Innosuisse to invest CHF 21 million in new projects

The NTN – Innovation Boosters brings together the most important players from science, industry and society in Switzerland in promising fields of innovation. The program stimulates the testing of jointly developed, concrete innovation ideas in an open innovation culture.

With a budget of CHF 21 million, the NTN – Innovation Booster provides direct funding to selected innovation teams for the development and testing of innovative ideas while targeting collaborative learning and the exchange of experiences between the teams. Each NTN – Innovation Booster has a thematic focus, which is determined by the consortium. Innovation has abroad interpretation spanning from technology to business models, culture to methods. The NTN – Innovation Boosters are set to provide Swiss SMEs with sustainable competitive advantages and make a significant contribution to solving societal challenges.

First call attracts 64 applications
In the first call for proposals, the Innosuisse committee received 64 applications from which it approved twelve projects. The applications received cover a wide range of topics, particularly in the areas of health, digitalisation and sustainability. The projects will receive funding from period 2021-2024.

The selected projects are developing solutions on the following topics:

• Additive Manufacturing

• Applied Circular Economy

• Blockchain Nation Switzerland

• Databooster

• Energy Lab

• Futur de la Microtechnique

• Living Labs for Decarbonisation

• Next Generation of Food Ecosystems

• Photonics

• Sport et Activité Physique

• Technology and Special Needs

• User-Centred Innovation in Medtech

Innosuisse expects the NTN – Innovation Boosters to generate around 1,000 radical innovation ideas over the next four years, around a third of which should be developed further into concrete solutions.

The first cohort will kick off the program at the beginning of 2021. Calls for proposals for further NTN – Innovation Boosters will take place annually in November. The next deadline for submissions is the end of February 2021.

(Press release/RAN)