Within the scope of the project the recipients of the Federal Direct R&D Project Funding (DPF) are classified with regard to their belonging to the group of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and the DPF is analyzed according to various SME definitions. In this way the funding administrators should be provided with a greater transparency of the group of the funding recipients. The results of the survey will enter the political information and decision-making process. The project builds on previous analyses conducted by ZEW on behalf of the BMBF for SMEs within the scope of the DPF. The subsidies data of the BMBF are matched with the enterprise data of ZEW. Within this context, new methods are developed and introduced for the implementation of the EU guidelines for the definition of SMEs. Besides the sales figures and the number of employees, particularly the participating interest should be given increased attention.