The Ministry of Industry launches a public consultation to identify tractor projects that modernize Spanish industry

Within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, the projects must have a significant impact on competitiveness and contribute to the double green and digital transition established by the European Union.

The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism has issued a notice of expression of interest to identify areas of interest within the Program for the Promotion of Industrial Competitiveness and Sustainability projects. These actions are proposed as tractor projects with long-term effects, carried out cooperatively, involving all or almost all the links in the industrial value chain to which it intends to insert and with a backbone of the territory, as well as SME involvement. In turn, they must have a significant impact on competitiveness, and contribute to the dual green and digital transition established by the European Union.

After the analysis and evaluation of all the proposals received, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism will define the areas of interest for the realization of future calls for aid for strategic projects for the industrial transition.

Participation in this notice does not generate any right to access the potential funding that may be called for by the Administration to support tractor projects, nor any obligation to the Administration.

The deadline for submission of proposals will end on January 20, 2021.

Requirements that must be met by the projects submitted to this expression of interest

• It must involve a substantial part of a certain industrial value chain that it must identify. This representativeness will be justified by a sufficient number of companies and entities in this chain, including SMEs, and their adequate territorial representation.

• The project must be tractor and cooperative. This will require detailing a leading company that is the backbone of the joint project, as well as an additional minimum number of 5 participating entities. In addition to all the companies or entities interested in carrying out the project, at least 40% must respond to the SME category.

• Among the participating entities, there must be at least one that is a provider of knowledge, and that, as such, has sufficient technical and organizational capacity to carry out the R&D activities that the tractor project incorporates. .

• The project must have a marked innovative character and / or provide an important added value in terms of R & D & I, which allows the development of new products or services with a high research content or the development of a process. fundamentally innovative production.

• The project must have a backbone character in the territory, with an impact on more than one autonomous community.

• The projects must have among their objectives energy efficiency, the improvement of the sustainability of their process or product, the decarbonization of their activity, the incorporation of aspects of circular economy, the best use of resources or the value chain digitization.

• The benefits of the project should not be limited to the companies or sectors directly involved in the project, but should be of greater relevance and application in the economy or society through positive drag effects. clearly defined, in a concrete and identifiable way.

• Beneficiaries must participate in the co-financing of the project.

• The leading company in the project and the participating entities must commit to disseminating the new knowledge acquired in the context of the work funded beyond their sole customers and suppliers. The project must allow the wide dissemination of the knowledge acquired, whether or not protected by a title or an intellectual property right.

• The companies that make up each tractor project proposal must be validly incorporated in Spain, not be subject to a court order to recover aid that has been considered illegal and incompatible in the context of a decision of the European Commission . None of the entities involved in the project should have difficulties within the meaning of the European Commission's guidelines on aid for rescuing and restructuring companies in crisis.

• The minimum budget for the projects will be € 40,000,000