The aim of Innovation Consortia is to strengthen co-operation between companies, public research institutions and technological service to develop new generic technology platforms for the coming 5-10 years product and service development in Denmark.

Enterprises must contribute with 50% of the funding. Typically a consortium has a total budget of €2.5m-€5.5m and lasts 3-4 years.

Following aims are defined:

• establish improved co-operation between knowledge institutions and industry;
• establish more knowledge based co-operation between companies;
• increased and improved R&D resources in industry;
• improved innovativeness of Danish economy;
• more excellent public research with relevance for Danish companies;
• commercialisation of research results;
• development of improved competencies and services technological service institutes;
• transfer of new knowledge to Danish companies, and especially to SMEs.

Companies, public research organisations and higher education organisations, but also associated networks, interest organisations, NGOs and public administration are targets and beneficiaries of the programme.

The Innovation Consortia scheme was evaluated in 2010. The 2010 Evaluation report concluded that the scheme provides additionality regarding gross profit and employment for small firms, but not for larger firms participating in innovation consortia.

The measure aims to increase innovation with a potential benefit for the involved enterprises as well as the Danish society as a whole.

The innovation consortium scheme has to contribute to a good framework for companies' research, development and innovation through increased knowledge dissemination in society and a better framework for interplay between companies and knowledge institutions.

The measure is implemented by regular calls for projects once or twice a year. There are no sub-programmes, but calls can be more focused on specific fields.

The instrument is managed by the Danish Council for Technology and Innovation. The 1-2 annual calls have to be published 2 months before the deadline. All calls are open, but the council may focus a call on a specific field. Proposals will be evaluated based on the selection criteria published in the Guidelines, and the Danish Council for Independent Research will assist the council in this process. The applicants should get an answer latest 3 months after the deadline.

All projects have to report twice a year. The final report has to be given latest 5 months after the project.

An Innovation Consortium has to include at least two companies, one public research institution and one advisory and knowledge dissemination party.

There are defined following specific demands:

• the content of the projects has to be generic and results have to be relevant for many companies;
• the projects has to have a high innovation and research level;
• the project must not have in focus product development for one enterprise;
• the co-operation between the consortia partners must be well developed;
• the project has to last between 2-4 years;
• all projects must have a clearly defined start and end.

Following criteria are defined as central for the selection of public co-funding:

• innovation level;
• research level;
• relevance for industry;
• relevance for society;
• new services;
• knowledge transfer;
• transfer of relevant international expertise;
• management;
• budget;
• co-funding from counselling and knowledge transfer organisation, but not from public research organisations.

Companies do not receive public co-funding.

Relevant European expertise can be included.

Relevant international expertise can be included.

There are calls with fixed deadlines.

The horizontal Research and Innovation framework applies.

Grants are given to Research institutions and Advisory and knowledge dissemination parties. Grants may be given to participating business academies, vocational schools and educational institutions offering business-related programmes, but grants are not given to companies or other parties apart from the above mentioned educational institutions.

A main indicator is that the Innovation Consortium projects will generate new generic technology platforms with high potentials for Danish trade and service, and that it will be able to involve SMEs in such projects.

The first 30 innovation consortia were evaluated in 2005. The conclusion was that the consortium measure has a good national economy effect and that the basic principles of the measure are good. However, the evaluation also concluded that the measure could be improved in certain aspects.

Several effect evaluations of the scheme were conducted: in 1998, 2001, 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2010. The 2009 Evaluation report concluded that innovation consortia contribute to the development of new collaboration networks which promotes more private research, development and innovation and which improves the technological service and as a result stengthens knowledge dissemination in Denmark. Innovation consortia strengthen the research networks of universities. The consortia have a high value for the collaborating universities, GTS-institutes and companies. The scheme supports open innovation. The 2010 Evaluation Report concluded that "firms that participated in the IC scheme have experienced significant increases in the growth of gross profit and employment in association with programme participation".

The 2010 Evaluation report concluded that "participants have annual increases in gross profit in the first five years after the start of participation, which are on average 3.7 million DKK [€0.5m] above what would be expected in the absence of programme participation. Under the assumption that participants would have experienced the same developments in gross profit growth as the controls in the absence of the programme, the additional 3.7 million DKK [€0.5m] per year in the first five years after participation is the genuine effect of participating in an IC. Over a ten year-period, the average potential gross profit effect is ... with no longer statistical significant. An obvious explanation might be that potential effects of the programme are realised in the first years after starting to participate in the programme, so the average of the annual increases over a period of time becomes smaller the longer the time period under consideration".

The report concluded also that there were no potential programme effects for those samples which include large firms. Instead, positive potential effects of the programme were found on gross profit and employment for relatively small firms".

The most recently funded projects can be found here. The call was published in 2011, but the funding decision was made in 2012.

Guidelines for innovation consortiums (published in English, January 2009)

The Act on Technology and Innovation no. 419, June 6, 2002

The Financial Act (Finanslov)

The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education (Ministeriet for Forskning, Innovation og Videregående Uddannelser)

The Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation (Styrelsen for Forskning og Innovation)

The Danish Council for Technology and Innovation (Rådet for Teknologi og Innovation)

Julie Krener, Danish Agency for science, technology and innovation
Britta Vegeberg, Danish Agency for science, technology and innovation