The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) has announced that applications for the Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM) can be submitted again with immediate effect. An application stop had been imposed for the funding program in October 2021.
The Central Innovation Program for SMEs is a nationwide funding program that is open to all technologies and sectors and is intended to strengthen the innovative strength and competitiveness of SMEs. Under the program, individual R&D projects, collaborative R&D projects and innovation networks are funded.
With the reopening of the funding program, the funding conditions have been adjusted in two points in particular:
Companies can only be involved in one ZIM project at a time and can only receive another approval for a ZIM project 24 months after the last approval.
The possibility of term extensions and funding shifts has been severely restricted for ZIM projects.
For the applicants, the application of ZIM projects should be significantly simplified in the future. For example, with the reopening it is possible to submit applications and documents completely digitally.
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