The Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism (MINETUR) improves funding conditions for ITEA participants

The Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism (MINETUR) has applied improvements to its funding conditions for ITEA project participants in 2015 and gives a positive outlook for 2016.

Main improvements (already applied in 2015) are:

• the loan is now optional;
• the maximum grant amount based on the innovation criteria is increased:
  • up to 50% for SMEs
  • up to 40% for Large Industry

Since the start of ITEA 3 in 2014, the ITEA Office, in close cooperation with the Public Authorities, have been continuously working on shortening the time from project idea (Call opening) to project start. In ITEA 3 Call 1 with the project 3DPathology we demonstrated the feasibility of ITEA’s ‘10-month from project idea to project start’ objective, showing the positive effect produced by the actions taken together with the Public Authorities. The ITEA Office will continue to do its utmost in the near ITEA 3 future to achieve this objective and support project consortia in any way.

We hope that the above-mentioned improvements strengthen the position of current Spanish ITEA participants and encourages interested Spanish companies to become active in future ITEA Calls.

For further information, interested companies can access:

• the 2015 national Call paper: http://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2015-5581
• Minetur funding Portal: http://www.minetur.gob.es/PortalAyudas/Paginas/index.aspx