Tour your science with us!
EURAXESS Startup Tour builds on the unique and extensive experience and expertise of EURAXESS network in assisting career development of researchers, to provide them with learning and networking experience of going through the scientific startup ideation, experimentation and growth stages, in the series of site visits. The site visits are organized in the most vibrant European startup cities, in collaboration with external partners, recognized as leaders in startup ecosystems.
If you are a scientist or you are enrolled in PhD programs in the research performing organizations in one of the EURAXESS countries, learn here where to apply for EURAXESS Startup Tour to get awarded a travel grant. Use this exciting opportunity to meet your colleague sci-entrepreneurs from across the world, learn from top experts in the area and meet potential investors.
Bookmark this page and check our announcements for the upcoming tours. Click on a button below to express your interest in participation and get informed first.
-
Call for Participation and Travel Grants is open now
EURAXESS Startup Tour II is the continuation of the flagship offer of EURAXESS Startup Hub in providing learning and networking experiences for (aspiring) scientific entrepreneurs.
EURAXESS Startup Tour II offers the opportunity to attend site visits in Estonia – Startup Estonia (June 2025), Luxembourg (Summer or Autumn 2025, will be confirmed in January) and Italy – AREA Science Park (November 2025 – in period of November 17-28th), showcasing the best practices in advancing the researchers’ careers towards startup entrepreneurship, connecting the selected participants to the sharpest entrepreneurial minds (and investors), offering a learning experience, direct opportunities for developing ideas further in collaboration, and possibly finding funding.
EURAXESS Startup Tour II is funded by the European Commission, within the project “ERA Talent Platform for career development of researchers in Europe”
Read more about the call here, by clicking on the tabs. Click on Apply now below to submit your application.
-
Application, selection and award process
ERA Talent offers up to 40 travel grants to the participants of the EURAXESS Startup Tour II visits. Grants will be awarded after the application and selection process considering eligibility and selection criteria. The travel grant includes a flight or train and bed and breakfast in a room with a single occupancy for 2 nights. In exceptional cases of the inconvenient travel schedule, 3 nights could be booked.
The deadlines (cut-off dates) for The Startup Tour II call are April 1st 2025 (for Estonia – Startup Estonia site visit), May 1st or August 1st 2025 (for Luxembourg site visit, depending on the final dates of the visit) and September 1st 2025 (for Italy – AREA Science Park site visit). All applications will be reviewed by a selection committee and the grant offers will be communicated 15 days after each of the deadlines.
Applicants are invited to express their preference by selecting the site visits they would like to attend, based on the current information published on the official web page of the EURAXESS Startup Tour program. As the detailed programs of the individual visits become published, the applicants may decide to update their application, before the cut-off dates for the individual visits.
Applicants are allowed to select multiple site visits as their preference. At the application deadline for the specific visit, the selection committee will consider only applications indicating a preference for that visit. Based on the outcome of the assessment, an award list (corresponding to the maximum number of participants for that specific visit) and a reserve list will be prepared. The applicants from the award list will be then offered to accept the grant. Applicants may decide whether to accept or decline the offer, with a reasonably chosen deadline for responding to an offer. Applicants who decline the specific offer (in the case of multiple site visits selected as a preference) will be considered in the next round of assessments (without a guarantee of acceptance). In case of declines, the applicants from the reserve lists will be offered a seat (in order of points’ totals), until all seats are filled.
-
Timeline for awarding the travel grants
- December 20th, 2024: Call started, application form is open
- February 1st, 2025: Detailed programs of all site visits and maximum number of participants (awarded grants) are published on EURAXESS Startup Tour II website
- April 1st, 2025: Application for Estonia – Startup Estonia site visit closes
- April 15th, 2025: Travel grants for Estonia – Startup Estonia site visit offered to selected applicants
- Jun 2025: Estonia – Startup Estonia site visit
- May 1st or August 1st, 2025 (based on the final date of the visit, to be decided in January 2025): Application for Luxembourg site visit closes
- May 15th or August 15th, 2025 (based on the final date of the visit, to be decided in January 2025): Travel grants for Luxembourg site visit offered to selected applicants
- September 1st, 2025: Application for Italy – AREA Science Park site visit closes
- September 15th, 2025, Travel grants for Italy – AREA Science Park site visit offered to selected applicants
- Summer or Autumn 2025: Luxembourg site visit
- November 2025 (in period of November 17-28th): Italy – AREA Science Park site visit
-
Who is eligible to apply?
Participant must have residence in a EURAXESS country, namely one of the following: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey and United Kingdom.
Participant must be a researcher affiliated with a Research Performing Organization (RPO) or Higher Education Institution (HEI) in EURAXESS country, enrolled in a doctoral program or with acquired PhD title in the last 5 years and/or work contract in RPO/HEI.
Participant must be an aspiring or established startup entrepreneur with a startup idea or Minimum Viable Product, built on the result of the scientific research.
-
How we are going to select the participants?
The participants will be selected after the evaluation of their applications, in the assessment process carried out by the selection committee, considering the following criteria:
Scientific performance. All applicants must demonstrate their scientific performance in last 5 years, by indicating number of published papers/books/book chapters/patents and submitting a Google Scholar or SCOPUS profile or ORCID number and primary scientific field, aligned with a startup idea indicated in the “Entrepreneurial experience” criteria (maximum awarded points: 20)
Community building/engagement experience. Applicants are invited to demonstrate their experience in contributing to the startup culture in their own ecosystem through participation in different relevant initiatives and events, such as mentoring, networking, startup competitions, promotion of startup culture, association to the innovation support networks and organizations, and other. (maximum awarded points: 10)
Entrepreneurial experience. Applicants – established entrepreneurs must demonstrate progress in entrepreneurial careers, by indicating the date of company incorporation, website address, total funding received with indicated sources, size of the team, number of researchers in the team and short description of the innovative product or service, built on the result of the scientific research. Applicants - aspiring entrepreneurs must only describe the startup idea built on the scientific result. (maximum number of awarded points: 50)
Societal, technological and economic impact. Applicants must shortly and concisely elaborate on the potential societal/technological/economic impact of their startup idea, including but not restricted to scale (description of target groups and size of the market) and significance (how exactly will target groups benefit from the product/idea). (maximum awarded points: 20)
The selection process will make the best effort, while considering European best practices to ensure the balance of winning applications in the aspects of gender and experience (established/aspiring entrepreneurs) of the applicants.
Find out more about the EURAXESS Startup Tour destinations
Estonia is known to have a lively start-up ecosystem, ranking as a world leader in human capital, digital capability, and ease of doing business. Ultra-high IT usage across the economy creates significant efficiencies, real-time data and flexible, scalable business models.
In recent years, it has focused on becoming also a deep-tech hub, with accelerating the development of research- and science-based entrepreneurship. This part of the ecosystem is still relatively young, but is growing quickly, with a 14% increase of turnover from 2022 to 2023, equaling to €227.2 mn.
The process is also supported by the Estonian government with a dedicated action plan, with goals to facilitate further access to funding, especially for early-stage businesses, to train the talents on respective capabilities in academia, and help the academia with their spinout processes and to grow startups' ability to turn scientific advancements into commercial products.
The state has its friendly policies for both EU and non-EU founders through Startup Visa and Scaleup Visa programs to grow their business in Estonia and also make it easy to hire talents worldwide. Widespread support is provided by public sector (e.g. Startup Estonia and Smartcap), private sector (Estonian Founder Society), investor community (EstVCA and EstBAN) and academia (e.g. Unitartu Ventures, Tartu Science Park and Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol).
Find out more about the EURAXESS Startup Tour destinations
Join us for a discovery of a welcoming and thriving startup and innovation ecosystem at the heart of Europe. Luxembourg's government has continuously invested in the dense support infrastructure for entrepreneurial projects over the last years. It spans from free-of-charge advice on setting up a company in Luxembourg provided by the House of Entrepreneurship over the opportunity to join one of many specialised incubators (Space, FinTech, Mobility, Health...) to securing funding with the help of our innovation agency Luxinnovation.
During the immersion tour, get to know various actors of the ecosystem, the value they could bring to developing your startup project further and get feedback on the potential the Luxembourg market holds for it. Unlock the power of networking by engaging with local sciencepreneurs and your fellows from other countries during a fair or pitch competition and get a first impression of the high quality of life as well as the beautiful sights of Luxembourg while moving around. Together with your local host, the University of Luxembourg Incubator, we are looking forward to your applications!
Find out more about the EURAXESS Startup Tour destinations
With a GDP of over € 2 trillion and a population of some 60 mln, Italy is the world’s top ten largest economies. Italy is celebrated throughout the world for its art, culture, creativity, food and manufacturing quality.
Alongside Italy has a long history of academic excellence supporting entrepreneurship and innovation both in higher education and in the private sector providing a thriving interface with industry. These extensive networks of high-quality universities as well as science and technology parks (APSTI) responds to a strong and long-time commitment by the government to develop a robust ecosystem for innovation. As a result, the number of startups and innovative SMEs is increasing and the investment in innovation is rapidly growing in Italy. Tailored programs to support startups have been launched over ten years ago attract top-quality and competitive talents, entrepreneurs, etc. to build up and scale-up their own business in Italy (Italy startup visa/Italy startup hub/Smart&Start Italia/Fondo Nazionale Innovazione).
Area Science Park is the largest science and technology park in Italy build up in late 1978 and a public research body under the supervision of the Italian Ministry of University and Research. Over 45 years, Area has been contributing to the knowledge society by creating bridges between research and business, innovation and industry. Within its two campuses Area hosts around 60 tenants comprising companies, R&D laboratories, university startups and spin-offs and research centres active in various scientific and technological fields including Life Sciences, Physics, Materials and Nanotechnologies, IT and Telecommunications, Energy and Environment. Area Science Park offers a unique ecosystem where entrepreneurs and researchers gain access to cutting-edge R&D facilities and advanced laboratories. AREA's international network benefits entrepreneurs, including collaborations with renowned institutions like Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste and the International Centre for Genetic Engineering, both located in the Park. By combining state-of-the-art infrastructure, expert guidance, and strategic funding opportunities, AREA Science Park empowers entrepreneurs and startups to move from innovative concepts to market opportunities. Furthermore, Area Science Park belongs to Scientific and Innovation system of Friuli Venezia Giulia region comprising 26 members including universities, national research centres and international research organisations (SiS FVG).
-
Tour is in progress!
EURAXESS Startup Tour is a program of support for researchers who want to develop their careers by following the scientific entrepreneurship path, provided by the EURAXESS network since 2022. In 2022, we organized three site visits to bustling ecosystems of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Tallinn and Luxembourg, and provided travel grants to 31 participants. Click on tabs above to learn about the past EURAXESS startup tour visits.
Bookmark this page and check our announcements for the upcoming tours. Click on a button below to express your interest in participation and get informed first.
31sci-entrepreneurs supported
-
EURAXESS Startup Tour Israel 2022
10 grantees of the EURAXESS Startup Tour program visited Tel Aviv and Haifa in June 2022. The host provided unique experience of touring through one of the most exciting ecosystem in the world. A visit to Technion Institute of Technology uncovered the huge experience of Technion Joint centre for innovation and entrepreneurship, its EIT Food Accelerator, T-Start Program with impressive portfolio of 10 unicorns and BizTEC - Israel’s top technological entrepreneurship national program led by the Bronica Entrepreneurship Center at the Technion.
-
EURAXESS Startup Tour Estonia 2022
The visit gathered more than 60 participants with 10 EURAXESS Startup Tour grantees from Israel,
Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia & Herzegovina. The crew learnt how the support to aspiring scientific entrepreneurs works at TalTech and startup incubator of Tehnopol, about solutions on the problems that universities (and the state) face in supporting entrepreneurship in academia, about Deep Tech Project of Startup Estonia, a success story of a GScan startup and e-Estonia.
-
EURAXESS Startup Tour Luxembourg 2022
With 11 EURAXESS Startup Tour participants, the University of Luxembourg has provided an unique experience of learning about the Technoport incubator managing the Start-up Support Program of the European Space Resources Innovation Centre, the Startup Luxembourg and Luxinnovation programs and House of Entrepreneurship, a one-stop-shop for founders and Business Mentoring program of the Chamber of Commerce Luxembourg.
Meet the EURAXESS Startup Tour Alumni
Learn more about the EURAXESS Startup Hub
The EURAXESS Startup Hub is a networked program of support to sci entrepreneurs, setup by the research and funding organizations from 12 countries, namely Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Estonia, Israel, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Switzerland, Moldova, Bulgaria, Greece, Northern Macedonia and Serbia, with participation of tens of external stakeholders, the prominent actors in national startup ecosystems of the above countries.
Click below to learn about our other support activities, such as EURAXESS Startup Entrepreneur Leadership Academy, explore our digital toolkit, contact us to join the program.