About the Programme
Innovation Vouchers are distributed through a scheme managed by Aston University, in partnership with Birmingham City University. An Innovation Voucher is up to £2,500, of part-funding offered to eligible companies by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to spend on business innovation and business growth activities. The Innovation Vouchers scheme targets SMART specialisation sectors and aims to develop new processes and systems to improve efficiency of small to medium-sized companies (SMEs) and to bring new products and services to market.
NOTE – WE ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR GRANTS OF £1,500
Meet the Team
The Innovation Vouchers Programme enables SME’s in Greater Birmingham and Solihull to:
- Apply for an ERDF grant of up to £2,500. The Innovation Voucher can help your business to access external expertise to support your business to develop new products, services, or internal processes by working with an external experts (e.g. knowledge based organisations, consultants, developers, etc.)
- The value of the Innovation Voucher will need to be matched with a £1 contribution to every £1 received. The typical value of an Innovation Voucher is £2,500 meaning you would also contribute £2,500 to create a total business innovation fund of £5,000.
- Businesses must have a registered or trading address in Birmingham, Solihull, Redditch, Bromsgrove, or Wyre Forest (based on Kidderminster). Proof of address may be requested.
- Please note Innovation Vouchers are available on a strict first come first served basis. To find out more on how you can apply, please click here.
- The Innovation Workshops enables SME’s in Greater Birmingham and Solihull to:
- Access free support in the form of business innovation workshops to make your company more competitive and able to manage business innovation and business growth more effectively.
- Innovation workshops are available through the innovations vouchers scheme, the workshops are funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and therefore eligible companies can participate for free.
- The workshops will help participant SME leaders identify, understand and assess essential strategic and cultural competences, as well as organising mechanisms needed to effect innovation in their organisation.
- Participants will be given the opportunity to consider their own funding strategies and how best to pursue commercial finance in the future. In short these workshops will give you initial tools from which to work directly on your business.
As a whole, from the first iteration of Innovation Vouchers in 2013 to the end of IV 2, the existing and future expected benefits of the programme from both the vouchers and the workshops are likely to deliver a total of £6.9 million net GVA and help create 350 jobs.
