Deadline: 25 April 2018
The Southern Africa Innovation Support Programme (SAIS) has launched a second phase to run from 2017-2021.
SAIS 2 provides grants to projects that seek to pilot, demonstrate and replicate concepts and prototypes before rolling them out to the market as new or improved products, services or processes. The objective is to support entrepreneurship and early-stage entrepreneurs as well as to strengthen the cooperation amongst innovation organizations at local and trans-national innovation ecosystems across the SADC region.
Grant Categories
- Window 1: Stronger Ecosystems: Developing institutional capacity for regional innovation cooperation.
- Window 2: Scaling Enterprises: Scaling enterprises through stronger innovation support organisations.
- Window 3: Inclusive Innovation: Improved enabling environment for inclusive innovation activities in the region.
Grant Information
- The total budget for the implementation of the SAIS Innovation Fund Call for Proposals 2018/1/CN is EUR 1 600,000.
- The indicative budget as per Call Window is the following:
- Developing institutional Capacity for regional Innovation Cooperation: EUR 400,000
- Scaling Enterprises through stronger Intermediaries: EUR 800,000
- Inclusive Innovation: EUR 400,000
Geographical Focus
Project Consortium that applies for SAIS 2 funding should have the following minimum requirements:
- Two impartial, registered legal entities from two SADC member states, i.e. Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
- The Project Coordinator, i.e. the Grantee, must be a registered legal entity from a SAIS 2 partner country, i.e. Botswana, Tanzania, Namibia, Zambia and Tanzania.
Eligible Projects
The projects receiving funding under each thematic area need to contribute to the SAIS objective of regional collaboration and learning, and should thus:
- be thematically aligned with innovation and, more specifically, support young entrepreneurs (less than three years old) and enhance entrepreneurship;
- be transnational in scope, i.e. satisfy needs in a minimum of two partner countries;
- include a minimum of one organisation from SAIS Partner Country and two countries in the SADC region;
- address physical and cultural connectivity and issues/obstacles for cross-border collaboration or cooperation within specific innovation ecosystem;
- address IPR issues and trust/confidence issues by putting in place appropriate mechanisms for knowledge sharing;
- commit to regularly share project progress through SAIS platforms (on-line and annual event).
Eligibility Criteria
- SAIS 2 funding is available to registered organisations from the public and private sector as well as from academia/ university and civil society.
- Organisations (Applicants) interested in applying for funding from the SAIS 2 Innovation Fund must be either enterprises, public bodies or non-profit organisations, i.e. so-called legal persons.
- Individual persons are not eligible to apply for a SAIS 2 Grants.
- The eligibility of the applicant is assessed at the level of the Project Consortium and the Project Coordinator as well as at the level of project features.
- SAIS Innovation Fund provides grants for early-stage projects that seek to validate the feasibility of innovations at the market. Alternatively, the project proposed for SAIS funding is based on an already existing, well-functioning product/service/process but seeks to replicate it in a new market and/or in another SADC country.
How to Apply
Applicants can apply online via given website.
For more information, please visit SAIS 2 Call for Proposals.