INESC TEC's project has EUR 3 million to fund technological solutions
DIVA is the European project, which has the collaboration of INESC TEC’s Centre for Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CITE), that is giving Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) the opportunity to present technological solutions in the Agrofood, Forestry and Environment areas. In total, EUR 3 million are available - divided in two phases of competition - in order to support companies from Portugal, Spain, France, Greece, Italy and Ireland that submit innovative projects.
The applications of the first phase, which correspond to a support of about EUR 1.35 million, can be made until 1 February of 2019 on the project’s website: https://www.projectdiva.eu/funding-calls/. SME, including young companies and startups, that are legally constituted and established in one of the six countries mentioned before, may apply.
This competition that has now been launched, comes within the framework of the project DIVA that aims to support the development of new digital value chains with applications in the agrofood, forest and environment sectors.
“The focus is on supporting the development of new technologies, big data, cloud computing, robotics, artificial intelligence, cyber-physical systems, internet of things and digital/electronic and photonic components, digital platforms because they bring new innovation perspectives to the agrofood, forest and environment industries”, mentioned Sara Neves, researcher of CITE.
Two calls with a budget of approximately €3 million will be launched in order to fund the development of new products and services through several typologies of innovation vouchers reaching up to EUR 60 000:
- Coaching and Mentoring, vouchers up to EUR 10 000 in order to fund consultancy services and specialised technical support for the speed-up of the innovation process;
- Maturation, vouchers up to EUR 10 000 in order to fund the technological maturation of the SME through the specialised technical support;
- Demonstration, vouchers from EUR 25 000 and 60 000 in order to fund the demonstration of innovative solutions in real environment or in “near- real” conditions”;
- Internationalisation, vouchers up to EUR 30 000 in order to fund consultancy services and specialised technical support in the internationalisation process, as well as in the participation in exhibitions and international events.
The projects can be individual or in consortium, and in any case they must be led by a company.
In Portugal, the project is led by INESC TEC along with INOVISA.
DIVA is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement nº 777890.
More information on this project may be found here: https://www.projectdiva.eu
The researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with INESC TEC.