topic 

Optical technologies

Employing over 100,000 people and with an annual turnover of EUR 16 billion, optical technologies are a vital technology area for the future. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an ever stronger role in this area of technology as drivers of innovation and as the transfer interface for research results between the scientific and business community. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is particularly keen to support those SMEs heavily engaged in research and development and to fund innovative research projects.

Through its KMU-innovativ: Optische Technologien funding programme, the BMBF is supporting industrial research and pre-competitive development projects run by SMEs to boost their innovative capacity. The essential objective of the support provided by the BMBF is to strengthen the position of SMEs in the accelerated transfer of technology from the pre-competitive phase to its practical application.

The funding is targeted at high-risk, cross-technology, application-oriented industrial research and pre-competitive development projects. These R&D projects must be classifiable as being in the optical technologies field and be important to the market positioning of the company.

Procedure

Skilled advisers are available to answer your questions. The support service will help you with basic questions on funding. Detailed technical questions will be answered by the competent project management organisation for that area of technology. For the submission of project outlines a special online tool is available.

Information on submission

Project outlines can be submitted at any time. Evaluation cut-off dates for project outlines are 15 April and 15 October.

Funding criteria

Important criteria for a positive decision on funding are excellence, the degree of innovation, and the contribution the research will make to the solution of current socially relevant issues. The detailed evaluation criteria can be found in the funding regulations. Submitted project outlines will be assessed competitively.

Technology and application areas

In line with the published funding regulations for the BMBF's KMU-innovativ: Optische Technologien funding programme, support is provided for cross-cutting R&D projects in subject areas directed at particular applications or sectors: As example, a number of subject areas or research questions are given:

• Optical technologies in production
• Optical metrology and sensor technology
• Bio-photonics and life-science
• Lighting and display technology

Outlining tool

An easy-to-use, effective online tool is available for you to submit your project outlines.

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  Shortcuts to funding

  Are you planning an ambitious research project in a small or medium-sized company? Then you probably have an excellent idea, but don't have much time to look for the right funding option. Through its KMU-innovativ scheme, the BMBF is trying to make access to funding as simple as possible for you.
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