What is the offer about?
With this the offer, we want to support project with actors along the entire value chain and contribute to developing tomorrow's innovation in advanced manufacturing, and also support advanced manufacturing products, processes and services in all market sectors.
The call is aimed at innovation projects in the following areas:
- Advanced manufacturing processes
- Intelligent and adaptive manufacturing systems
- Human-machine collaboration
- Sustainable processes and systems
- Digital or virtual factory design, data collection and management, operation and planning, from real-time to long-term optimization methods
- Custom manufacturing.
In order to receive funding, the results must be relevant to the competitiveness of Swedish business.
Expected results of the projects are, for example, prototypes and demonstrators of interest to potential customers on an international market. For a successful proposal for larger funding for Vinnova, it is normally required to focus on larger industrial challenges with participation from both larger companies, SMEs and academia/research institutes. At least one SME company with a Swedish place of business must participate.
SMART offers support during the consortium building and organizes the network meeting SMART PO Proposers' Day - 6th Call where there is an opportunity to pitch your idea and discuss with potential partners.
What is SMART?
SMART is an innovation cluster for advanced manufacturing.
All project within the EUREKA cluster are public-private partnerships with broad industrial participation, which aim to promote research or encourage standardization processes.
The multi-step application process
The application process to SMART takes place in several steps as below.
- Find cooperation partners and form an international consortium, for example during networking day, SMART PO Proposers' Day - 6th Call - Home (b2match.io) https://smart-po-proposers-day-6th.b2match.io/
- Send an outline of the project application (PO – project outline) to SMART.
- SMART and Vinnova assess the project sketch and if it is of sufficiently high quality, you are offered to submit a full project proposal (FPP - full project proposal) to SMART.
- Send a full project proposal (FPP - full project proposal) to SMART. New applications, which have not been preceded by a PO, are also welcome.
- SMART and Vinnova evaluate the complete project applications. The applications that are approved receive a so-called Eureka label. This means that the national consortia are offered the opportunity to submit national applications to the respective country's funding public authority.
- The Swedish consortium is offered to submit a national proposal to Vinnova. Selected Swedish consortia are interviewed at Vinnova.
- Based on the international (FPP) and national (Vinnova) applications as well as a project interview, Vinnova makes a final assessment of whether the Swedish consortium receives funding or not. Note that proposal for Swedish funding may be rejected even though the cluster project has a valid Eureka label and has been invited to an interview at Vinnova.
- Vinnova makes a decision to grant or reject proposal. For project that are granted funding, it is required that the project has at least two participating organizations from at least two different countries in order for the project to start. The project must start within 12 months after the international consortium has received the Eureka label.