ECSEL provides support to high-budget multi-stakeholder high-tech research, development and innovation projects performed by international consortia within the areas of micro- and nanoelectronics, embedded and cyber-physical systems. One half of the EUR 265.5 million funds granted under ECSEL calls comes from the Horizon 2020 program of the EU, while the other half comes from the national budgets of EU member countries that joined the program. These funds, supplemented with own funds of the applicants, totals to EUR 600 million (HUF 186 billion) to be spent on research, development and innovation in the areas of micro-/nanoelectronics, embedded/cyber-physical systems and smart integrated systems. Hungary will provide further funding of EUR 1 million to Hungarian winners, enabling them to use additional funds close to EUR 1 million in the form of direct EU grants. An ECSEL brokerage event for the calls of 2016 will be held in Strasbourg on January 27–28, 2016.

Under the 2015 calls, funding was awarded to 13 international projects two of which involve Hungarian consortium members. Participants of the “Delphi4LED” project, which focuses on LED lighting products, included consortium partners from the UK, Finland, Belgium and France, as well as the Department of Electron Devices of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and the MicRed unit (founded as a successor to MicRed Kft., a spin-off company of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics) from Mentor Graphics Magyarország Kft. Under the “3DAM” project, leading European research institutes and metrology companies in the semiconductor industry joined forces in a consortium to develop a metrology technique essential for the further development of microchips, with the participation of Semilab Zrt. from Hungary.