Masterclass: Winning Grants – Tips & Tricks

Masterclass: Winning Grants

How to get funded – essential tips for startups

Date: 14 October 2025

Time: 14:00 to 16:00

Location: SBIC Noordwijk

Join this SBIC masterclass with funding expert Joeri Achterberg from Scherpe Tanden to learn how to design, write and win successful grant applications. Get practical insights to boost your funding success.

Grants can be a powerful lever for startups and scale-ups – but only if you know how to navigate the complex landscape of schemes, calls and requirements. This interactive workshop will guide you through the practical steps of identifying the right funding opportunities, aligning your ambitions with the expectations of funding agencies, and creating winning project proposals.

Masterclass focus

The full spectrum of public funding options will be explored – from vouchers and tax deductions (such as WBSO, EIA/MIA, and Innovation Box) to direct cash-in grants and soft loans. You will learn how to strategically match your innovation with societal challenges, policies, and funding programmes at national and EU level.

The masterclass focuses on actionable strategies, including how to structure your project design into work packages, milestones and deliverables, how to budget effectively, and how to show excellence through market knowledge, strong teams and clear evidence. Writing tips based on the “10 rules of grant applications” will help you turn your proposal into a compelling story that convinces evaluators.

Through hands-on exercises and peer discussion, you will apply these insights directly to your own challenges – making this session both practical and inspiring.

Key topics:

• Overview of public funding: vouchers, tax deductions, cash-in grants and soft loans
• How to find and assess relevant calls and programmes (RVO, EU, ESA, etc.)
• Project design: work packages, roles, deliverables and budgets
• Financial engineering: connecting grants with WBSO and other instruments
• How to “show excellence”: IP, competition, team, letters of support
• Writing tips: SMART goals, storytelling and the Ethos–Pathos–Logos method
• Practical exercises to sketch and test your funding project ideas

This masterclass offers you practical tools, insider knowledge and inspiration to maximise your funding chances – and it will help you transform your innovation ambitions into successful grant projects.

About the presenter:

Joeri Achterberg is at the forefront of Scherpe Tanden, a boutique consultancy distinguished for winning European grants and non-dilutive funding strategies. Joeri is a funding expert and business booster with over a decade of experience helping innovative companies leverage fiscal incentives, grants and soft loans. With a 65 per cent success rate on long-term funding projects, he brings hands-on knowledge, a sharp eye for opportunities, and a proven track record in guiding startups and scale-ups towards growth.

Scherpe Tanden is a community partner of SBIC Noordwijk.

This event is free for SBIC community members; students get a 50% discount!

(Join as a member today; join two events this year and you've made your money back!)

(Students click here to request the discount code; it will be sent out before 13 Oct.)