The ENEA Proof of Concept Programme
ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, (https://www.enea.it/en/) has created a fund intended for co-financing proof of concept (PoC) projects in partnership with companies.
The PoC projects are aimed at developing technologies stemming from ENEA’s laboratories, with a relatively low TRL (Technology Readiness Level), potentially able to meet the innovation needs of the industrial partners.
The duration of PoC projects, targeted to demonstrate the feasibility of a technology or product concept, must not exceed 18 months. Each of them may receive a grant from the Agency not exceeding 60,000 euros, which will be added to the co-financing share of the partner to cover at least 10% of the direct costs of the project. Personnel costs, as well existing infrastructure utilization costs, are provided in kind.
The industrial partner acquires an option right to obtain an onerous exclusive license, under conditions that will take into account the financial and in-kind contribution provided by the partner to the project, on any patents or other Intellectual Property rights deposited by ENEA for the protection of such results (foreground) and/or on any ENEA background that may be necessary.
Following an open-innovation approach, whereby no single actor possesses all the skills needed to develop a new technology, the Programme stimulates the creation of strategic innovation partnerships with a complementary role between public research and business for a common (win-win) objective. Moreover, the Programme reduces the risk of investing in innovation for the industrial partner and, matching the different actors involved in the development process right from the embryonic stages of defining a technology, significantly increase the likelihood of adoption of public research results by the productive fabric.
At the beginning of November 2023, a public call is going to be launched in order to identify industrial partners interested in participating in the Programme.
