The Ministry of Innovation and Digital Transformation has published the long-awaited procedure for public discussion. „Programmes for cooperation for innovation and the transfer of knowledge and technologies“.
It is aimed at companies that have the capacity to be a leading partner in a large-scale project and to bring together more enterprises and scientific organizations around a specific industrial or technological problem.
The call will be funded under the Research, Innovation and Digitization Program for Smart Transformation 2021–2027. The total budget is close to 88 million euros, and the grant for one project can reach up to 15, 3 million euros. The resource is expected to be directed towards a relatively small number of strategic partnership projects with the potential for significant industrial and regional impact.
A leading candidate could be micro, small, medium or a large enterprise, for which requirements are set regarding the scale of operations. Its annual net sales for 2023–2025 must be at least BGN 500,000 for a micro and small enterprise, BGN 1.6 million for an average enterprise, and BGN 7 million for a large enterprise. These thresholds do not apply to partner enterprises.
The project must necessarily involve at least three other small and medium-sized enterprises and at least one higher education institution, a research organization, a Center of Excellence or a Center of Competence. To this core can be added other enterprises, municipalities and non-profit organizations – chambers, sectoral associations, clusters, etc.
An important feature of the procedure is that applications are submitted with a pre-developed Industrial Program, and funding is directed towards its implementation. In it, the partners must demonstrate how they will combine business, technological, and scientific capabilities to develop, test, and implement specific innovative solutions.
Activities related to its implementation can be financed development, testing and implementation of technologies, equipment and software, research and technical teams, use of scientific infrastructure, technological transfer and capacity building, which can subsequently be used by other enterprises as well.
The procedure is in public discussion until September 18, 2026., It is expected to be announced in October.
The most important part of the entire package of documents, as well as practical guidelines for preparing the projects, are available to Fininfo.bg subscribers with full access they can see here.
If you have a topic with sufficient scale and potential for a strong partnership project and are looking for support in preparation, technological expertise, or in forming and structuring a partnership, you can contact us at info@fininfo.bg.