Vinnova Innovation Project Grant

Vinnova Innovation Project Grant

This page is a historical reference for Vinnova’s Smartare Elektroniksystem: Forsknings- och Innovationsprojekt 2024 call. The official Vinnova program index lists that round among the previous application opportunities and marks it closed. It does not list a later round or a new deadline for this project-grant format. Do not use the archived date below as a date for a new application.

The official call page remains the source for the archived rules: Smartare Elektroniksystem: Forsknings- och Innovationsprojekt 2024. Vinnova’s program index is Strategiska innovationsprogrammet Smartare elektroniksystem.

Status and key facts

The 2024 round opened for applications on 16 January 2024 and closed on 12 March 2024 at 14:00. Vinnova’s page gives 22 May 2024 as the decision date, allows projects to start from 1 July 2024, requires projects to start no later than 2 September 2024, and requires them to finish no later than 31 August 2026. Those dates belong to the completed round.

The program index was updated on 29 April 2026. It still presents the 2024 project call as closed and does not announce a successor round. That is why this page keeps the actual 2024 closing date in deadline, sets historicalReference = true, and explains the archive status in the body. A future announcement may change the rules, budget, forms, or dates; it should be checked on Vinnova before any new proposal is prepared.

What the call funded

The call supported collaborative research and innovation projects in the application area Embedded Intelligent Systems. The project had to develop new knowledge, or improve existing technology or products, through cooperation between complementary organizations. The industrial need had to relate to at least one of manufacturing readiness, robustness, or energy efficiency, and the work had to strengthen the competitiveness of Swedish companies.

The official call describes possible results broadly: a new product, service, process, or another quality- or value-creating solution that responds to a need from an end user or a need owner. It also expects the project to show how electronics systems can contribute to renewal in the application area. Relevant technical fields named by the call include antennas, microwave and terahertz systems, photonics, sensors and embedded systems, micro- and nanoelectronics, printed electronics, power electronics, packaging, and reliability.

This was therefore not an unrestricted business grant. A proposal needed a specific technical and industrial problem, a consortium able to address different parts of that problem, and a credible route from project work to use in products, processes, or services. The assessment also considered whether results could be put to use and introduced to a relevant market within three years after project completion. If a longer route was necessary, the application needed to justify it.

The call allowed work such as technical and design feasibility studies, prototype or demonstration development, pilot work, testing and validation, production-method development, innovation-verification studies, and investigation of market conditions such as customers, customer needs, possible partners, and competitors. It did not fund routine or recurring changes to existing products, services, manufacturing methods, or processes. It also excluded training and courses, marketing, sales, ongoing operations, quality assurance, certification, equipment and tool investments, and intellectual-property strategies or protection.

Eligibility and consortium rules

The formal requirements were more specific than the short summary on the call page. Vinnova would assess only applications meeting all of the following conditions:

• The project had at least two project partners, at least one of which was a company.
• Every participating project partner was a legal entity.
• For companies, the call specified the corporate forms aktiebolag or handelsbolag.
• The coordinator and every project partner applying for a grant had to be a Swedish legal entity in Sweden. A foreign organization could qualify through a branch or establishment in Sweden, but the project costs had to relate to that Swedish operation.
• Every project partner had to be entered in Vinnova’s application form with its own budget. Listing an organization only in the project description, the project abstract, or as a co-financier was not enough.
• The application had to follow all instructions for the required templates and attachments.
• The application had to be written in Swedish or English.
• If the project relied wholly or partly on a feasibility study financed within Smartare Elektroniksystem, that study had to be completed by 29 February 2024 and finally reported to Vinnova by 15 March 2024.

The minimum of two partners was only the formal floor. The call expected the participants to complement one another in a coherent part of a value chain. A strong consortium might combine a company that owns the industrial problem or customer relationship with a technology developer, university, institute, or manufacturing and validation partner. The application needed to explain why that combination was necessary and how each partner’s work connected to the others.

Universities, higher-education institutions, and research institutes could participate. The funding treatment differed by type of organization. For companies and other organizations conducting economic activity, support was governed by state-aid rules and could not exceed the applicable state-aid level or the call’s 50% ceiling. Organizations not conducting economic activity, generally universities, higher-education institutions, and research institutes, could receive up to 100% of their eligible costs as non-state aid under the call’s stated framework.

Funding, costs, and project duration

Vinnova’s grant could be at most SEK 4 million per project, no more than 50% of the project’s total eligible costs, and no more than SEK 2.5 million for any one project partner. The call also stated that support to companies was for industrial research or experimental development under Article 25 of the EU General Block Exemption Regulation. Companies had to cover their remaining eligible costs with existing financing, evidenced through turnover or available capital. Public funding or financing allocated to another project could not be used to cover costs in this call.

An eligible cost had to be actual and verifiable, incurred by the project partner during the project period, and recorded according to that partner’s normal accounting principles and good accounting practice. Personnel costs had to be real; unpaid work did not qualify. Each partner was responsible for ensuring that its total public support stayed within the permitted state-aid level. Vinnova could request additional financial material from participating small and medium-sized enterprises during assessment.

The maximum project duration was 24 months. The archived timetable allowed a start from 1 July 2024, required a latest start of 2 September 2024, and set a latest end of 31 August 2026. These dates are useful for understanding the completed call’s planning assumptions only. A future call should not be assumed to use the same duration, cost treatment, or start window.

What a complete application required

Applicants had to complete a web-based form in Vinnova’s application service. The form covered the project, project partners, and budget. Every partner needed a separate budget entry, and the proposal needed to use the official call templates. The required materials for the 2024 round were:

1. Project description. This had to use the official project-application template and be no longer than 11 portrait A4 pages, using single-column, 12-point black text. Web links and similar references would not be considered in the assessment.
2. Project abstract and partner contacts. The abstract could be one page, with one additional page for contact details for all project-partner contacts. It had to be written in English, suitable for free publication, and contain the TRL at project start and the planned TRL at project end. The abstract and contact page also had to be sent to the Smartare Elektroniksystem program office when the application was submitted.
3. CV attachment. This had to include relevant CVs for the project manager and all key project-team members. Each CV could be no more than three A4 pages and had to include the details requested by Vinnova, including name, age, gender, role, email, and telephone number.
4. SME attachment. A participating small or medium-sized enterprise had to provide the relevant SME information attachment, limited to one page per participating SME. If the coordinator was an SME, it also had to complete this attachment.

All listed attachments were mandatory unless the SME attachment was irrelevant because no SME participated. Attachments had to be submitted as PDFs. Vinnova stated that applications would be assessed only when the page limits and templates were followed, and that extra attachments could not be added. Applicants could begin the form, save it, return later, and make changes until the closing time. After the call closed, additions or corrections were possible only if Vinnova requested them.

The archived call gave 16 February 2024 as the update date for its published text, including a change to the preliminary call budget. That page should be treated as the definitive version for the closed round; an applicant preparing for a later round would need the later round’s own templates and instructions.

How Vinnova assessed proposals

The call assessed eligible applications competitively. Vinnova-appointed assessors reviewed proposals against the stated criteria, ranked them, and could interview representatives of applicant consortia before Vinnova made its funding decision. The main criteria were grouped as Potential, Actors, and Feasibility.

Potential covered contribution to sustainable growth and Swedish industry, international competitiveness, sustainable solutions, Agenda 2030, circular material flows, and renewal in Embedded Intelligent Systems. The proposal had to connect the technical development to manufacturing readiness, robustness, or energy efficiency. It also had to explain the competitive situation, the route to market, and the expected use of results within three years after project completion where possible. The application had to state the starting TRL, show an increase of at least one level, and aim to reach at least TRL 5 during the project; the starting level could be no higher than TRL 6.

Actors covered the team’s competence, execution capacity, commercialization plan, balance between activities and partner budgets, and the quality of cooperation across the value chain. Vinnova viewed company coordination positively and also viewed participation by more than one complementary company positively. The composition of key people was assessed in relation to gender balance and the distribution of resources, power, and influence between women and men.

Feasibility covered the realism of the project plan, the contribution to cooperation inside and outside the consortium, the plan for use and dissemination of results, risk management, and the integration of gender considerations into the project description.

Practical archive guidance

For a team studying this call as preparation for a possible future Smartare Elektroniksystem round, the useful exercise is to recreate the logic, not to copy the old date. Define the industrial need first. Map the connected value chain and give every partner a non-overlapping role. Record each partner’s eligible costs and own-financing responsibility. Then write the TRL path, prototype or validation activities, risks, market route, and post-project responsibilities in the same structure that the call assessed.

Before relying on any of those details, check the Vinnova program index for a new announcement. The current official pages provide no successor deadline for this project-grant round. Until Vinnova publishes a new call, this entry should be read as an archive of the 2024 rules rather than an invitation to apply.

Official contacts and links

• Vinnova call page
• Vinnova Smartare Elektroniksystem program index
• Smartare Elektroniksystem program office: anna.wibom@smartareelektroniksystem.se
• Vinnova application-service technical support: helpdesk@vinnova.se