Joint product or service development will be supported within the 3rd call of proposals!
Active and attractive business environment
Cooperation in two directions is supported:
- Firstly, we believe there are more entrepreneurs in the region, who are ready for corss-border cooperation. The programme will finance projects that carry out altogether at least 30 events with at least 500 participants.
Within the 1st call of proposals 9 projects have been selected. All funding (around 2.7 million euros) allocated to this specific objective has been committed during the 1st call of proposals.
- Secondly, we also want to encourage more entrepreneurs to carry out joint product or service development. That is why the programme will support projects that altogether carry out joint development works of at least 12 products or services and at least 12 joint marketing activities.
Within the 1st call of proposals 8 projects have been selected of total amount of ~2.8 million euros. Around 5.8 million euros are available for the next calls.
Examples of expected activities for joint product development
- Joint product and service development;
- Long-term development activities for SMEs;
- Building marketing and sales related competencies;
- Enhancing cooperation between SMEs, research and educational institutions, and public support structures;
- Marketing activities.
Project main features
- The maximum grant size for SO 1.2. is 500 000 EUR. Requested ERDF support for an SME cannot be bigger than 50% of the SME’s turnover in year 2016.
- All types of organizations and SMEs can apply.
- Programme will support up to 85% of the total budget of the project. State aid rules apply (see the Annex 1 of the programme manual).
Specific requirements
At least one SME from Estonia and one SME from Latvia must contribute to carrying out joint product or service development. Participating SMEs must take into account following criteria:
- The participating SME must have at least 50 000 EUR for annual turnover for year 2016.
- The annual reports of participating SME-s for years 2015 and 2016 are submitted to the relevant national registries.[1]
- Requested ERDF support for an SME can be maximum 50% of the SME’s last annual turnover.
- All participating SMEs must have their own functioning product or service at the time of submitting a project application.
All SO 1.2 projects must fulfil the following output indicators:
- Joint products and services developed in cooperation
- Joint marketing activities.
[1] In case by the national legislation the company is not obliged to submit the annual report for 2015, the annual report for 2016 is checked.
