Grants for innovation support the introduction of a new or significantly improved product, process, service or organisational solution within a business. The key criterion is the degree of novelty – it is assessed whether the solution is new only for the company, for the market in Slovakia, or on an international scale, with a higher level bringing more points as well as a higher aid intensity. Eligible expenditure tends to be technology, software, development work, testing, intellectual property protection, and sometimes the wages of the development team. Cooperation with a research institution and a demonstrated commercialisation plan are rewarded with extra points. A weakness of applications tends to be claiming innovation without comparison to existing solutions – the assessor needs to see specifically how the outcome differs from the alternatives available.
See also: Innovation voucher, Technology readiness level (TRL), Grants for Research and Development.
