The European Commission adopted the new Work Programme for the Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) Instrument with a budget of €159 million on February 6, 2023.
- 07 February 2023
With this Work Programme, the Commission renews its commitment to promote the interregional dimension of innovation investment projects and to encourage the development of European value chains in less developed regions.
The Work Programme will focus on the following:
- Interregional cooperation in shared or complementary smart specialisation areas;
- Promoting innovation and smart economic transformation for addressing societal challenges in the EU;
- Supporting innovation and development of value chains in less developed regions;
I3 Instrument: Cohesion dimension for innovation and interregional cooperation
The I3 Instrument helps to turn innovative ideas into actual investments by giving a consortium of interregional innovation actors the tools to bring their innovations to a mature level and ready for commercialisation and scale-up. The I3 supports consortia made of researchers, businesses, civil society and public administrations for carrying out joint innovation investment projects. The final beneficiaries are companies, in particular small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The projects will generate good practice that addresses regional challenges. Lessons learnt will be disseminated by the new Smart Specialisation Community of practice (S3 CoP).
Next Steps – New I3 Grants
New calls will be launched in Q2 2023 to tackle digital, green transition and smart manufacturing challenges linked to the challenges identified in the New European Innovation Agenda.
These calls will provide financial and advisory support for demonstration activities, commercialisation, and upscaling of mature innovations and developing new value chains in less developed regions. A Capacity building Call for less developed regions will follow in Q3 2023.