The Polish Industrial Development Agency (Agencja Rozwoju Przemysłu, ARP) has launched a new program targeted to small and medium enterprises. Their Open Innovation Network (Sieć Otwartych Innowacji) will support entrepreneurs who are looking for financial support to either purchase a license or property rights to innovative technologies.
The financing received from ARP can be used to purchase patents, to cover the costs of acquiring proper know-how, or to buy intellectual property rights to patent applications, utility models, industrial designs, copyrights, and others.
ARP plans to allocate 10 million PLN to this program. Each applicant can receive up to 70% of the value of the potential transaction and will be legally bound to implement the new technology in their production or service activities. The grant does not cover the costs of implementation, so you should carefully consider your application.
The grants are subject to a few formal requirements. First of all, each entrepreneur has to run a business within the Polish territory. Additionally, the technology she works on needs to be on the list of National Smart Specializations (Krajowe Inteligentne Specjalizacje, KIS) published by the Ministry of Development.
The applications are open until 31st October 2017. If you wish to receive a grant, you need to fill out an application and send it to ARP in both electronic and paper form. After they receive your documents, they will be verified against both formal requirements and their merit. The financing institution will check whether the technology you wish to use fulfills the innovative criterion, as well as whether you will be able to implement it at your own cost. The last step of verification will check whether you have correctly estimated the value of the planned transaction.
You can fill out the application form here: formularz.arp.pl
