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Expanding an innovative product or technology into a new international market can create significant commercial opportunities, but it also comes with questions around customer demand, local regulations, technical adaptation, competition and market access.
The 5th Innowwide Call for Market Feasibility Projects is designed to help innovative SMEs answer these questions before committing significant resources to international expansion.
The programme provides funding for SMEs to carry out a six-month market feasibility project in a selected target country in Africa, the Americas, Asia or Oceania. The project must involve a local organisation in the target market, allowing the SME to evaluate the commercial and technical feasibility of introducing its innovation within that country.
Key Dates and Funding
Opens: 1 October 2026
Closes: 1 December 2026, 14:00 CET
Funding: Fixed grant of €60,000 per project
Total Call Budget: €4.2 million
Projects Funded: 70
Project Duration: 6 months
The maximum funding rate is 70%, meaning the project must have total eligible costs of at least €86,000. Any eligible project expenditure beyond the €60,000 grant must be covered by the beneficiary.
What Does Innowwide Support?
Innowwide supports SMEs that want to assess whether an innovative product, process or service could succeed in a new international market.
The programme can support companies at different stages of their internationalisation journey. For example, an SME may use the project to explore a future international R&D collaboration or investigate the commercial potential of a technology developed through an earlier R&D project.
The feasibility project can assess a combination of:
The overall objective is to give the SME enough evidence to make an informed decision about whether and how to enter the selected market.
Where Can the Market Feasibility Project Take Place?
The target market must be a country located in Africa, the Americas, Asia or Oceania.
Applicants must identify a specific pilot market where they intend to investigate and validate their innovative business solution.
Importantly, the programme is designed around collaboration with organisations already operating within that market. This provides applicants with access to local knowledge and helps ensure that the feasibility assessment reflects the actual commercial, technical and regulatory conditions within the target country.
Who Can Apply?
Innowwide is a mono-beneficiary programme, meaning the grant is awarded directly to a single SME rather than to an international consortium.
The applicant must be an innovative SME established in an eligible participating country and must have been legally established for at least two years by the application deadline.
For the 2026 call, this means the company must have been established on or before 1 December 2024.
The applicant must also not have received funding through a previous Innowwide call in 2022, 2023, 2024 or 2025.
Projects must have an exclusively civil application.
Eligible Applicant Countries
SMEs can apply from:
EU Member States, as well as Iceland, Israel, Norway, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.
This makes the programme particularly relevant for UK SMEs looking for financial support to investigate commercial opportunities outside Europe.
Local Partner Requirement
Although Innowwide is a mono-beneficiary programme, applicants cannot carry out the project alone.
The SME must work with at least one independent local organisation in the selected target country. This organisation acts as the project's main subcontractor rather than as a grant beneficiary.
The local counterpart could be a:
The local organisation should play a meaningful role in assessing or validating the innovation within the target market.
Technology Readiness Level
The innovation being explored must have reached at least TRL 4, meaning it has already been validated in a laboratory or relevant environment and is ready for initial application or demonstration.
The innovation must not exceed TRL 8 within the target country.
Where the international opportunity is expected to lead to further research and innovation activities, TRL 7 is indicated as the upper limit.
The programme therefore supports technologies that are sufficiently developed to investigate their international potential but have not yet been fully established within the proposed target market.
Eligible expenditure can include costs directly associated with delivering the market feasibility project, including:
Indirect costs are calculated using a 25% flat rate on relevant direct eligible costs, excluding subcontracting.
Subcontracting costs must be greater than zero because working with an independent local counterpart is a mandatory part of the project.
What Will Evaluators Look For?
Eligible applications are evaluated against three main areas: Excellence, Impact, and Quality and Efficiency of Implementation.
Under Excellence, evaluators will consider the project's objectives, level of innovation, competitive advantage, alignment with the SME's wider business strategy and whether local adaptation or co-creation is required.
Impact considers the size of the market opportunity, benefits for end users, market-access strategy and risks, alongside relevant societal, environmental, ethical and gender considerations.
Implementation focuses on whether the SME and its local counterpart have the necessary capabilities, whether appropriate resources are available, whether the project plan is realistic and whether the proposed costs are reasonable.
Applicants therefore need to demonstrate a strong commercial rationale for selecting the target country rather than simply presenting international expansion as a general ambition.
Why This Opportunity Matters
Entering a new international market can require substantial investment before a company knows whether its technology is commercially viable there.
Innowwide allows SMEs to investigate these questions through a structured feasibility project before making a larger commitment.
The programme can help companies understand local customers, regulations, technical requirements and potential partners, while identifying whether their innovation needs to be adapted for the target market.
For successful SMEs, the feasibility project could also become the first stage of a longer-term international R&D collaboration or provide the evidence needed to support subsequent commercial expansion.
How Inventya Can Help
A competitive Innowwide application needs to demonstrate more than an SME's ambition to expand internationally. Applicants need a well-justified target market, credible local counterpart and structured feasibility project that will generate the evidence required for a future commercial decision.
Our support can include:
Inventya’s experience in international market research, commercialisation strategy and European innovation funding can help SMEs build an Innowwide application that demonstrates both the potential of their innovation and a credible pathway towards successful international expansion.
