Innovation funding

Finnpartnership offers innovation funding to Finnish companies for enabling them to co-develop and co-create sustainable solutions together with local partners in developing markets. Solution development can relate to products, services, processes or business models.

Innovation funding can be used for further co-developing innovative solutions. As such, innovation funding is complementary and must be linked to an R&D project funded by Business Finland (BF). The BF R&D project can be ongoing or completed no later than five years ago. The is no requirement that the R&D project itself has a focus on developing markets. R&D projects include:

• Research, development and piloting projects by SMEs and midcaps or large companies
• Company sub-projects of a Co-Innovation joint-project

Amount of funding and implementation of the project 

Innovation funding covers 75 % of project cost eligible for support for all developing markets. It is de minimis grant and the maximum amount of support can be €300 000.   

Innovation funding projects can include one or multiple markets, and the length of the innovation funding project can be up to 24 months. When applying, companies must be able to demonstrate that they hold financial resources equivalent to the total project budget, as reimbursement is based on approved, audited, and realised project costs. The reimbursement can be made in one or two instalments.  

As innovation funding projects build on collaborative co-development and co-creation in developing markets, local innovation partners form a corner stone in the projects. At least half of the total project budget must be allocated to cover project costs by one or multiple local innovation partners. Local innovation partners include for example companies, research organisations, (I)NGOs and UN organisations. In practice, the Finnish company implementing the project purchases services from a local innovation partner(s).

Innovation funding projects can include work such as:

• Research, development and innovation activities, including business model development and commercialisation of research results
• Identification of innovation partners, customers, piloting partners and product-market-fit in relation to innovative solutions being developed
• Network development, for example, to identify investors and pilot sites for solutions under development
• Market research, feasibility studies, and environmental and social impact assessments for solutions under development
• Piloting or demonstration of solution under development
• Planning for local training and capacity building for solutions under development
• Required external experts (consultants and legal services)

Read more about innovation funding in the terms and conditions of Business Partnership Support. Should innovation funding not align with your company’s internationalisation activities, we recommend that you have a look at the other project types eligible for Finnpartnership’s financial grant. 

Project planning

An innovation funding project must have intended positive development impacts. The UN Sustainable Development Goals and their sub-goals provide a framework through which companies applying for innovation funding can identify and demonstrate the key development impacts of the project.

An innovation funding project must always be linked to a specific sub-goal under the UN SDG 9 on sustainable industry, innovation and infrastructure.

One of the mandatory annexes to the application for innovation funding is a development impact questionnaire, which answers the questions below, also including an indicative example. It is advisable to fill in the target table before doing the project application to ensure that the project’s progression logic is in line with common practice in the use of development funds.  

1. What development challenge or problem is the solution being developed?
   • Example: Desertification.
2. Describe the final solution to be pursued
   • Example: a moisture-retaining organic fertiliser.
3. Select the most appropriate sub-goal under SDG 9
   • Example: 9.4.
4. What is the output of the project?
   • Example: an organic fertiliser developed in the BF R&D project, whose moisture retention is to be further developed to be effective in desert conditions. The output of the project is a moisture-retentive organic fertiliser that improves desert soils and allows crops to be grown.
5. How can the existence of a new innovation be verified?
   • Example: a new product will be in use in an organisation’s test cultures within 4 years.
6. How can the success of the project be demonstrated?
   • Example: The product is in production and in use at the designated locations.
7. What are the risks involved?
   • Example: unstable security in desert areas.
8. How will the risks be managed?
   • Example: involving local communities in the project.

In addition to SDG 9, the project must also have at least one and up to three other SDGs and their associated sub-objectives, which can be achieved through successful solution development.

In the example, these could be SDG 2.1 (No hunger; eradicate hunger) and SDG 15.3 (Life on Earth; combat desertification). The project plan requires descriptions for longer-term targets, but within a two-year project, it is not expected that it is possible to track these development impacts.

If you are interested in innovation funding, we recommend to contact Finnpartnership so that we can together see how your project idea fits into the required development impact questionnaire.