The Israeli Chief Scientist Office offers various programs for grants and/or loans for companies with the aim of advancing the Israeli industrial sector.

Contrary to popular believe not all the programs are for high-tech companies, and not all of them are for start-ups. However, the Eurostars program we'll discuss is aimed – bingo - at high-tech companies that are also start-ups.

Eurostars, which is nearing its next submission deadline (September 20th) is a sub-program of the European Union's Eureka program that supports R&D projects with commercial implementations (if that sounds oddly familiar that's because the people at Eureka based their model partly on our good old Chief Scientist).

Eurostars is aimed specifically at SME's, to "stimulate them to lead international collaborative research and innovation projects by easing access to support and funding."

The beneficiaries are companies in EU and satellite countries, including Israel, which also happens to be the current Eureka Chair.

So how do you start a Eurostars project?

First you've got fulfill the EU definition of an SME (believe me, most large Israeli companies fulfill this definition).

Second, you need to do a substantial amount of R&D (at least 10% of expenditures – no sweat).

Then - and that's the tough part - you need to find yourself a partner in another participating country (not your own) to do the R&D project with. A REAL project that will result in tangible, commercially viable, results (one of the partners can be a research institute).

Now, many of you ask yourselves, "What do I need this headache for?" Well, it's not just for the money. This is also a good opportunity to get into the European market.

From experience, I can tell you that just looking for a partner is a great way to get your future market mapped. And remember, your partner can also be a customer you're developing a product with.

A Eurostars project must be market driven: it should have a maximum duration of three years and the product should be ready for launch within two years of project completion (except in the case of bio-related products).

The next stage is applying directly to Eurostars. The Chief Scientist helps in preparing the request and under certain conditions provides you with 5K NIS to cover application costs.

So what do you get?

You'll receive a grant, not a loan (like some Chief Scientist programs).

The grant covers up to 75% of project expenditure.

The money source is both the Israeli Government and the EU, so you're more likely to get the funding on time (four months from the date it's approved).

How do you find your partner?

Eurostars and Eureka databases,

There's also help from Matimop.

Through various European government and industrial organizations.

Through consultants.

The coming deadline for Chief Scientist support is September 5^th, so if you don’t have a project and partner you should aim for the next cut-off date, February 2011, which is six months from now – the perfect amount of time to get yourself organized on a project and to find a partner.

So what are you waiting for?