Innovation vouchers are small lines of credit (usually ranging from €2000 to €20,000) provided by regional or national governments to Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to purchase services from knowledge providers such as universities, research centres, or consulting firms with a view to introducing new products, processes, or services in their business operations.

Innovation vouchers have three main objectives:

1. To stimulate the introduction of product, process, organisational or service innovation in SMEs, which tend to lack leading-edge knowledge compared to large companies or innovative
2. To promote science-industry collaboration and stimulate knowledge Indeed, SMEs tend to have limited exchanges with universities and research centres due to information asymmetries such as the cost linked to the identification of relevant information ; Moreover, universities and research centres tend to have difficulties in finding users of their
3. To foster the formation of networks between SMEs and other academic, research and private Innovation vouchers can be the catalysts for longer-term relationships and collaboration (Innovation Policy Platform).

What you can expect

• Presentation by Jukka Reunavuori on Tampere Region Innovation Voucher (INNOBRIDGE project)
• Other speakers to be announced