Each support application will be assessed on eligibility.  

Eligibility is based on formal criteria: 

• The applicant is a company, a non-profit organisation or a public organisation with operational and economic activities in the Flemish Region.  
• The statements of the business and the research partners have been signed correctly. 
• The requested information has been submitted (project budget, project description). 
• The application rules have been honoured: 
  • The applicant has the financial means to bear the costs that VLAIO will not cover. This must be substantiated by a calculation of the net working capital in the project description. 
  • The applicant(s) is (are) no ‘undertaking in difficulty’ at the moment of the submission. 
  • The application is limited to 10 pages (+2 pages per extra business partner). 
  • The duration of the study is between 3 and 12 months. 
  • The application has been submitted in either Dutch or English. 
• Each applicant has received no more than 8 million euro support during the current calendar year (or 12 million euro, in case a project is in cooperation with SMEs or in case of a European cooperation project). 
• Companies/ organisations can only apply for a feasibility study subsidy once a year. 
• The applicants can request a maximum of €50,000 support per partner and a maximum of €500,000 support in total. 

Eligibility: Climate plan

For projects submitted from 1 October 2022, an outline of the climate plan must be attached to the subsidy application if the (co-) applicant:

• is a large enterprise according to the European SME definition
  OR
• is an energy-intensive enterprise, i.e. has a final energy consumption of more than 0.1 PJ (petajoule) at the site level. This will consider the location in Flanders where most of the valorisation of the requested subsidy will take place. Final energy consumption is the final net amount of energy delivered to the site without taking into account conversion and transport losses (power plants, refineries, etc.) as defined in Annex 1 of the Energy Policy Agreements for the period 2023-2026. For your information: 0.1 PJ final energy consumption corresponds to 27.8 GWh of electricity, gas, fuel oil, diesel, heat, etc.             

The outline of the climate plan is an eligibility requirement.