STEP – Incentives for the Development and Production of Strategic Technologies for Europe (JR STEP)

Purpose of the call

The purpose of the public call, in line with the objectives of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP), is to contribute to:

• the strengthening of the European Union’s competitiveness by increasing its resilience and productivity, as well as the mobilisation of financing to prepare the economic, industrial and technological base for the green and digital transition.
• the sovereignty and security of the European Union,
• the reduction of the European Union’s strategic dependencies in key strategic sectors,

Available funds

The total amount of funds available under the public call is EUR 60,000,000.00.

Call publication

The call was published in the Official Gazette No. 107/2025 on 19 December 2025..

Application deadline

he deadline for submission of applications is 15 April 2026 by 14:00 (CET).

Applications may be submitted in paper form or electronically via the ARIS Digital Forms portal.

Funding amount

The indicative amount of co-financing per project is a minimum of EUR 1,000,000 and a maximum of EUR 10,000,000.

The maximum project duration is up to 36 months, with the latest possible end date being 31 May 2029.

The aid intensity and eligible costs depend on the selected module and are subject to the applicable state aid schemes (RDI scheme and regional aid scheme).

Funded activities

Applicants’ projects may consist of one or more of the following modules:

Module A: research and development in the field of critical and emerging strategic technologies and their value chains.

Module B: establishment of testing and experimental infrastructures in the field of critical and emerging strategic technologies and their value chains.

Module C: establishment or expansion of production of critical and emerging strategic technologies and their value chains. Public research organisations (PROs) are not eligible for funding under Module C.

Specific conditions

Projects must be implemented exclusively in the Cohesion Region Eastern Slovenia; the applicant (including consortium partners) must have a registered headquarters, business unit or branch in this region no later than at the start of project implementation.

Eligible beneficiaries are companies of all sizes and public research organisations (PROs); however, PROs may not act as sole applicants and may participate only as consortium partners, in accordance with the call conditions.

Only projects that fall within the focus areas and/or product directions of at least one S5 priority area, as defined in the call documentation, are eligible for co-financing.