Over 700 companies want to innovate with European funds

713 Bulgarian companies applied for grants for the implementation of innovations under the "Competitiveness and Innovations in Enterprises" Program. The acceptance of documents under the procedure announced by the Ministry of Innovation and Growth was entirely online and ended yesterday at 4:30 p.m.

Micro, small, medium-sized companies and companies with up to 499 employees from various economic sectors could benefit from the measure. Their projects had to be related to implementing an innovation in one of the five thematic areas of the Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialization - "Informatics and ICT", "Mechatronics and Microelectronics", "Healthy Living Industry, Bioeconomy and Biotechnologies", "New Technologies in creative and leisure industries' and 'Clean technologies, circular and low-carbon economy'.

The candidates under the procedure have requested support of over BGN 275 million. If approved, the enterprises will receive between BGN 50,000 and BGN 800,000 depending on their size. With funds, they will be able to implement product innovations (goods or services) or innovations in business processes by acquiring durable tangible and intangible assets. The costs of consulting and support services for innovations such as protection of industrial property rights, provision of access to databases and libraries, provision of services from laboratories for conducting research, measurements and tests will also be covered.