News

Operational Programme Enterprise and Innovations for Competitiveness (OP PIC) in 2016

For this year, the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT) is preparing two waves of grant calls within the OP PIC. The first and smaller wave will arrive in May but the majority of the grant programmes of the OP PIC will be announced in August. The officers will be distributing another fourth from the overall funding allocated, ie CZK 116 billion, according to new rules.

In comparison to previous years, the MIT does not count with the possibility of submitting grant applications in advance any more. Thus, in the grant programmes of the OP PIK, no two-round submitting of grant applications is needed. The cancellation of advance applications will impact the project preparation, as the deadlines for submitting complete applications will be shortened considerably.

It is presumed that this year’s calls will not fundamentally differ from last year’s calls; but it will be necessary to work ahead of time and divide the work on the projects thoroughly. Ideally, the projects should be ready in general terms by the summer holidays. In the table below, key grant programmes along with a brief description and the anticipated grant amount are given.

Low-carbon technologies – Call I

The aim of the programme is to encourage companies' competitiveness and the sustainability of the Czech economy through introducing innovative technologies in the field of electromobility, handling energy and recyclable materials. Another aim is to increase the use of more effective and reliable low-carbon technologies which are not being used commonly in the Czech Republic nowadays. The output of the projects realised under this call is the extension of the charging infrastructure, the increase of the number of purchased electromobiles and making use of the potential for the introduction of modern low-carbon technologies in the field of handling energy.

The grant may be awarded to businesses of all sizes including businesses with up to 100% public sector ownership. Grant applications will be accepted from 1 April 2016 to 31 July 2016.

The table below provides an overview of the supported activities and the anticipated grant amount.

Epsilon

The Technology Agency of the Czech Republic announced a single-stage public competition in the field of granting subsidies to applied research and experimental development projects which focus on the cooperation of companies and research institutes and the outcomes of which have a great potential of being promptly used in new products, manufacturing procedures and services within the “Epsilon” programme. Projects to be solved will focus primarily on the following priority fields: knowledge-based economy, power industry and materials and the environment. The solvers may be businesses of all sizes and research institutes. The amount of subsidies granted varies from 25% to 60% of the eligible expenses. Grant applications may be submitted by 27 April 2016.

SK – Grants

Call for a support of growth of research-developmental and innovation capacities in industry and services

On February 26th, 2016, Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic published a call for the submission of applications for grant of non-refundable financial contribution. Within the call, eligible projects of product innovation, process innovation and organisation innovation combined with either process or product innovation will be supported. Aid will be provided for initial investment in tangible and intangible assets, which relate to establishment of new establishments, or diversification of manufacture of existing establishment into products that were not manufactured by that establishment before, or to substantial change of the manufacturing process of an existing establishment. The aim of this call is to support project realised with the aim of narrowing the technological gap of the Slovak Republic, projects realising technological transfer from research-developmental organisations, and projects realising other innovation measures aimed at innovation of products and / or processes (and alternatively also organisational innovation).

This call has been allocated 75,000,000 EUR.The maximum aid intensity for the project realized by private sector is up to 45%, depending on the size of the applicant and the location of realisation of the project, whereas the minimum grant has been set to 50,000 EUR and the maximum to 5,000,000 EUR per project. The realization of the activities of project should not exceed 18 months. With certain exceptions, eligible applicants are private sector legal entities that are micro, small, medium and large enterprises. The call will last until the exhaustion of the allocated resources.

If these issues relate to your company, we would be happy to provide you with more detailed information. Feel free to contact us at any time.

Grants CZ

Luděk Hanáček +420 246 042 108 lhanacek@deloittece.com

Antonín Weber +420 246 042 394 antoweber@deloittece.com

Grants and Incentives SK

Martin Rybar +421 (2) 582 49 113 mrybar@deloittece.com

Incentives

Daniela Fotrová +420 246 042 921 dfotrova@deloittece.com