With the new KBBE call, to be launched on 20 July 2010, the European Commission has gone one step further in involving industry, particularly SMEs, in FP7 projects. A 15% portion of the call budget has been earmarked for SMEs. Individual topics in the work programme can require SME involvement up till 50% of the total project proposal budget. With this measure SME participation becomes an evaluation criterion.

As a result of this new policy, it has become vitally important to have a good SME representation in the pool of evaluators. On Cordis FP7 home page there is a permanent call for evaluators. This time the need for SME experts is larger than ever, so SME and other industry experts are invited to register in the evaluators database.

Becoming an evaluator is a unique opportunity to get to know the evaluation process from within and get a significantly better understanding of the characteristics of a successful FP7 proposal.