Companies in Germany can access public funding at four levels: EU programmes (e.g. Horizon Europe for research or the Connecting Europe Facility for infrastructure), federal programmes (e.g. the research allowance or the Central Innovation Programme for SMEs – ZIM), state programmes, as well as subsidised loans and guarantees from institutions such as KfW. In total, there are several thousand funding programmes in Germany, which vary greatly depending on the type of project (research, investment, infrastructure, sustainability) and the recipient (SMEs, large enterprises, local authorities). The Funding Team analyses which of these instruments are the most cost-effective for each project and how they can be combined, as several funding instruments can be used complementarily for most projects.