These aid schemes from the Ministry of the Economy and Foreign Trade, which are part of a set of support measures, aim to support innovation clusters.  

An "innovation cluster" is defined as a grouping of independent enterprises or research organisations. This grouping must be active in a particular sector or region or must share similar or complementary interests or skills. 

Its aim is to:

• promote innovation by encouraging interaction, the sharing of facilities and the exchange of knowledge and expertise for the purpose of research, development or innovation
• contribute to technology transfer, networking and the dissemination of scientific and technical information between the enterprises and research organisations that compose the grouping

 The aid can cover 2 types of expenses:

• investments in an innovation cluster
• animation costs of an innovation cluster

Beneficiaries

All enterprises and all public and private research organisations established in Luxembourg are eligible for these schemes. 

The recipient of the aid for investment in an innovation cluster must be responsible for managing the installations and activities of the innovation cluster as well as the access to the premises. Access to the premises must be open to enterprises and public or private research organisations that wish to use the cluster’s installations. The fees for using the installations must reflect the investment, maintenance and management costs.

Eligible costs

Investment expenses  

The aid can be granted to the manager of an innovation cluster for the following investments:

• land and buildings for research laboratories and training facilities
• research, laboratory and testing equipment
• broadband network equipment

Animation expenses

Eligible costs for the animation of an innovation cluster are the staff and administrative expenses associated with the following activities:

• promotional operations designed to recruit new members
• management of the installations of an innovation cluster
• organisation of training programmes, workshops and conferences to facilitate knowledge transfer and networking among the members of an innovation cluster

Forms of aid

Investment expenses 

The maximum aid intensity is 15%. Bonuses can be granted to small enterprises (+20%), medium-sized enterprises (+10%) and, in some cases, to public research organisations (up to +35%). 

Animation expenses

The aid can be:

• linear, limited to 50% of the annual eligible costs over a maximum period of 5 years
• degressive, in which case the intensity can attain 100% in the first year and must subsequently decline, in a linear fashion, to a rate of 0% in the fifth year

Bonuses (up to a total maximum intensity of 75%) and period extensions (up to a maximum of 10 years) can be granted to public research organisations under certain conditions. 

Submitting an application

Aid applications and their appendixes should be submitted both:

• in electronic format (pdf and docx or doc, rtf, odt) to the following e-mail address: loi.rdi@eco.etat.lu. The mail subject must include the name of the company and the name of the project
• and in paper format to the Ministry of the Economy and Foreign Trade, Directorate of Research and Innovation, L-2914 Luxembourg

Aid applications must be submitted before the innovation investments are made or before the relevant connected activities are launched. Before submitting your application, consult the guidelines for the submission of aid applications.