Innosuisse GO GLOBAL: Bilateral cooperations with Canada & Sweden

Promotion of Canada – Switzerland cooperation

Canada and Switzerland, via NRC-IRAP and Innosuisse, in recognition of the 2018 Science, Technology & Innovation declaration signed between the countries, have agreed to deepen promotion of Canada-Switzerland participation in Eurostars via dedicated partner search.

Innovation organisations from Canada and Switzerland preparing the submission of Eurostars projects (next deadline: 12 Sep 2019) are invited to apply for a cross-border partner search offered by NRC-IRAP and Innosuisse. The cooperation can come from all subject areas the instrument we are directing you to for funding is bottom-up.

Detailed information can be found in the Factsheet and the Partner search template

Contacts:

• Canada:

NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program, NRC IRAP

Mr. Eric Holdrinet, +1 514-882-9384, [email protected]

• Switzerland

Innosuisse – Swiss Innovation Agency, www.innosuisse.ch

Ms. Colette John-Grant, +41 58 466 77 32, [email protected]

Cooperation between Switzerland and Sweden: Swiss-Swedish Innovation Initiative (SWII) Call 2019

Switzerland and Sweden face common challenges in their high-tech industries. Both countries need to be constantly innovative and improve their production systems to maintain a solid domestic industrial base. Being two of the world leaders in innovation, Switzerland and Sweden form natural partners in tackling these tasks.

In 2013 both countries initiated the Swiss-Swedish Innovation Initiative SWII. SWII is an industrial R&D partnering program with the objective to increase market oriented high-technology R&D projects between Switzerland and Sweden. SWII gathers the most technology intensive MNEs, SMEs and academia two to three times a year and issues bilateral calls for R&D project proposals within EUREKA & Eurostars.

The ninth Swiss-Swedish Innovation Initiative (SWII) Call for R&D Project Outlines was launched in February 2019 and the deadline for submission will be 29 November 2019 (Call document).

Participating Consortia should integrate partners from both Switzerland and Sweden and are invited to discuss project ideas with the respective EUREKA Eurostars office before submission.

The aim of the SWII calls is to provide applicants:

• Partnering opportunities
• Recommendations on suitable EUREKA funding mechanisms
• Guidance on how to prepare a high quality proposal

Focus
The call is open to all topics of the Swiss-Swedish Innovation Initiative (SWII), but focuses on Digitalisation (Artificial Intelligence, Big Data & Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality).

The following dates are binding:

• Call launch: September 2, 2019
• Swiss-Swedish Networking Conference with the participation of companies and research institutions from both countries: September 26, 2019, ABB Baden. Find here information about the networking conference.
• Submission deadline for project outlines (Phase 1 – Draft): November 29, 2019
• Recommendations from the screening of the project outlines: December 2019
• Submission of the full applications: At the beginning of 2020

Information on scope, eligibility criteria, call procedure as well as funding rules can be found in the SWII Call 2019 Pre-Announcement.

Eligibility criteria

• The consortium includes at least one partner from each of the countries and at least one R&D driven SME. Other partners such as large companies, research institutes and universities are welcome as additional participants.
• The project has an obvious advantage and added value resulting from the cooperation between the participants from the different countries (e.g. increased knowledge base, commercial leads, access to R&D infrastructure etc.).It shows convincing proof to realize its potential in a highly competitive field.
• The project demonstrates the contribution of the participants from all countries involved in a balanced way, and the project is significant to all countries involved.
• Partners from other EUREKA countries may also participate. This requires funding from their respective home countries.

How to apply

Submission and the approval procedures will be in two phases:

1. In the first phase:

• Partners are encouraged to submit a short Project Outline, which can be downloaded from the SWII homepage http://www.swii.org/images/EUREKA_Project_Outline.doc
• The completed project outlines of phase 1 should be submitted to the national EUREKA offices of the participating partners simultaneously (main contacts) by email to contact persons at Innosuisse (Swiss Innovation Agency) and Vinnova with copy to all partners of the project outline. The submission deadline is 29 November 2019.
• The outlines will be screened by the EUREKA offices in Sweden and Switzerland and the partners will be provided with a detailed feedback as well as additional recommendations within the shortest possible delay after the submission (about 2 weeks).

2. In the second phase:

• Partners with approved outlines will be recommended to submit their full applications to the EUREKA instrument (Network/Eurostars/Cluster) that best suits their project.Eurostars for R&D performing SME ́s is the most popular Eureka instrument.
• The national EUREKA offices in Sweden and Switzerland will assist on how to submit full applications.
• Swiss-Swedish applications have to compete with other project applications. There is no separate budget reserved especially for Swiss-Swedish project applications. The benefit of participating in the present call lies in the intense interaction and individual consultation opportunities in the preparation phase. For the funding decision, only the quality of the application is relevant.

Financing:

Funding support to approved full applications of Phase 2 will be given to each partner by its own national funding organization in accordance with the national laws, rules, regulations and procedures in effect. Concrete funding mechanisms depend on the most suitable EUREKA instrument (Network/Eurostars/Clusters) that will be decided on in Phase 1 of the submission process.

For further information:

• Call announcement
• Call document
• Innosuisse
• In support of the ninth call, the list of related events can be found here.

National contact points:

• The Swiss EUREKA office at the Innosuisse:
  Mr. Janique Siffert (main contact), +41 58 466 70 70, [email protected]
  Ms. Colette John-Grant (EUREKA and Eurostars), +41 58 466 77 32, [email protected]

• The Swedish EUREKA office at Vinnova:
  Mr. Peter Lindberg, +46 8 473 31 93, [email protected]
  Mr. Tero Stjernstoft, +46 8 473 32 96, [email protected]
  Mr. Lars Gustafsson, +46 8 473 32 12, [email protected]

Source:https://www.innosuisse.ch/inno/en/home/go-global/bilaterale-zusammenarbeit.html

The EPFL Research Office is available to help with your application and all the questions you may have.