The BMWK has published a new guideline for the funding program "Industrielle Gemeinschaftsforschung" (Industrial joint research) for the end of the year 2022. The new IGF guideline comes into force from 01.01.2023 is and runs until 31.12.2026, the previous guideline from 2017 has thus expired.
Unchanged points in the guideline
Furthermore, the support of SMEs through "the technology-open funding of pre-competitive research and development projects" is the funding objective of the guideline.
The objects of funding are basic research, industrial research, experimental development or feasibility studies.
For 2023, 2024 and 2025, funding recipients are the legally independent, non-profit industrial research associations that are members of AiF e. V. on December 31, 2023.
AiF e. V. or the project management organization and the research associations ensure qualified preparation and review of the submitted IGF projects with the participation of the SMEs and organize a competitive procedure for the selection of the projects for this purpose.
Changes in the new directive
In the future, the definition of an SME will be subject to that of the EU. An SME including affiliated companies may therefore have no more than 250 employees and an annual turnover of less than €50 million or €43 million in total assets (see Regulation (EU) 651/2014 Annex I, p. 70).
Maximum funding limits have been included for projects.
The project-related expenditure by industry (vaW) should reach 10% or more of the total grant.
AiF e. V. is the BMWK's administrative assistant until the end of 2023. A project management organization will handle the program on behalf of the BMWK from 2024.
Research associations may be authorized for funding from 2024, and all applicant research associations must be authorized from 2026. The provisions listed as an annex to the IGF Guideline apply in this regard.
Consequences of the changes
The circle of interested and accessible members for a project-accompanying committee (PA) will be further and strongly restricted by the adoption of the EU definition for SMEs with the lowered thresholds (up to now € 125 million annual turnover incl. affiliated companies). Companies above the thresholds will continue to be admitted to a PA, but there will nevertheless be problems here in filling the important steering and steering committee PA. This results in a lower industrial relevance of the research topics, which can jeopardize the success of a project and thus of the entire program. On this point, the BMWK has unfortunately not followed the recommendations of the current "Evaluation of Industrielle Gemeinschaftsforschung (IGF) 2017-2020", in which a figure of 1,000 employees was proposed.
The new guideline also stipulates that all applications that have already been evaluated must be processed again in order to identify the participating SMEs according to the current definition. Additional SMEs may also need to be found prior to approval in order to meet the quotas for PA in each application.
In the next few months, there will be a call for proposals to select a project sponsor.
An increase in bureaucratic requirements is very likely due to the assignment of a project executing agency from 2024, which can already be observed in comparable programs.
The AiF e. V. will change and have a new structure in 2024.
