German-Finnish Call for Proposals: Joint R&D Projects by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs)

Scope

• Business Finland, the Finnish funding agency for research and technology development and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) intend to support joint Finnish-German research and development projects (R&D projects) in order to develop innovative products, processes or technical services from all technology and application areas.
• Funding will be available for R&D projects in which new products, services or processes with a high market potential are developed and subsequently transformed into marketable products.
• In Germany, funding is provided through the Central Innovation Programme for SMEs (ZIM).
• Business Finland and AiF Projekt GmbH (ZIM project management agency on behalf of the BMWK) support the applicants in the phase of submission of project proposals, in the evaluation and in the implementation phase.
• Business Finland and AiF Projekt GmbH will evaluate the submitted proposals and communicate the results within around 4 to 5 months after the call deadline.

Funding Information

• Eligible project participants from Germany and Finland will finance their costs from the national funding schemes and complementarily from their own resources. Provision of funding from one national scheme neither will indicate that funding from the other national scheme will be provided, nor bind the other national scheme in its provision of funds to the eligible project participants.

Requirements

• Project results will have to contribute to the development of commercial products, processes and/or technical services, which are based on the international state of the art. The project proposals have to comply with the following guidelines:
  • The consortium must include at least one Finnish and one German commercial company.
  • Participation of research organizations (RTOs) and further companies is welcome as additional participants or subcontractors according to each country’s funding regulations. Please note: in Finland participation of RTOs is only possible as a subcontractor.
  • Companies and/or research organizations from other countries may also participate. However, these partners will neither be funded by Business Finland nor BMWK. Instead, they follow the financing rules including procedures and the funding regulations of these partners’ countries of origin.
  • The project should have an obvious advantage and added value resulting from the cooperation between the participants from the two countries (e.g. increased knowledge base, commercial lead, access to R&D infrastructure, new fields of application, etc.).
  • The project should demonstrate a balanced technological contribution by the participants from both countries, and must be equally significant to all participants.
  • In a project with two cooperating partners, no partner may contribute more than 70% of total person months in the project.
  • In a project with more than two cooperating partners, no partner may contribute more than 50% of the person months.
  • In case one or more research organizations are involved in the consortium, they may altogether not contribute more than 50% of total person months combined.
  • Any partner whose cooperative R&D project is consistent with the aforesaid criteria may apply to the present announcement in accordance with the national laws, rules, regulations and procedures in effect.

For more information, visit Business Finland.