What is the Innovation and Technology Funding Instruments?
The Innovation and Funding Technology Instruments fund pre-commercialisation demonstration, market testing, and validation. Beneficiaries include higher education institutions; small, medium and micro-enterprises; and start-up companies. The funding is responsible for developing and managing support instruments that stimulate industry innovation through breaching the gap between research and technology development for industry applications & works closely with industry, research institutions, other government departments and agencies to promote technology development, diffusion and commercialisation.
The fund strives to de-risk technological innovations as they mature through the Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) scale. Once the concept for a technology idea has been proven and the application assessed and approved, the IFPCS Division provides financial support to the technology development using the Technology Development Fund (TDF) for further development or the Commercialisation Support Fund (CSF) for projects that have been demonstrated and are now ready and participate in the market.
All funded projects are monitored during and after development while providing other non-financial support which varies from project to project. Non-financial support may include linking TIA funded companies with other funders such as the IDC to fully commercialise their technologies.
The IFPCS Division seeks to drive the following initiatives in a bid to strengthen the programmes offering:
- Upstream integration;
- Downstream integration;
- Concurrent innovation;
- Development of new funding instruments; and
- Patent Maintenance Support Fund (PMSF).
The objective of the fund:
The fund aims to boost South African industry by supporting research and technology development and enhancing the numbers of appropriately-skilled people. THRIP brings together the best of SA’s researchers, academics and industry players.
