On 1 April, Minister of the Economy Franz Fayot announced the launch of a joint call for projects, in partnership with the Fonds national de la recherche (FNR), in the field of health technologies.
This joint call is open to companies as well as research and healthcare organisations and is based on a new dedicated digital platform, www.research-collaboration.lu, which has been set up by Luxinnovation.
The objective of the call for projects is to stimulate collaborative R&D projects through public-private partnerships (PPP).
On 4 May, Ministry of the Economy, the FNR and Luxinnovation organised a webinar explaining how to prepare applications in response to the joint call for healthtech projects that will be open until 30 June 2021.
Here are 3 things to know about this joint call:
What type of projects are funded?
The objective of the joint call is to create a culture of collaborative research between Luxembourg companies, public research organisations, hospitals and also care organisations.
Bringing all these players together and facilitating collaborative projects will encourage better access for healthcare professionals and patients to innovative digital health tools.
The aim is to develop the Luxembourg ecosystem leveraging regulatory capabilities needed to bring medical devices to market. The intention is to support projects, that have at least reached a prototype stage, demonstrating their performance, safety and benefits for patients
How does the application process work?
First, a pre-application has to be posted on research-collaboration.lu before 30 June. A consortium needs to be made up of at least one company and one research organisation that could be a medical or care organisation.
Then the final application needs to be submitted before 15 October. Only registered users can start a project on the platform.
For stakeholders who have an idea but have not identified a partner yet, there is an ideation / matchmaking platform on research-collaboration.lu
Is it possible to take part in the call even if co-financing is not yet available?
Companies should ensure they can fulfil all conditions to start the project when the aid application is submitted prior to 15 October. Co-financing is a requirement. It is well known that Healthtech companies usually go through several funding rounds and that a certain point in time, co-financing might not be secured.
If a funding round is required to carry out a project, we encourage companies to already have a condition sheet under discussion at the pre-application stage (by 30 June). Participants in a consortium shall be informed about the maturity level of such funding round. This will allow them to better manage the risks related to the preparation of a complex project.