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:

This call for proposals is for Strand 2a and focuses on reinforcing the integration of innovation actors from less developed regions and transition regions in developing EU value chains while creating local opportunities for innovation and smart economic transformation in regions with shared (or complementary) smart specialisation areas.

The objective of the present I3 Instrument Strand 2a 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. This call specifically aims at reducing the innovation divide in Europe, with a strong cohesion policy focus on integrating less developed and transition regions into European value chains.

Projects shall demonstrate how less developed and transition regions will take on concrete and sustainable roles in the targeted value chains, including through business opportunities, capability building and follow-up investment perspectives.

Thereby, proposals under this call for proposals seek to facilitate:

• the support of innovation actors with investment ideas that are ready to be developed into mature business cases;

• the identification of new regional technological domains and market opportunities with the EU priorities and bridging the gap between the supply and demand sides to help innovation ecosystems overcome market failures;

• the creation of new value chains in less developed and transition regions and the integration into interregional and cross border value chains with more developed regions;

• the improvement of knowledge and practical skills in business and investment planning, particularly for SMEs, as well as for other consortium partners.

• the application and the deployment of innovative technologies and solutions in less developed and transition regions;

• the interaction and collaboration of SMEs from less developed and transition regions in interregional/multi-national value chains with innovation actors from more developed regions.

The focus is on technology transfer and highly specialised advisory support for the implementation of experiments and demonstration cases in companies. Participation of innovation actors is based on shared or complementary innovation priorities, as defined in their regional and/or national smart specialisation strategies. Projects shall show a balanced participation of regions with varying levels of development and innovation performance.

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.