The Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) Instrument is a funding instrument under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF, article 13).
Implemented under Cohesion Policy, the I3 Instrument supports interregional cooperation in innovation by using Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) as a guiding framework to connect regional strengths, align complementary capabilities and strengthen EU value chains.
The I3 Instrument supports the scaling-up and commercialisation of interregional innovation projects in shared or complementary S3 areas. It promotes innovation diffusion and industrial deployment by mobilising coordinated investments across regions and enables innovation actors to move from validated solutions and investment ideas towards market uptake and economic impact.
Scope:
Strand 1 of the I3 instrument seeks to increase the competitiveness and the resilience of EU value chains on the basis of interregional cooperation and shared smart specialisation areas.
The objective of the I3 Instrument Strand 1 call for proposals is to support interregional innovation investments by offering consortia of innovation actors from the quadruple helix ecosystems the necessary financial and advisory support to bring their innovations to a mature level, ready for scale-up and commercialisation, while bridging and reducing the innovation divide in Europe with a strong cohesion policy focus of integrating all regions and in particular the less developed regions into European value chains.
Projects shall also strengthen the investment readiness of participating innovation actors and create credible pathways for follow-up investment beyond the project lifetime.
Thereby, proposals under this call for proposals seek to facilitate:
the development and expansion of already existing interregional and cross border value chains and stronger connection between regional innovation ecosystems;
the collaboration between innovation actors, especially SMEs, from less developed regions and innovation actors, especially SMEs, from more developed regions, contributing to cohesion policy objectives;
the support of innovation actors with investment ideas that are ready to be evolve into mature business cases;
the identification of new regional technological domains and market opportunities aligned with the EU priorities and bridging the gap between the supply and demand sides to help innovation ecosystems overcome market failures.
I3 Instrument business investment cases start with a minimum TRL 6 and have the ambition to facilitate demonstration and to accelerate market uptake and commercialisation. The development of the business and investment cases is facilitated by the regional innovation ecosystems with companies in the lead. Projects are expected to demonstrate a clear role for enterprises, in particular SMEs, in driving deployment, market uptake and scale-up activities.
Deadline date: 12/11/2026
Link: Interregional Innovation Investments Strand 1 (I3-2026-INV1)
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