How to find the right funding for your Aerospace & Defence project

Europe offers a growing range of aerospace and defence funding opportunities, supporting innovation from early-stage research through to industrial deployment. The challenge is understanding which programme fits your technology, maturity level and strategic ambitions.

Europe’s aerospace & defence challenge is shifting

Europe has a strong scientific and industrial base in aerospace and defence, supported by established industrial players, innovative SMEs, start-ups and world-class research capabilities.

But the landscape is changing fast. Growing international competition, geopolitical pressures and the drive for greater technological sovereignty are increasing the need to turn innovation into industrial and operational capabilities more quickly.

For aerospace and defence companies, this means navigating long development and certification cycles while investing in digitalisation, advanced technologies, resilient value chains and, particularly in aviation, decarbonisation.

The ability to move promising technologies towards industrialisation and deployment at scale is becoming increasingly important.

Bridging the gap between innovation and industrialisation

One of the most critical challenges appears between technological demonstration and industrialisation – the so-called “valley of death”.

Technologies that have already demonstrated their potential can still struggle to progress towards operational deployment because of high development costs, technical risks, certification requirements and limited access to suitable capital.

At the same time, Europe’s aerospace and defence ecosystem remains fragmented across countries, programmes and industrial value chains.

Public funding can play an important role in addressing these challenges: supporting technological development, facilitating industrial scale-up, strengthening critical value chains and enabling cooperation across Europe.

Navigating aerospace & defence funding in Europe

The European funding landscape offers opportunities across different technologies, project types and stages of maturity.

Horizon Europe, the European Defence Fund, ESA, EIC Accelerator, the Innovation Fund, Clean Aviation JU, SESAR JU and EUDIS are just some of the instruments available to aerospace and defence innovators.

However, they do not all support the same projects.

Some focus on collaborative research and development. Others target demonstration, industrialisation or deployment. Eligibility, consortium requirements, target organisations and Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) also vary considerably between programmes.

Understanding these differences early can help you focus your resources on the funding opportunities that are most relevant to your project.

Find the right funding pathway for your innovation

We have created a practical guide to help aerospace and defence innovators navigate the European funding landscape and understand where their projects may fit.

Inside, you will find:

• An overview of the main European funding programmes for aerospace and defence
• How different instruments align with Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs)
• The role of public funding from research through to industrial deployment
• Key insights into the challenges shaping innovation and competitiveness across the sector