Deadline: 15-Jul-21
The Switzerland Innovation Tech4Impact Initiative (SI Tech4Impact) has announced its 2nd call for proposals to facilitate the realization of innovation projects that tackle society’s most pressing environmental and societal challenges, focusing on selected themes of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
To achieve this ambition, SI Tech4Impact promotes the development of ground-breaking projects that focus on real market applications by supporting projects research groups of Swiss universities as well as startups and SMEs collaborating with research partners. This initiative is led by Switzerland Innovation conjointly with EPFL Tech4Impact and collaboratio helvetica. The companies supporting SI Tech4Impact as innovation partners are the following: ABB, Credit Suisse, Die Mobiliar, Economiesuisse, Interpharma, Schindler, Swiss Re Foundation, Swisscom, UBS, Zurich.
Switzerland Innovation is a network of six innovation parks across Switzerland based on a joint initiative of public institutions, academia, and the private sector with a statutory mandate from the Swiss government. Together with its partners, Switzerland Innovation forms an ecosystem accelerating the transformation of research results into marketable products and services.
The Program
The SI Tech4Impact initiative will award 5 to 7 selected projects with a one-year project grant of up to CHF 85.000 each. The program focuses specifically on projects that aim to tackle one of the following SDGs:
- SDG 3 – Good health and well-being
- SDG 7 – Affordable and clean energy
- SDG 9 – Industry, innovation and infrastructure
- SDG 11 – Sustainable cities and communities
- SDG 12 – Responsible consumption and production
- SDG 13 – Climate action
Funding Information
- Grants of up to CHF 85.000 each are financed by the above-mentioned innovation partners and allocated by the Switzerland Innovation foundation with an external jury who makes the final decision on the selection of projects and allocation of grants.
- 1/3 upfront payment at the start of the project
- 1/3 second payment upon reaching first milestone M1 after 6 months
- 1/3 third payment upon reaching second milestone M2 after 9 months
Eligibility Criteria
- be submitted completely and within the deadline;
- belong to either of the following target groups:
- research groups from Swiss universities
- postdocs and PhD students (no masters or bachelor students)
- scientific staff from University of Applied Sciences or Research Institute
- spin-offs and early-stage startups linked to a university research group
- SMEs with an innovation project to be carried out in cooperation with a research partner
- deal with a technological innovation;
- address a pressing social, economic, and/or environmental problem in at least one of the six predefined Sustainable Development Goals;
- achieve TRL 4 but not exceed the maturity level of TRL 7 according to the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) system;
- provide evidence of cooperation with one of the innovation parks of Switzerland Innovation.
Evaluation Criteria
- Severity of addressed societal or environmental project
- Relevance of the proposed project for tackling this societal or environmental problem
- Novelty of the project vis-à-vis current technological state of the art
- Competitiveness vis-à-vis existing solutions
- The qualification and experience of the project team & of the research partners
- Team’s ability to realize the project
- Potential to transfer scientific evidence into a marketable product or service
- Scalability potential (in terms of markets and impact)
- Validity of proposed use of the budget with clear breakdowns (funding to be used within the 12-month period)
For more information, visit https://sitech4impact.ch/