As mentioned by Petr Chladek in his post one of the regional innovation strategy projects in South Moravia is the Innovation vouchers (in Czech only) scheme supporting the research cooperation between SMEs and Brno universities. It has been started in August and the applications can be submitted until September, 25. Any Czech SME can get one of 36 vouchers valued up to 150k CZK (€ 6,000) for buying research services from Brno based universities.
Product, process or service development, testing and measurements, feasibility study, access to research facilities, prototyping, product design, innovative product business plan development, market analysis or marketing strategy, innovation or technology audit are the examples of proposals that can be supported by the vouchers if you find a university partner to realize them for you.
One SME can apply with only one proposal that has to include the university offer to provide requested service. First the voucher holder has to pay the university for the service and then receive the subsidy. If there are more proposals than vouchers the winners will be selected by lot. Based on inspiration from other countries this technology transfer project is funded by the City of Brno.
Is there any similar scheme (to be) introduced in your country? Do you have any experience with public support for research cooperation between universities and SMEs?
In Hungary we have national innovation voucher system financed by the National Office for Research and Technology.
Between 2008 and 2011 it finances approx. 600 projects. The maximum funding is – depending on the activities – 30M HUF (€ 110,000). The voucher is not restricted to SME-University relations.
No local voucher, like in Brno.
Estonia launched the innovation voucher pilot-programme in spring 2009. SMEs are granted a 50 000EEK (3195 EUR)
innovation voucher to order the innovation support services from research organizations, but you can pool 5 companies for up to 5 times that amount. The goal is to promote enterprise-university partnerships and to foster the knowledge about R&D services provided by the research organizations. Not sure how the results in the first few months have been.
Thank you both for your feedback. It would be useful to receive at least the basic info from other countries. I’m also interested in the fact whether the cost of each proposal can be 100% covered by the subsidy or whether companies have to spend also their own money.