For ICON programmes under spearhead clusters such as Catalisti, Flux50, VIL, Flanders' FOOD, De Blauwe Cluster and MEDVIA, applications are submitted via the relevant cluster organisation. For more information, see Catalisti, Flux50, VIL, Flanders' FOOD, The Blue Cluster, and Biovia.

For ICON programmes under strategic research centres, including imec.icon and Flanders Make ICON, applications are submitted via the strategic research centre. For more information, see imec.icon and Flanders Make ICON.

For thematic ICON programmes, such as those focusing on artificial intelligence or cybersecurity, applications are submitted via the Flemish AI Research Programme or the Cybersecurity Research Programme.

Pre-application

Through a pre-application, consortia can obtain early feedback from VLAIO on a project proposal during the project development phase.

After a pre-application, VLAIO thoroughly assesses the proposal and advises whether further development and submission of a full project proposal is appropriate. Where possible, key focus points are identified so they can be taken into account when preparing the complete project proposal. The assessment process takes six to eight weeks, although this period may overlap with other activities during project development.

For thematic ICON projects, applicants are required to submit a pre-application. While not mandatory for ICON projects under strategic research centres and spearhead clusters, pre-applications are strongly encouraged.

The template for pre-applications can be found at the bottom of this page.

Selectivity

Selectivity for Business Projects

The selectivity for research and development projects submitted as of January 1, 2026, were established by the FIO Decision Committee on December 11, 2025. The selectivity for the business component of an ICON-project is applied in the same way as for research and development projects.

ICON-specifieke selectiviteit

The evaluation of ICON-projects utilizes three specific criteria that assess the quality of the collaboration and ICON-related elements.

The selectivity for these ICON-specific criteria is detailed below. Based on the scoring system "CRITICAL = exclusion, FAIR = -1, GOOD = 0, EXCELLENT = +1," a project is eligible for funding provided that:

• No ICON-specific criterion receives a CRITICAL score.
• The total score on the ICON axis is ≥ –2.

This means that a maximum of two points of concern (–1) are permitted across the ICON-specific criteria.