Start-up and technology centers

Technological innovations are an important key to a sustainable transformation. They also make an important contribution to securing local value creation and employment and to managing structural change in the Rhineland region and the northern Ruhr area. With the new "Start-up and Technology Centers" funding offer, North Rhine-Westphalia and the EU are supporting the equipping of start-up and technology centers in the JTF funding area. The offer serves to provide tailor-made rooms, workshops and laboratories for innovative technology projects.

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the European Union are providing funding from the Just Transition Fund (JTF) for the following measures:

For the equipment and modernization of specialized incubators, workshops, pilot factories and maker spaces in existing start-up and technology centers. The equipment includes, among other things:

• Laboratory facilities
• Machinery, tools and technical equipment
• Large-scale test facilities, test equipment, experimental and trial facilities
• Pilot and demonstration facilities
• IT resources
  

The modernization of the correspondingly equipped rooms is eligible for funding, provided this serves to restore a contemporary level of comfort of use that has been lost in the meantime or is necessary for the operation of the equipment.

Innovative, new and pioneering projects with significant economic potential for the EU internal market that meet the objectives of the new EU initiative "Strategic Technologies for Europe" (STEP) or contribute to reducing the European Union's dependencies are also eligible for this funding. They should support the development or production of critical technologies (digital technologies and technology-intensive innovations, environmentally friendly or resource-efficient technologies and biotechnologies) or secure corresponding value chains in the European Union.