Strategic Innovation Programme BioInnovation, Vinnova, Business Finland and CLIC Innovation have again implemented a joint call for projects for the two strong bioeconomy countries of Sweden and Finland. Today, many biobased solutions exist that are promising in lab scale, but technical processes for upscaling are often lacking. With this call, the four actors wanted to support development of processes and technologies that can develop these solutions to a scale that companies consider relevant for decision on implementation in production scale. Funded projects build on an idea that has already been validated in laboratory or small pilot scale.
In total seven projects received funding through the call. Four of networked consortiums included Finnish parties, of which seven Finnish parties got funding.
“There is a great competence on biobased development in Finland and Sweden. We see great possibilities with this call to support strong value chains that can bring more biobased products to market”, says Anna Wiberg, Program Manager at BioInnovation
“Our Bio and Circular Finland program is actively building strong ecosystems on bio-based and circular innovations including large companies, SMEs and research organizations. This joint call was a good way to internationalize the SMEs and ecosystems”, says Tuomas Lehtinen, Senior Advisor Bio & Circular Economy, Business Finland.
“The program is also increasing international co-operation with the forerunner countries of bio and circular economy. This co-operation between the two strong bioeconomy countries of Finland and Sweden is an important step in broadening and deepening the international activities to Nordics, Europe and Japan”, says Jutta Kauppi, Head of Bio and Circular Finland Program. https://www.businessfinland.fi/en/for-finnish-customers/services/programs/bio-and-circular-finland/
Background to the call for projects
The call is a concrete effect of the cooperation that started between the countries in connection to Finland’s celebration during 2017 as 100 years as a sovereign state. Sweden’s gift to Finland was a joint investment in forestry and forest industrial research in the form of researcher positions. This is the second time the four actors announce a joint call.
The call target was to speed up the launch of new biobased products to international markets. The joint projects needed to include at least one Finnish and one Swedish company, but the call was also open for purely Swedish projects. Business Finland funds the Finnish partners and the Swedish part of the call is funded by Vinnova within the strategic innovation program BioInnovation. The budget available to fund Swedish partners was around 25 million SEK and to Finnish partners around 2.5 million Euro.
For more information, please contact:
Anna Wiberg, Program manager
BioInnovation
anna.wiberg@bioinnovation.se
Tuomas Lehtinen, Senior Advisor, Bio & Circular Economy
Business Finland
tuomas.lehtinen@businessfinland.fi
Teija Laitinen, Head of Bioeconomy
CLIC Innovation
teija.laitinen@clicinnovation.fi
- BioInnovation is a Strategic Innovation Programme initiated by the Swedish Forest Industries Federation, IKEM and TEKO. The programme is being funded by Vinnova, the Swedish Energy Agency and Formas, along with stakeholders from the business community, academia, institutes and the public sector. The aim is to increase competitiveness and the level of value added in the Swedish biobased sector by creating the best possible conditions for production of new biobased materials, products and services. www.bioinnovation.se.
- Business Finland offers a broad variety of services that exist to support innovation, internationalisation, investments and tourism. www.businessfinland.fi/en
- CLIC Innovation is an innovation cluster that focuses on bioeconomy, circular economy and energy systems. www.clicinnovation.fi
- Vinnova is Sweden’s innovation authority, tasked with contributing to sustainable growth through improvement of conditions for innovation. www.vinnova.se.