I'm German and don't think there are fancy dinners needed, before you get the funding money. It's much more bureaucracy. It can be so much overhead in administr

I'm German and don't think there are fancy dinners needed, before you get the funding money. It's much more bureaucracy. It can be so much overhead in administrative work that companies which try to find a stable business model may not want to invest into getting research funds and other companies may have specialized in applying and getting research funding. From what I hear it's not unusual to use the money for paying people who work on other topics, produce a little output and write in the report "we did some research, but more research is needed..."