[AlunAlun]

> companies have sprung up to work as a middleman doing all the boring bits for a cut of the money

This is creating a problem just as much solving one. The billions in grants that are given away every year by the EU are basically controlled by a cabal of private consultancy firms who will cherry pick companies to write grants with; and create tailor made proposals designed to fit the call perfectly. On the one hand this is good as it creates a ‘pre-filter’ to stop you from wasting your time writing a proposal; but on the other hand it puts the EU’s R&D budget into the hands of a small group of private companies.

Either way you look at it, it means that, unless you are ‘in’ with one of these consultants, getting the funding is extremely difficult (I write from experience from both sides of the coin!)

[thom]

I don't know that this is generally the case. I've never been involved directly in bigger (6+ figure) grants, but I know plenty of academic spinoffs who have had no problems writing their own grant proposals (admittedly this is a specific skill you pick up in academia so maybe not relevant to the general public).

[rjsw]

We have had a couple of Innovate UK grants without using any external consultants to write the proposals.