The Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund seeks to invest in the development and deployment of disruptive technologies and applications on a commercial basis, drive collaboration between Ireland’s world-class research base and industry, facilitate enterprises to compete directly for funding in support of the development and adoption of these technologies and seed a new wave of start-ups. The DTIF is explicitly linked to National Strategic Outcome 5: A strong economy, supported by enterprise, innovation and skills.
The fund is for clients of Enterprise Ireland, Údarás na Gaeltachta, IDA Ireland and research performing organisations in the State that are collaborating on industrial research and / or experimental development in highly innovative projects addressing one of the six National Research Priority Areas: ICT, health and wellbeing, food, energy, climate action and sustainability, manufacturing and materials, and services and business processes
The main eligibility criteria for DTIF include:
- all projects should be seeking minimum funding of €1.5 million over three years
- each project to have at least three independent partners seeking funding from DTIF, including at least one SME and one other enterprise partner
- SMEs can claim no more than 50% of their eligible costs, whereas large companies can claim no more than 40% of their eligible costs
- research organisations (including colleges) can claim up to 100% of their eligible costs but can receive no more than 50% of the total DTIF grant aid per project
- to draw down funding under DTIF, project partners must be:
- a current client of Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland or Údarás na Gaeltachta or an eligible Research Performing Organisation (RPO)
- based in Ireland
- the type of eligible research to be carried out by all partners, must include ‘industrial research’ and/or ‘experimental development’, that is, within Technology Readiness Levels 3-9
- all company partners must provide financial information to demonstrate that they are not Undertakings in Difficulty (UiD)