£7m pot for product innovation
The North West European Regional Development Fund and Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership have issued a call for project applications for research and innovation proposals.
Alan Welby, executive director, Liverpool City Region LEP, said: "This call is great news for businesses involved in innovation in the region. The programme will provide support to the region's small and medium-sized business to make full use of the regional knowledge base in universities, research institutes and private sector firms in order to improve their productivity."
The bid documents state: "This call aims to develop Merseyside's capacity to produce and exploit commercially valuable research and development relevant to its business base. It also aims to develop and exploit 'near-market' technologies that can be translated into economical valuable products and processes.
"The focus is to provide support to Merseyside's small and medium-sized businesses to make full use of the regional knowledge base in higher education institutes, research institutes and private sector firms in order to improve productivity.
"The total ERDF budget for this call is around £7m for both capital and revenue activity. The call will be competitive and within this only component bids requesting a minimum of £500,000 ERDF funding will be accepted for consideration.
"Applicants will need to have in place eligible match funding for the balance of costs which must be from a source other than the European Community."
- Interested parties should visit https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-erdf-funding#applying-in-the-north-west for further information and contact the Local Enterprise Partnership ERDF project support on Merseyside, Paul Dickson – 0151 227 2727 or Paul.Dickson@liverpoollep.org.