Government adopts Collaborative Innovation Programme: call for innovative projects with individual grant value up to EUR 100,000 to be announced tomorrow

Collaborative Innovation Programme 2019-2024, adopted by the Government today, is one of the most important implementation mechanisms for the recently promulgated Smart Specialisation Strategy of Montenegro. The call for innovation projects with individual grant value up to EUR 100,000 will be announced already tomorrow.

Pursuant to this Programme, continuity is envisaged in the financing of innovative projects through the calls for innovative projects, implemented for the first time by the Ministry of Science in 2018, with a positive outcome and first affirmative results – Branka Žižić, acting Director General of the Directorate for Innovation and Technological Development at the Ministry of Science, said at a press conference.

The reasons for the adoption of the Programme are the following:

· Focusing innovation incentives on the areas defined by the Smart Specialisation Strategy,

· Better defining of conditions and procedures for participation in the calls, as well as of the procedures for project evaluation,

· Ensuring the conformity of the grant-awarding process with the rules on the use of state aid,

· Enabling future use of funds for young companies with the potential for quick growth, so-called innovative start-ups.

In financing innovative projects, the objective is to direct business entities at research and innovation activities intended for the market, which gives an incentive to the development of a new flow in our economy, the one based on knowledge and high technologies.

One of the most important objectives of this competition is to create opportunities for highly educated young people in Montenegro, i.e. to open new jobs of this type.

Previously, within the first call for innovative projects from 2018, 10 projects had been supported, worth a total of EUR 1.1 million, of which the Ministry of Science had allocated EUR 730,000 from the state budget, with co-financing of the grant beneficiaries amounting to EUR 440,000. In this way, a tool is created for increasing the total spending on research and innovation, i.e. besides the allocations from the state budget, the business sector is encouraged to invest. Last year, 20 new jobs were created, one business company was established, one is about to be established, and the remaining projects were integrated into existing companies.

The Programme is related to access to finance, which is one of the key elements in building an innovation ecosystem, to which the Ministry of Science is fully committed. In addition to ensuring the availability of finance in all phases of innovation, we are also working on creating infrastructural support, especially by constructing the Science and Technology Park in Podgorica, as well as by establishing and improving the legislative framework for encouraging both the innovative activities of the enterprises themselves and business sector investments in research and innovation.

All the information is available at www.mna.gov.me

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