Objectives

The ERC Proof of concept provides additional funding to ERC grant holders to establish proof of concept, identify a development path and an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) strategy for ideas arising from an ERC-funded project. The objective is to provide funds to enable ERC-funded ideas to be brought to a pre-demonstration stage where potential commercialisation opportunities have been identified.

The commercialisation process of an innovation may vary widely between different fields of research/invention (e.g. life science technologies taking normally longer to reach market than software technologies) and depending on which model of commercialisation is pursued. Innovations can be commercialised through licenses to a new or existing company or through a venture funded start-up, depending on the nature of the invention/idea, its potential markets, the inventor's plans for future involvement in the commercialisation, etc. The ERC Proof of concept aims at supporting an ERC grant-holder during the pre-demonstration phase to prepare a "package" to be presented to venture capitalists or companies that might invest in its technology and take it through the early commercialisation phase.

The aim is that of conducting a proof of concept of an idea that was generated in the course of the ERC-funded project, i.e. to undertake further work to verify whether, in principle, this idea has near term market potential. This would help:

• establishing viability, technical issues and overall direction
• clarifying IPR position and strategy
• providing feedback for budgeting and other forms of commercial discussion
• providing connections to later stage funding
• covering initial expenses for establishing a company

The ERC Proof of concept funding may be used for conducting further work (i.e. activities which were not scheduled to be funded by the ERC Starting and Advanced Grants) to verify the innovation potential of an idea arising from an ERC-funded project.

First deadline: 15 June 2011 17.00.00 (Brussels local time)
Final deadline: 8 November 2011 17.00.00 (Brussels local time)

http://erc.europa.eu/

ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/docs/wp/ideas/l-wp-201102_en.pdf

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.FP7DetailsCallPage&call_id=389

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