Program stream · Global Financial Raise

Research & Development Funding

Everyone needs funding. Go where the funding is.

A dedicated summit track mapping R&D capital across continents (venture capital, private equity, national grants and EU framework programmes) and matchmaking universities with private partners through curated meet-and-greet sessions.

Global financial districts linked across the Atlantic — Capital · continents

International research collaboration around a table — Universities meet partners

Funding

Eight funding pillars

Eight pathways to R&D capital

Each pillar names the institutions, instruments and contact moments attendees will need to mobilise, with a live meet-and-greet session where universities and private partners connect directly.

Venture Capital · Global

VC & Family Offices

Direct equity and family-office capital for deeptech, climate and applied-AI research spin-outs. Term-sheet literacy, portfolio fit, and patient capital for long R&D cycles.

Private Equity · APAC · Australia

R&D Funding with Private Equity in Australia

Australian PE-led R&D syndicates, ARC Linkage co-funding, and state innovation funds, matching private capital with university research commercialisation.

Regional · Canary Islands

Canary Islands R&D Funding

Cabildo and Canary Islands government R&D incentives, the ZEC tax framework, island-based research consortia, and EU outermost-region top-ups.

National · DACH · Germany

Germany R&D Funding Opportunities

BMBF and BMWK grants, Fraunhofer and Max Planck collaboration pathways, and High-Tech Strategy funding for international research partnerships.

EU Framework · Europe

Horizon EU Grant Funding

Horizon Europe calls, Clusters 4–5, ERC grants and MSCA staff exchanges, consortium building, evaluation criteria and submission timelines.

Ecosystem · Global

Accelerators & Incubators

Programmes that de-risk and fund early-stage research ventures, equity-light incubators, venture-buildlers and accelerator cohorts. A dedicated member category for accelerator and incubator teams bringing their startups to the summit.

North America · United States

US Financing

How to enter the world’s largest capital market: SBIR/STTR grants, NSF and DOE funding, state innovation funds, and Series A ecosystems in deeptech and climate. Compliance, entity formation, and partnering with US research universities.

South & East Asia · India & China

India & China R&D Funding

Two of the world’s fastest-growing R&D engines. India: DST, SERB and MeitY grants, ANIC startup challenges and the India–EU co-funding window. China: national key R&D programmes, the Great Bay Area innovation funds, and routes into joint laboratories and technology transfer.

Funding strategy

From research ambition to a funded programme.

A repeatable method for turning research ambition into a funded programme. The track walks attendees from landscape mapping to consortium building, and finally to the capital geographies where their domain is currently best resourced, or most under-served and therefore most competitive.

Map the money landscape

Identify every relevant funder per region and instrument before you write a single line of a proposal: capital sources, windows, and deadlines.

Match instrument to research stage

Equity for spin-outs, grants for pre-commercial research, loans for pilot lines, and public–private syndicates for translational work.

Build the consortium first

Funders fund teams. Lock academic, industrial and government partners early; alignment beats brilliance in evaluation.

Go where the funding is

Follow the capital concentration: which region is over-funded for your domain, and which is under-served and hungry for your kind of work.

Write to the evaluation rubric

Address every scoring criterion verbatim: impact, excellence and implementation. Reviewers reward proposals that read like their own call document, not like a research paper.

Sequence the capital runway

Stitch instruments into a timeline (grant anchors, equity bridges and loan facilities) so no quarter of the R&D plan is left unfunded between tranches.

Deliver, report, re-pitch

Win the award, hit the milestones and report early wins back to funders; a delivered programme is the strongest case for the next round of capital.

8Funding pillars

7Regions covered

8Meet & greet sessions

Meet & greet sessions

Universities meet private partners

One hosted matchmaking session per pillar, a structured meet-and-greet where university research teams and private partners discover international research collaborations in real time.

Meet & Greet — VC & Family Offices