Fostering innovation in SMEs and start-ups: a new call for i-Nov projects opens

The Innovation Contest aims at fostering the development of highly innovative companies born from progress of cutting-edge French research. The contest marks the commitment of the French government to fundings, a certification and improved communication. The Innovation Contest is entirely dedicated to entrepreneurship and includes three complementary aspects: i-PhD (for PhD/doctorate students and young graduates), i-Lab (for young researchers) and i-Nov (for young companies). It thus develops a continuity of fundings from the government towards business creators.

A contest of excellence

 The call for projects of the i-Nov innovation contest is a support system financed by the “Programme d’Investissement d’Avenir” (PIA, Investment for the Future Programme) designed to select “innovation projects with a strong potential for the French economy”.

Since 2017, date of its creation, the i-Nov section has rewarded 462 laureates. This contest of excellence is thus dedicated to innovative projects led by start-ups and/or SMEs, and leading to “encouraging the accelerated emergence of companies which are leader in their field and can claim a global scale”.  The i-Nov contest provides laureates with joint funding for their research, development and innovation project, which total costs range from 1 to 5 million Euros and which duration range from 12 to 36 months. The funding provided in this framework is a government aid divided in 75% subsidies and 25% recoverable advances. 

Four topics for the i-Nov part

 This year, the project presented must be included in one of the four following topics (detailed in the specifications):

- digital, with the objective to identify and support projects presenting significative innovations for the development of digital technologies, while offering strong market opportunities;

- health, with projects presenting “highly disruptive innovations” in terms of product;

- sustainable transports, mobilities, cities and buildings, to develop a French offer of solutions in innovative, low-carbon, sustainable and competitive transports, mobilities and logistics;

- energies, resources and natural environments, to boost the transformation of models of energy production and management of resources, and to face the challenges of low carbon and reduction of environment impacts.

Another strategy for the industrial future of start-ups

 In parallel to the launch of the 9th wave of the i-Nov contest, the government has also launched a new programme, the deep tech and industrial start-ups strategy.

This strategy aims at creating 100 industrial sites per year as part of the France 2030 investment plan to finance young innovative companies in their “ascension to the industrialisation phase”.

With a 2.3 billion Euros dotation, this new strategy includes three aspects: a funding plan for the industrialisation of innovative start-ups and SMEs, an improvement of the support to the emergence of deep techs, and the creation of single service desk dedicated to industrial start-ups to facilitate their access to government support schemes.

According to the government, by 2025, this strategy should lead to an annual support of 500 companies, which matches the objective of the French Tech to support 10 tech behemoths over the next 3 years.

To know more

• about the i-Nov contest

• about the deep tech and industrial start-ups strategy