Funding and financing instruments as important elements in the NEFI innovation process

The purpose of the NEFI showcase region is to strengthen the innovation potential in the field of “decarbonization of industry”. Since financing and funding instruments are a central element for the implementation of innovation projects, a so-called “Open Cycle” has been established for this topic. Questions concerning research and innovation funding and various other financing instruments will be answered with reference to the technological maturity of the planned project (TRL level).

Within the framework of the “Open Cycle Funding & Financial Opportunities”, the offer of a central NEFI service around the topic of research and innovation funding is planned. Questions such as: “Who finances/funds what and to what extent? Where can financing and funding applications be submitted at specific times? What are the respective prerequisites for this?

The NEFI service offer will include a range of support measures. For example, all current Open and Project Cycles will be supported in assigning the project idea to suitable regional, national, European or transnational funding and financing programs. For this purpose, comprehensive information will be provided on time and procedures for obtaining the appropriate funding or financing and the associated conditions/prerequisites. In addition, the focus is on concrete support in the preparation of project applications, especially at European level. If required, contacts can also be made with relevant project partners from the NEFI network or other European industry and research networks.

With these support measures, special attention is paid to the individual and custom-fit determination of recommended subsidy and financing variants, whereby the respective advantages and disadvantages of the individual variants have to be compared.

As NEFI sees itself in the long term as an integrated part of a pan-European innovation network on industrial decarbonization, it is now a matter of providing access to European sources of finance in addition to using national funding and financing instruments. Thus, in the coming weeks/months, all relevant EU funding and investment instruments will be analysed along with their content and formal framework conditions and their synergy potentials. The analysis will focus primarily on the EU’s European “Green Deal” strategy and the new research framework program “Horizon Europe” (funding period 2021 – 2027).