Good practice:

Regional calls for testing innovative digital products and services

In an economy centred on the uses, value creation occurs at the crossroads of strategic sectors, such as cybersecurity at the crossroads of digital and security sectors.
This call for projects aims to:
• promote these new interconnections vectors of innovation and new promising markets for Brittany;
• foster the adaptation of an existing innovative digital solution on a new market or on its first targeted market.
Eligibility criteria include:
Partnership: at least one SME located in Brittany (project leader) and a tester (any kind of structure, any location) to implement the solution developed.
Project duration: maximum 24 months with at least 4 months of testing.
The companies working on these strategic sectors are informed of the call by regional business support organisations.
All projects have to be supported by one of the 7 Technopoles (local business support organisations) for the construction and follow up of the projects.
For the selection of the projects, a committee consisting of digital experts evaluates the projects based on different criteria: the impact for the territory, the innovative nature, the relevance of the consortium, …
The financial support is granted to the leader and exceptionally to the tester either through:
• subsidy: 35 % of the eligible costs, maximum 50 k€;
• reimbursable interest free advance: 50 % of the eligible costs, maximum 150 k€.
Eligible costs are R&D costs: HR costs, consumables, subcontracting, equipment depreciat

2017-2019: 1,7 M€ have been granted (900 k€ in 2017, 360 k€ in 2018, 470 k€ in 2019 / 950 k€ on zero rate loan and 750 k€ on subsidy).
One person in the Regional Council of Brittany is in charge of this call and the 7 technopoles are in charge of detection, editing and monitoring of the projects.

From 2017 to 2019, out of 31 projects have been selected by a committee and financed among with 5 projects on security including 2 projects on cybersecurity. 1 of the projects on security has showed good results at the end of the programme. In fact, the team was reinforced by 4 people and testing activities have already led to economic benefits. The solution was selected by two organizations to be tested in schools and is at the origin of ambitious forecasts of sales revenues for the company.

A support to project development and a regular monitoring both for technical and economic aspects are key.
The active involvement of local business support organisations helps ensure the commitment of SME and the experimental structure.

The call for projects can be adopted by other regions that aim to support experimental projects for innovative digital products and services. This call could also focus on other thematics that are strategic for the region : the call could focus only on cybersecurity, or for instance, cybersecurity for one strategic sector (agriculture, health, etc.).
The success of this call in Brittany relies on the participation of the cluster and stakeholders (technopoles) that help to source, support and follow the projects.
Furthermore, projects approved in this call might be interesting to local communities and municipalities of other regions.