Financial and advisory support for investments in interregional innovation projects in shared or complementary smart specialisation areas, including in less developed regions (Strand 1)
Programme Category
Programme Name
Programme Description
The programme provides financial and advisory support in form of grants to mature joint innovation projects in shared smart specialisation areas structured in value-chain investment portfolios.
Identifier Code
Call
Summary
The objective of the I3 Instrument is to support interregional innovation investments by offering consortia of innovation actors from the quadruple helix ecosystems, the necessary financial and advisory support to bring their innovations to a mature level, ready for commercialisation and scale-up, while bridging and reducing the innovation divide in Europe with a strong cohesion policy focus of integrating all regions and in particular the less developed regions into European value chains. Strand 1 of the I3 instrument seeks to increase the competitiveness and the resilience of EU value chains on the basis of interregional cooperation and shared smart specialisation areas.
Detailed Call Description
Proposals under this call seek to facilitate:
- the development of already existing or the creation of new interregional and cross-border value chains and a better connection between regional innovation ecosystems;
- the collaboration between innovation actors, especially SMEs, from less developed regions and innovation actors, especially SMEs, from more developed regions, contributing to cohesion policy objectives.
I3 Instrument business investment cases start with a minimum TRL 6 and have the ambition to facilitate demonstration and to accelerate market uptake and commercialisation. The development of the business and investment cases is facilitated by the regional innovation ecosystems with companies in the lead.
Proposals must address one of the following thematic priorities:
- Digital transition
- Green transition
- Smart manufacturing
Each project application under this call must address only one thematic priority and each thematic priority encourages applications in one or more or a combination of investment areas (more details in the call document pages 8-10).
Projects selected under this call for proposals are implemented through an investment portfolio approach, which foresees the identification, within a specific thematic/technological area of cooperation, of a number of investment-ready sub-projects that address one or several bottlenecks identified in the application by the consortium coordinator.
Target investments can be both tangible and intangible investments in the form of one the following activities:
- Financial support for producing plans and arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services;
- Adaptation of existing prototypes and tailoring them to the companies’ needs for the demonstration in a real environment;
- Development of portfolios of projects for close-to-market investments that deploy new or improved technologies or processes;
- Activities directly aiming at producing plans, arrangements or designs for new, altered or improved products, processes or services;
- Activities connecting or making complementary use of testing and demonstration facilities to accelerate market uptake and scale-up of innovative solutions in shared smart specialisation areas;
- Innovation services for the development of the business investment interconnecting value chains;
- Test beds and complementary activities needed to improve regulations, standards and/or to remove barriers and bottlenecks to innovation;
- Activities bringing innovative ideas and new products to the market;
- Advisory support for investment.
Call Total Budget
Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan
The costs will be reimbursed at the funding rates fixed in the Grant Agreement (100% for the costs of providing financial support to third parties and 70% for all other cost categories).
Maximum grant amount: are expected to range between €2.000.000 and €10.000.000 per project.
Thematic Categories
- Environment and Climate Change
- Information Technology
- Research, Technological Development and Innovation
Eligibility for Participation
- Businesses
- Other Beneficiaries
- Private Bodies
- Researchers/Research Centers/Institutions
- Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
- State-owned Enterprises
Eligibility For Participation Notes
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies)
- be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)
- non-EU countries:
- listed EEA countries and countries associated to the I3 Instrument or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (list of participating countries).
Consortium composition
Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities), which complies with the following conditions:
- minimum 5 independent legal entities established in 5 different regions of at least 3 eligible countries.
- minimum 2 legal entities established in 2 different less developed regions.
- the consortium coordinator must be a:
- Public body or
- entity entrusted by national or regional governments to develop or implement innovation and investment actions for SMEs (i.e. a cluster organisations, development agencies, or innovation agencies etc).
Call Opening Date
Call Closing Date
EU Contact Point
Questions should be sent at the latest three working days before the submission deadline to the following email address: EISMEA-I3-INSTRUMENTCALLS@ec.europa.eu