Interregional Innovation Investments Strand 1 (I3-2024-INV1)

Description

The Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) Instrument is a funding instrument under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) regulation (article 13). It aims at supporting interregional innovation projects which bring innovative ideas to a mature investment level, ready for commercialisation and scale-up. 

The general objective of the I3 Instrument is to promote innovation, and innovation diffusion, and the reinforcement of EU and regional value chains, through cooperation on the basis of shared priorities and complementary capabilities. 

Project proposals should aim at supporting predefined portfolios of interrelated and mature interregional innovation investments in different regions and based on shared or complementary Smart specialisation (S3) priority areas; and to support the demonstration, market uptake and scaling up of mature innovations to be brought on the market. 

Objectives

Strand 1 of the I3 instrument seeks to increase the competitiveness and the resilience of EU value chains on the basis of interregional cooperation and shared smart specialisation areas. 

The objective of the I3 Instrument Strand 1 call for proposals is to support interregional innovation investments by offering consortia of innovation actors from the quadruple helix ecosystems the necessary financial and advisory support to bring their innovations to a mature level, ready for commercialisation and scale-up, while bridging and reducing the innovation divide in Europe with a strong cohesion policy focus of integrating all regions and in particular the less developed regions into European value chains.  

Thereby, applications under this call seek to facilitate: 

• the development of already existing or the creation of new interregional and cross-border value chains and a better connection between regional innovation ecosystems; 
• the collaboration between innovation actors, especially SMEs, from less developed regions and innovation actors, especially SMEs, from more developed regions, contributing to cohesion policy objectives. 

Active participation of the less developed regions and outermost regions is strongly encouraged. Participation of innovation actors is based on shared or complementary innovation priorities, as defined in their regional and/or national smart specialisation strategies. Projects shall show a balanced participation of regions with varying levels of development and innovation performance. 

I3 Instrument business investment cases start with a minimum TRL 6 and have the ambition to facilitate demonstration and to accelerate market uptake and commercialisation. The development of the business and investment cases is facilitated by the regional innovation ecosystems with companies in the lead. 

Budget

The estimated total available call budget for 2024 is EUR 31 million.

Info session

An information session on the calls targeted at eligible applicants will be organised online on 13 June 2024.

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