Innovation vouchers for small companies and craft businesses; applying for funding

Purpose

The "Innovation Vouchers" funding program is intended to introduce small companies/trade businesses to cooperation with research institutions and other companies/innovation partners. The aim is to strengthen their innovative power for the challenges of the future.

Object

Funding is available for the planning, development and implementation of new products, production processes or services or for the significant improvement of existing products, production processes and services. The development of software is generally not eligible for funding.

Recipients of funding

Eligible applicants are small companies/trade businesses in the commercial sector or the liberal professions that employ fewer than 50 people, whose annual turnover or annual balance sheet does not exceed EUR 10 million and that have a permanent establishment or branch in Bavaria, as well as start-ups based in Bavaria.

Eligible costs

Only services provided by external research and development institutions are eligible for funding.

Type and scope

The funding is provided as partial financing in the form of grants as part of project funding.

The aid intensity is 40 percent of the eligible costs, increasing by 10 percentage points up to a maximum of 60 percent if the company is based in a "region with a particular need for action", if a university or comparable non-university research institution is commissioned and in the case of micro-enterprises with fewer than 10 employees.

• Cost estimate
• Project description

• Funding is not available for projects that have already begun before the Bavarian project management organization receives a verifiable application.
• Applicants must provide evidence that they are using an appropriate amount of their own or external funds to finance the project, which are not financed by other public aid or subsidized.
• Cumulation with European Union funds or other state aid is generally not possible.
• Companies in difficulty will not be supported. This applies in particular to applicants for whom insolvency proceedings have been applied for or opened.

• Applications for grants must be submitted to the Bavarian Project Management Agency.
• Applications must be submitted in a specific form and must be submitted electronically. The access data for this can be obtained from the project management organization.
• The project management organization will review the applications in the name of and on behalf of the Free State of Bavaria, if necessary with the involvement of experts, issue the grant notification, process the funding, process the proof of use and pay out the funding.