01 Proposal · page limit and layout Proposals are limited to a maximum of 50 pages for Part B (technical description of the project). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages beyond this limit. The application must be readable, accessible and printable, with careful attention to the layout of documents uploaded. Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System; paper submissions are not accepted.
02 Eligible · countries for participation Applicants must be established in one of the eligible Creative Europe Participating Countries, which include: EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories - OCTs); non-EU countries listed as EEA countries and countries associated to the Creative Europe Programme. Applicants must be established in one of the countries participating fully in the MEDIA strand and owned directly or indirectly, wholly or by majority participation, by nationals from such countries. When an entity is publicly listed, if the nationality of the physical persons owning it cannot be established, the location of the stock exchange in a country participating fully in the MEDIA strand will determine its eligibility. International organisations are eligible and the rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.
03 Applicant · and consortium eligibility Applicants must be legal entities (public or private bodies). Applicants must be European video game production companies, XR studios or audiovisual production companies whose main objective and activity is video game production/development, entertainment software development or audiovisual production. Publishing companies are not eligible applicants. The coordinator must demonstrate recent experience in producing internationally distributed works - specifically, the coordinator must have produced or developed a video game or immersive experience that has been commercially distributed between 01/01/2024 and the deadline for submission. Work-for-hire projects and Early Access works are not eligible. Natural persons are not eligible except self-employed persons (sole traders). EU bodies (except the European Commission Joint Research Centre) cannot be part of the consortium. Applicants cannot submit more than one proposal under this call as coordinator, though they can be partners in other applications. Applicants can only submit one application as coordinator for either European co-development, European slate development, European mini-slate development, or Video games and immersive content development calls.
04 Financial · and operational capacity requirements Applicants must demonstrate financial and operational capacity to carry out the proposed project. Operational capacity is assessed through: general profiles (qualifications and experiences) of staff responsible for managing and implementing the project; and description of consortium participants. If the evaluation of the award criterion is positive, applicants are considered to have sufficient operational capacity. Public bodies, Member State organisations, international organisations, and entities active in cultural and creative sectors that have received over 50% of their annual revenue from public sources over the last two years are exempted from the operational capacity check. Additional supporting documents may be requested if needed to confirm operational capacity. Applicants subject to EU exclusion decisions or in exclusion situations cannot participate, including: bankruptcy, winding up, affairs administered by courts, arrangement with creditors, suspended business activities; breach of social security or tax obligations; grave professional misconduct; fraud, corruption, links to criminal organisations, money laundering, terrorism-related crimes, child labour or human trafficking; significant deficiencies in complying with main obligations under EU contracts or agreements; irregularities under EU Regulation 2988/95; creation under different jurisdiction to circumvent fiscal or social obligations; or intentional resistance to investigations or audits.
05 Submission · process and evaluation All proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System; paper submissions are not accepted. Submission is a 2-step process: (1) create a user account and register organisation in the Participant Register to obtain a 9-digit participant identification code (PIC); (2) submit the proposal via the Electronic Submission System. Proposals must be submitted in 4 parts: Part A (administrative information, filled online); Part B (technical description, downloaded template completed and re-uploaded as PDF); Part C (additional project data, filled online); and mandatory annexes and supporting documents. All beneficiaries, affiliated entities and associated partners must be registered in the Participant Register before submission. Proposals will first be checked for formal requirements (admissibility and eligibility). Admissible and eligible proposals will be evaluated by an evaluation committee (assisted by independent experts) against operational capacity and award criteria, then ranked by scores. For proposals with equal scores, priority is determined by scores for Relevance, then Dissemination, then Quality of content and activities.
06 Award · criteria and scoring methodology Proposals are evaluated against four award criteria with a total of 100 points: (1) Relevance (35 points) - originality and creativity of concept (10 points), level of innovation including cutting-edge techniques and content (15 points), adequacy of sustainability and environmental strategies (5 points), adequacy of gender balance, inclusion, diversity and representativeness strategies (5 points); (2) Quality of content and activities (25 points) - quality of storytelling, visual approach, graphic and sound design, accessibility measures, gameplay quality and integration, immersive experience quality and interactivity; (3) Project management (20 points) - adequacy of development strategy including plan, schedule, budget and partnerships (10 points), adequacy of financing strategy and feasibility including co-financing ability, distributor/publisher attraction potential, and sales potential (10 points); (4) Dissemination (20 points) - potential for European/international exploitation and distribution considering transnational appeal, creative team diversity, story/characters, localization strategy, and distribution strategy (10 points), marketing strategy including unique selling points, target audiences, innovative marketing tools and promotional activities (10 points). The overall pass threshold is 70 points. Individual thresholds per criterion are not applicable. Proposals scoring 70 points or above will be considered for funding within available budget limits.
07 Application · submission deadline The deadline for submitting applications is 2 February 2027 at 17:00:00 CET (Brussels time). Proposals must be submitted before this deadline. After the deadline, the system is closed and proposals can no longer be submitted. Call deadlines cannot be extended. Applicants are advised to complete applications sufficiently in advance of the deadline to avoid last-minute technical problems, as problems due to late submissions will be entirely at the applicant's risk.
08 Evaluation · and grant agreement timeline The indicative timeline for the call is as follows: Call opening on 30 September 2026; Deadline for submission on 2 February 2027 at 17:00:00 CET; Evaluation period from February to June 2027; Information on evaluation results in July 2027; Grant Agreement signature in October 2027. Successful proposals will be invited for grant preparation, which involves dialogue to fine-tune technical or financial aspects and may require additional information. Grant preparation may also include adjustments to address evaluation committee recommendations. Full compliance will be a pre-condition for signing the grant. Invitation to grant preparation does not constitute a formal commitment for funding, as legal checks (legal entity validation, financial capacity, exclusion check) must still be completed.
09 Legal · and financial grant agreement setup The grant will be a lump sum grant with a maximum amount of EUR 200,000 per project, based on a funding rate of 60% of estimated eligible costs. The Grant Agreement will be composed of: Preamble, Terms and Conditions (including Data Sheet), Annex 1 (Description of the action), Annex 2 (Estimated budget), Annex 2a (Additional information on unit costs and contributions if applicable), Annex 3 (Accession forms if applicable), Annex 3a (Declaration on joint and several liability of affiliated entities if applicable), Annex 4 (Model for financial statements), and Annex 5 (Specific rules if applicable). If a prefinancing guarantee is required, it will be fixed in the Grant Agreement Data Sheet and normally be equal to or lower than the prefinancing amount. The guarantee must be in euro, issued by an approved bank/financial institution established in an EU Member State (or exceptionally from non-EU countries if offering equivalent security). Amounts blocked in bank accounts will not be accepted as guarantees. Prefinancing guarantees are normally requested from the coordinator for the consortium and must be provided during grant preparation. The liability regime for recoveries will be fixed in the Grant Agreement and is one of: limited joint and several liability with individual ceilings (each beneficiary up to their maximum grant amount), unconditional joint and several liability (each beneficiary up to the maximum grant amount for the action), or individual financial responsibility (each beneficiary only for their own debts). The granting authority may require joint and several liability of affiliated entities with their beneficiary. Depending on the type of action, size of grant amount and type of beneficiaries, different certificates may be required (types, schedules and thresholds fixed in the Grant Agreement Data Sheet and Article 24).
10 Independence · and ownership control declaration Applicants must provide a mandatory declaration on independence and European ownership. This declaration requires information on the full ownership structure, including: name of each shareholder/owner; nationality of shareholder (for physical persons) or country of registration (for legal persons/companies); status of shareholder; main activity if legal person (leave empty for natural persons); number of shares; shareholding percentage. For any listed shareholders that are legal persons/companies, applicants must describe the FULL chain of shareholders until the level of nationals (physical persons), including percentage of shares and nationalities of such nationals. If the company is publicly listed, the location of the stock exchange must be provided. Applicants must ensure that the company is owned directly or indirectly, wholly or by majority participation, by nationals from countries participating fully in the MEDIA strand. Insufficient information on ownership may result in the applicant being considered ineligible. The declaration must be completed using the mandatory template available in the Submission System.
11 Language · requirements for submission Proposals can be submitted in any official EU language. However, the project abstract/summary should always be in English. For reasons of efficiency, applicants are encouraged to submit in English. The declaration on language of submitted materials is mandatory and must be completed using the template available in the Submission System. This declaration requires applicants to provide details on the language(s) used in the creative dossier, rights contracts, and supporting documents of co-production, distribution and financing. Applicants must specify the type of document (e.g., treatment, director's note, script, teaser, contract, LOI, etc.) and identify the language(s) in which it is written using ISO codes for languages. For DEVSLATE or DEVMINISLATE applications, information on all projects in the slate must be included in the same declaration, combining the information on languages.
12 Detailed · budget table requirements The detailed budget table is a mandatory annex for lump sum grants and must be completed using the template available in the Submission System. The budget table must include all estimated eligible costs organized by budget categories: A. Personnel costs (A.1 Employees, A.2 Natural persons, A.3 Seconded persons, A.4 SME owners and natural person beneficiaries, A.5 Volunteers); B. Subcontracting costs; C. Purchase costs (C.1 Travel and subsistence including Travel, Accommodation, Subsistence; C.2 Equipment; C.3 Other goods, works and services); D. Other cost categories (D.1 Financial support to third parties); E. Indirect costs (flat-rate at 7% of eligible direct costs). The budget table must show total eligible costs, EU contribution, funding rate, and maximum grant amount for each beneficiary and affiliated entity. Costs included in the detailed budget table must comply with basic eligibility conditions for EU actual cost grants, particularly regarding purchases and subcontracting which must comply with best value for money (or lowest price if appropriate) and be free of conflict of interests. If the budget table contains ineligible costs, the grant may be reduced during implementation or after project end. The detailed budget table serves as the basis for fixing lump sums for grants.
13 Standard · application form specifications The application form consists of four parts: Part A (administrative information, filled online), Part B (technical description, downloaded template completed and re-uploaded as PDF), Part C (additional project data, filled online), and mandatory annexes. Part A contains administrative information about participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries, affiliated entities) and summarised budget. Part B contains the technical description of the project and is limited to maximum 50 pages. Part C contains additional project data and the project's contribution to EU programme key performance indicators. Mandatory annexes and supporting documents include: detailed budget table, PDF with information about film(s)/work(s) from Creative Europe MEDIA Database, creative dossier (description of gameplay, GUI, HUD, level and character design, pictures, graphic bible, script, storyboard, creative director's note, etc.), rights contract/proof of ownership of rights (and adaptation rights if applicable), supporting documents of co-production, distribution and financing, declaration on independence and European ownership, and declaration on language of submitted materials. All forms must be filled using templates provided in the Submission System (not documents available on the Topic page). At proposal submission, applicants must confirm they have mandate to act for all applicants and that information is correct and complete. Each beneficiary and affiliated entity must sign a declaration of honour before grant signature. Proposals without full support will be rejected.
14 Model · Grant Agreement terms and conditions The Model Grant Agreement for CREA (CREA MGA - Multi & Mono, Version 1.0, 01 November 2024) governs the grant and sets out comprehensive terms and conditions. Key provisions include: Chapter 1 (General) covering subject and definitions; Chapter 2 (Action) covering action description and duration/starting date; Chapter 3 (Grant) covering form of grant (lump sum), maximum grant amount, funding rate (60%), estimated budget and budget categories, and budget flexibility; Chapter 4 (Grant Implementation) covering beneficiaries, affiliated entities, other participants, proper implementation, conflict of interests, confidentiality and security, ethics, information and record-keeping, reporting, payments and recoveries, guarantees, and certificates; Chapter 5 (Non-compliance and Breach of Contract) covering rejection of costs, grant reduction, suspension and termination, damages and administrative sanctions, and force majeure; Chapter 6 (Final Provisions) covering communication, interpretation, calculation of periods, amendments, accession and addition of beneficiaries, transfer of agreement, assignments of claims, applicable law and dispute settlement, and entry into force. The Agreement is governed by EU law supplemented if necessary by Belgian law. Disputes are brought before the EU General Court or Court of Justice under TFEU Article 272 (or Article 263 for administrative sanctions). The Agreement enters into force on the day of signature by the granting authority or coordinator, whichever is later.