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Innovation Fund Denmark

Innovation Fund Denmark

Innovation Fund Denmark (IFD) was established in April 2014 following a broad party-political agreement to consolidate three existing national funding bodies within a single new entity. It invests in entrepreneurs, scientists and companies with knowledge and ideas to solve societal challenges. More specifically, IFD wants to

  • Strengthen innovation in Denmark by increasing the number of innovative companies and the number of highly educated people in those companies.
  • Create solutions to societal challenges through knowledge and new technology.
  • Increase the investments of private enterprises in research and development and create growth and jobs in Denmark.

For this, IFD three areas for investment:

  1. Talent: students, graduates and researchers who wish to be entrepreneurs or start a research career in the private sector.
  2. InnoBooster: for SMEs, entrepreneurs and researchers with strong development plans for a business development
  3. Grand Solutions: for long-term projects/partnerships focused on new solutions within the field of research, technology, development and commercialization

 

Engagement activities

Industrial PhD & temporary mobility

Under the Industrial Researcher Programme, IFD invests in both Industrial PhD and Postdoc projects. These research projects within all research fields provided the research project is of a high quality and is commercially relevant to the company.

  • Industrial PhD: An Industrial PhD is a three-year industrially focused research project and PhD education which is carried out in collaboration between a company, an Industrial PhD candidate and a university. The PhD candidate is employed in the private sector company and enrolled at the university. The private sector company applies for funding for the project from Innovation Fund Denmark, and the student is employed by the company and receives a salary during the entire Industrial PhD project. The researcher has full dedication to the Industrial PhD project and shares her/his working time between the company and the university.
  • Industrial Postdoc: An Industrial Postdoc project is a collaboration between an Industrial Postdoc, a company and a research institution about solving specific research tasks. The private sector company applies for project funding from IFD and the postdoctoral researcher is employed with a salary (at least the same as that of a postdoc of the same level employed at a university) by the company during the project.

 

Commercialisation of R&D results

Both schemes (Industrial PhD and Industrial Postdoc) are also applied under model of Industrial Researcher in the Public Sector, which has the following specific features:

  • Supporting innovation and development in the public sector through focused and application-oriented research projects.
  • Developing researchers with knowledge about research and development in the public sector.
  • Building networks and support exchange of knowledge between public sector organisations and research institutions.

 

Stakeholders involved

  • University students
  • Researchers
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Academic organizations
  • Business organizations

 

What can EURAXESS/your institution do?/ What can EURAXESS/your institution learn from this?

Although the funding programmes detailed under this case study highlight the benefit for the researchers, in the background there is a strong need for academia - business engagement. All of the detailed programmes will obviously contribute to strengthening this engagement, but previous relationship needs to exist in order to prepare the proposals. This is another example of why a partnering tool such as the one offered by the EURAXESS portal can be of much interest also for business organizations.

 

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