SME funding from the EU
28 Aug 2009 by fredherrera
I attended FP7 info session for SMEs (FP7-2010-1 Call Promotion) yesterday. Very good presentation from EI’s Sean Burke I thought. The EI FP7 team seems to do a good job.
Here are my notes:
- IRL tops 09 call
- 70% of SMEs were micro-enterprises (less than 10 employees I think)
- Direct SME funding relates to three areas: 1) Industry-academia, 2) Research for benefits of SME, 3) Regions of Knowledge
- 81 Irish SMEs got a total of 20mm in direct grants related to total worth of 350mm in projects ; pretty good ratio of 17.5% to develop & access European-wide IPR
- Irish proposers have an highly impressive success rate of 27% in 09; 104 Irish organisations across 89 projects.
- Two types of potential proposers: SME and/or SME associations that propose a project including RTD-performers (academia and/or companies) and other companies and/or end-user groups
- Project from SME proposer is between one and two years and involves between 5 and 10 partners
- Project from SME association is between two and three years and involves between 10-15 partners
- Project outputs are R&D, demos, and management
- Focus of project impact
- Eligible costs and direct and indirect costs
- It is possible for 4-employees company to lead a project
- External project manager can be hired
Why should SME consider this:
- Get into R&D that involves your partners, suppliers, and customers.
- Disseminate IPR based on a vertical European network
- Value: allocate company time and get a potential of 5 times its value in granted R&D money
- Have strong tested tech prototype for pre-sales
- Banks funding & VC money is nowhere to be seen these days
- Anchor project that raise profile for a SME
http://www.fp7ireland.com/ for more info, Fred
