Innovation mandates provide support to postdoctoral researchers who wish to deploy active efforts to achieve the effective transfer, the exploitation and the utilisation of their research findings, either through a collaboration with an existing company, or a new spin-off company to be established.
The ultimate goal is to bridge the gap between academia and industry and to help the researchers to make the transition into the business world. During the implementation of the mandate, the mobility of researchers between academia and industry is encouraged.
The projects which are implemented in this funding programme are Strategic Basic Research projects. They present a risk level that is too high to allow their execution as an industrial R&D project. Consequently, there is a strong input from the knowledge centres, but with a valorisation finality that belongs to the business world. The projects eligible for funding are focused on the development of basic research, on ensuring the exploitation of the results within companies, and on the economic valorisation of research.
Funding is granted on a project basis to individual researchers affiliated with a knowledge centre to allow them to conduct strategic basic research in close collaboration with a company. The funding percentage is between 50 and 100% of the personnel and operating costs of the postdoctoral candidate.
© Vlaio
More info (in Dutch) or contact the Valorisation Office.