FTI results announced
Major funding has been awarded to 15 innovative projects to help speed up their access to market.
The European Commission has presented €32.7m to the selected ventures, which collectively involve 67 partners in 15 countries. The results are the outcome of the second round of funding being awarded under the Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) scheme, part of Horizon 2020. Each of the projects can receive up to €3m.
Commenting, Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, said: “Under Horizon 2020 we aim to give top innovative businesses a head start in the race to market. These latest results bring the total investment to nearly €70m in fast-access EU funding. This instrument is delivering on its promise to promote innovation activities at the close-to market stage.”
The awarded projects include designing a scooping device for fighting forest fires by air, bringing the recovery and reuse of plastic waste from photovoltaic panels to an industrial scale and developing a novel diagnostic to make a better use of antibiotics. Other notable projects see the development of a mobile 3D scanner for forensic data, and building an exoskeleton to rehabilitate patients with spinal cord or brain injury.
The FTI scheme was launched in January 2015 and the second round of the scheme attracted a total of 229 project proposals involving 922 participants. According to the Commission, this brings the total of proposals received since the launch of the programme to 498, of which 31 together received more than €68m in funding. Almost half the project participants in this stage are SMEs.
