New Horizon 2020 Call Opens for Innovation in SMEs and Access to Risk Finance

The Industrial Leadership – Innovation in SMEs and Access to Risk Finance of the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme aims to develop the ecosystem of innovation support to SMEs in Europe. Actions are designed to provide opportunities for Member States and regions to enhance their innovation support services through collaboration, peer-learning and uptake of new approaches and to develop and disseminate skills and expertise among SMEs.

A new Call Topic has been launched to support the ambitions of the Innovation in SMEs and Access to Risk Finance strand of the Industrial Leadership pillar. This Topic is as follows:

Closing the Finance Gap for IPR-Driven Start-ups and SMEs

One of the major weaknesses of Europe with regard to innovative SMEs lies on the lack of focus on developing intellectual property (’IP’) portfolio strategies to protect their R&D investments and make them more attractive to investors, raise growth capital and remain competitive in Europe and globally.

The proposed action aims at encouraging innovative SMEs and start-ups to better exploit and promote their innovative assets, as well as building a strategic vision based on their first results that should be easily assessable by the funders.

To achieve this goal, proposals should aim to design and run a support platform, offering smart online assistance tools that may serve as a pilot test for future bound measures of InvestEU-Advisory Hub and beneficiaries of the European Innovation Council. The platform should team up experts from different backgrounds such as patent engineers, lawyers, industry specialists, finance experts, including National Promotion and Investment Banks, in an attempt to pool their offer.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between €0.5 and €1 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately.

The deadline for applications is 29 October 2019.

More information about this funding opportunity and the application process is available on the GRANTfinder funding information platform. GRANTfinder provides up-to-the minute content, insight and analysis on funding news and policy. To find out more about how GRANTfinder can keep you in the know, and subscription fees, contact us today.