The new 2026 spring round phase 2 Early Stage Trajectories of the Take-off program is open for proposals. Through Take-off, NWO supports innovative entrepreneurship from science, with financial resources from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Researchers can apply for funding to start a company and bring an innovative idea to the market.

For phase 2 Early Stage Trajectories, there are changes in the application and evaluation process.

View the Call for proposals

Changes Take-off phase 2 Early Stage Trajectories 2026 spring round

  • The pre-registration step is no longer part of the procedure; a full application is submitted immediately;
  • The refund period if an application is inadmissible was previously 2 working days. This will be increased to 10 working days;
  • A minimum qualification is introduced of at least an average score of 4.0 in total and at least a 5.4 average on each individual criterion;
  • Note the mandatory attachments, both in the application form (i.e. cashflow prognosis, feasibility study, knowledge transfer meeting, Take-off budget form) and those that must be submitted separately (i.e. SME test, Chamber of Commerce extract, General declaration AGVV). 

Information meetings Take-off 2026 phase 1 and phase 2 calls

On Wednesday, January 14, 2026, NWO is organizing two online information meetings about the Take-off 2026 calls. The information meeting about Take-off phase 1 Feasibility Studies 2026 will take place from 09:30 to 10:30. The information meeting about Take-off phase 2 Early Stage Trajectories spring round 2026 will take place from 11:00 to 12:00. Registration for these information meetings can be done via the links below.

Register information meeting Take-off phase 1

Register information meeting Take-off phase 2

The call Take-off phase 1 for applications is expected to open mid-January 2026. 

Take-off

The science-wide funding instrument Take-off stimulates entrepreneurship and business activity from Dutch knowledge institutions. Academic entrepreneurs, but also starters from HBO institutions and starters using knowledge from Applied Research Organizations (TO2), can bring their innovative research results to the market. Take-off is one of the knowledge utilization instruments that NWO implements together with ZonMw. The program consists of two phases aimed at different stages of innovation: feasibility studies and loans for early stage trajectories.