Innovation Vouchers – October 2015 Call Now Open

What could £5,000 do for your business?

The October call for Invest Northern Ireland (NI) Innovation Vouchers is now open.

What are Innovation Vouchers?

An Innovation Voucher is worth up to £5000. It allows you to team up with knowledge providers – ie universities, colleges and technical institutes – to create or improve innovative products, services or processes.

There are currently 39 registered knowledge providers in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The vouchers allow you to access skills and expertise of these providers for many different kinds of innovation projects.

What can you use Innovation Vouchers for?

An Innovation Voucher can help you tackle a specific business issue, particularly if you don’t have the expertise, technology or facilities to solve it.

Typical Innovation Vouchers projects include:

  • ideas for new and improved products, processes and services
  • testing and validation of new or enhanced products and services
  • access to specialist expertise on new materials
  • tapping into research and scientific expertise

Who can apply?

You can apply for Innovation Vouchers if you are:

  • a small business – with fewer than 50 employees
  • a medium-sized business – with fewer than 250 employees

To be eligible, medium-sized business must have not received assistance through Invest Northern Ireland’s R&D programme in the past five years.

Call for applications is open until 15:00 on Friday 23 October 2015.

Find out more about Invest NI’s Innovation Vouchers or watch a case study below to see how one local company benefited from Innovation Vouchers.

Source: nibusinessinfo.co.uk