• Recently published in the BOE the new aid package of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism for the application to the Innovative Business Groupings for the improvement of the associated SMEs

• The Packaging Cluster explained days before the operation of the line and examples of success stories developed in previous calls

On Wednesday, October 20, the BOE published the regulatory bases for aid in support of EIPs (Innovative Business Groupings) with the aim of improving the competitiveness of Spanish SMEs, with a record budget of EUR 20 million. The call is part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Spanish Government and has an extra flow of funding from the European Next Generation Funds.

This is the second call of the year, as already in April 5 proposals were submitted by Packaging Cluster and its members, of which 2 projects were accepted (see article).

On this occasion, significant changes have been established in the call, highlighting the realisation of interterritorial projects or larger initiatives with larger consortia. It should be noted the modifications established by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism compared to other calls, where as novelties we find: 1) the specialisation of the line in cross-cutting axes such as economic recovery, green transition and digitalisation, putting Industry 4.0 in the background; 2) the estimated implementation time of the projects, which passes to 10 months from the submission; or 3) the best score or assessment in case of involvement of a company under 5 years of age.

In this preliminary step, the role of the cluster is to make possible the initiatives that are in the design period, to create a consortium with the peculiarities of the bases, and to draw up jointly a report that has the required criteria of consistency with the European strategy for R&D&I or economic viability, among others.

Coinciding with the date of publication, days before the Packaging Cluster held a virtual seminar explaining this funding line and others related to the promotion of innovation in the company.

Javier Elizondo, Manager of ACCIÓ’s Next Generation Office, and Carles Ortiz, Innovation Manager of ORIM, accompanied the organisation in the day with which different aid lines such as CDTI or Red.es were put on the table.

In addition, the cluster makes available to its partners the Next Generation Project Office, an information and connection space in which to know the different ways of transformation of the sector, project ideas, or those that are in preparation, approved or ongoing. Contact us at [email protected] with any questions or proposals, we listen to you!