DACH Standards and Regulations

Funding Landscape

Projects. Financing. Opportunities.

Projects today have access to a wide range of financing options. These range from European funding programmes and national funding schemes to foundations, development banks, and international financing and investment instruments.

The challenge lies less in finding information about individual programmes. What matters is understanding which type of financing is appropriate for a particular project, its stage of development, and its specific circumstances.

The Funding Ecosystem therefore does not consider individual funding programmes in isolation. Instead, it looks at the financing landscape as a whole. Public funding, institutional financing, and private investment can play different roles and support successive phases of a project.

The aim is to turn a wide range of financing options into a clear and viable pathway for each specific project.

Project Landscape

Needs. Projects. Expertise.

On the other side of the funding landscape is a diverse project landscape. Municipalities, NGOs, universities, companies, and other organisations develop projects, bring different areas of expertise, and seek financing or cooperation partners for their initiatives.

These projects are at very different stages of development. Some begin with a clearly identified need, while others already have a well-developed project structure or are specifically seeking financing and additional expertise.

This creates more than a landscape of individual projects. It also generates knowledge about existing needs, available expertise, the obstacles projects encounter, and the types of financing they require.

Every additional project expands the knowledge and connections within the Funding Ecosystem.

Two Landscapes – One Connection

The funding landscape and the project landscape already exist. The real challenge is to connect their information and stakeholders in a meaningful way.

This is precisely where the Funding Ecosystem comes in. It brings together project knowledge, financing opportunities, practical experience, and relevant stakeholders so that projects can be developed more effectively, financing options can be assessed more accurately, and cooperation can be initiated more easily.

This creates a continuous cycle: knowledge gained from financing practice feeds into project development, while project experience and identified needs make the project landscape more transparent for funding and financing partners.

The Funding Ecosystem connects what is still often considered separately: projects, knowledge, financing, and partners.

I would use this version on the website. In particular, I would remove the long lists of programmes such as Horizon Europe, Erasmus+, CERV, and LIFE from this section. They add information to the page, but they do not make the Ecosystem easier to understand. The individual programmes would be better placed under Funding Intelligence or, at a later stage, under Insights/Funding Landscape.