption and historical purchase cost for materials taken from stock, and substantiate specially bought materials and equipment with invoices. Do not include recoverable VAT. Project management qualifies only when directly connected to substantive research and development; grant administration and presenting completed results at conferences do not qualify.

Choose the correct circular route. Circular economy excludes projects whose costs mainly concern recycling or recovery, projects fitting the other circular EKOO routes, plastic packaging, and biobased construction using flax, hemp, miscanthus or straw. Critical raw materials excludes primary extraction and processes usable only for primary extracted material; projects fitting general Circular economy belong there instead.

Under the retained Circular plastics rules, product research must replace at least 25% of fossil inputs with qualifying biopolymers or recycled material from mechanical recycling, chemical depolymerisation or dissolution. Thermochemical recyclate, biopolyesters, fossil-identical biopolymers, polymers in fibres, coatings, resins or composites, and biological recycling of biodegradable polymers are excluded from that route. Biobased circular instead requires a named biopolyester and a matching theme: product design is validated at multi-kilogram scale, feedstock projects must process raw feedstock into suitable sugar, a building block or polyester. They may use first-generation crops, agricultural/forestry or industrial by-products and organic waste; improving feedstock production must increase availability for biopolyesters, while logistics and storage can form part of the project. In the recycling theme, recycling is mechanical, chemical or organic, and a closed-loop service must complete at least one use–collection/sorting–reuse/recycling cycle. Building-block or polymer work validates development or industrial-scale process steps, while new production methods must be new technology or a new combination of existing technology. These are closed-route conditions, not a new application invitation.

Use RVO’s SME declaration to establish company size. A small company has fewer than 50 full-time-equivalent staff and turnover or a balance-sheet total no higher than €10 million. An SME has fewer than 250 staff and turnover no higher than €50 million or a balance-sheet total no higher than €43 million. Ownership and links to other enterprises also affect the assessment; use the declaration’s company and group questions rather than judging size from your own headcount alone.

The financial-difficulty test checks your financial position under EU rules, not simply whether you have cash in the bank. If you belong to a linked group, the group’s position normally determines the assessment, including a foreign parent. SMEs less than three years old at the expected award date receive a limited check for insolvency and rescue/restructuring aid; when they belong to a group, the age condition applies to every enterprise in the group. Sole traders, foundations, partnerships, associations and cooperatives also receive that limited check. Complete the tailored decision tree and use its outcome for the declaration. The current EKOO de-minimis exception above remains available if the test identifies difficulty.

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• Circular economy tender: maximum €500,000 per project; total budget €2.5 million.

Select the route on RVO’s EKOO page and use its project-plan and budget models. You can optionally submit a project idea for advice before applying. For the upcoming circular tenders, one participating organisation acts as lead applicant; each partner signs its authorisation form, and a foreign partner uses the English version. An intermediary needs separate authority from the lead applicant and uses its own login. Submit through RVO’s online service with eHerkenning level 3 and the RVO-services authority at eH3. Include the plan, budget, partner authorisations, financing evidence and financial-difficulty or de-minimis documentation. The application must be complete by the tender deadline.

For both upcoming tenders, the project plan must stand on its own and be no longer than 25 pages. Identify the project locations, participants, subcontractors making an important contribution or accounting for more than 10% of total project costs, work packages or milestones, research/development category, responsibilities, outputs and timetable. Explain Dutch market potential, business cases, technical and non-technical risks and follow-on steps. Choose a linear budget for evenly spread advances or a milestone budget if you need advances in the quarters when costs arise. Include a public summary, which is published if the project receives funding. Describe active dissemination of project knowledge and results; this is compulsory and receives no subsidy. Knowledge sharing needed directly to conduct the research is separately subject to the eligible-R&D-cost rules. You may not finance your own contribution with the requested subsidy calculated using the €80 hourly rate, even if you use a lower rate.

RVO ranks eligible applications after the deadline, with independent expert advice. Assessment covers contribution to the route’s goals, prospects in the Dutch market and society, international novelty and strengthening Dutch knowledge, and project quality, including approach, risk management, deliverability, partners and efficient use of resources. You need at least three points on every ranking criterion. Sufficiently scoring projects receive grants in ranking order until the budget runs out. RVO’s assessment period is 13 weeks and can be extended once by another 13 weeks.

The award letter sets your payment schedule and obligations. RVO automatically pays advances based on the budget, usually directly to individual partners. Deliver an annual progress report if the project lasts more than twelve months, using the dates in your letter. Report important changes immediately and obtain advance permission where required; unapproved changes can reduce or remove the grant. Under the common rules, deviations of more than 25% in a cost heading or annual/milestone costs must be reported for projects settled on actual costs. Keep the required work, hours and cost records for five years after final settlement, use results as required during that period and cooperate with evaluation.

After the project, apply for final settlement through RVO within thirteen weeks of the planned completion date in the decision. RVO determines the final amount and reconciles overpaid or underpaid advances. Include the final report, a management declaration for grants between €25,000 and €125,000, and an auditor’s declaration from €125,000. For the €25,000–€125,000 category, settlement uses actual costs less revenue. RVO assesses settlement within thirteen weeks, extendable once by another thirteen weeks.