A €13m R&D call opens for Portugal's smaller firms (Lisbon projects get half the rate)
Portugal 2030 call MPr-2026-11 opened on 30 October and takes applications until 18:00 on 30 December. It funds industrial research and experimental development projects of at least €150,000, at up to 80% in the Centro, Alentejo and Algarve and capped at 40% in the Lisbon metropolitan area.
Apply / Learn morePortugal 2030 opened a new call on Friday for companies that want to do proper research: build a product, process or service that does not exist yet, or make a big improvement to one that does. There is €13 million of EU money on the table for micro, small and medium-sized firms and for so-called small mid caps.
For a research project, the window is tight. Applications close at 18:00 on 30 December, through the Balcão dos Fundos portal.
Where the money sits
The MPr-2026-11 call pools four regional programmes and leaves the North out. The split does not track the size of each economy:
- Centro: €5 million (€1.5m for single-company projects, €3.5m for joint ones)
- Algarve: €4 million (€1m + €3m)
- Lisbon: €3 million (€1.5m + €1.5m)
- Alentejo: €1 million (€0.6m + €0.4m)
The Algarve gets more than the Lisbon metropolitan area. Joint projects, where firms team up with each other or with universities and research centres, take almost two thirds of the pot: €8.4 million against €4.6 million for solo projects.
The rate is the story
The rule that matters most hides in a footnote. Outside Lisbon, support can reach 80% of eligible costs (85% for research bodies in joint projects). In the Lisbon metropolitan area, the ceiling is 40%.
We ran a simple case. A small company with a €300,000 industrial research project starts at a 50% base rate, adds 20 points for being small and, in the Centro, another 15 for location. That hits the ceiling, so it gets 80%, or €240,000. The same project in Lisbon stops at 40%: €120,000. Exactly half. For experimental development the base is 25%, and the same Centro firm would reach 60%.
The conditions that sink applications
- A minimum of €150,000 in eligible investment.
- In the Centro there is also a maximum: €350,000 for solo projects and €500,000 for joint ones.
- Single-region projects only, lasting up to 24 months (solo) or 36 (joint).
- Each company can appear in two applications at most: one as lead, one as partner.
- Organised accounts, and proof that the project only goes ahead because of the grant (the incentive effect, so nothing already under way).
Decisions are due 60 working days after the close, which points to late March 2027 if nobody is asked for more paperwork.
Firms thinking about factories rather than labs have a sister call under STEP, with €207 million for clean tech, digital and biotech production, which is another door for the same kind of company.
Illustration: Tugadaily