Demonstration Project for the Industrial Sector

This year's open-ended call for proposals for demonstration project has been open to applications as long as funding was available. On 24 September 2020, the portfolio board allocated the remaining funding, and the call is therefore shut down. The next call for demonstration projects will be active in early 2021. More information about the new call will be published on our website in the beginning of December.

A Demonstration Project is to strengthen companies’ own efforts to demonstrate new technology for applications with major socio-economic benefits. Projects are to ensure expertise, job creation, value creation and a competitive industrial sector in Norway.

The Research Council’s call for proposals for Demonstration Projects in 2020 covers only the thematic areas of “Petroleum”.

The call aims to promote collaboration within the petroleum industry in order to ensure the development and application of new technology that can reduce the cost of activities on the Norwegian continental shelf, increase recovery rates, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to improved conditions relating to health, safety and the environment.

The call is targeted towards Norwegian supplier companies and sub-contractors that, together with end-users, have a need for pilot testing and demonstration of new technology for use on the Norwegian continental shelf or to sell in international markets.

Most of the work relating to the technology must be performed in Norway and is to safeguard Norwegian value creation and jobs. Demonstration and qualification activities are to be carried out under realistic conditions offshore or in suitable facilities on land. Pilot testing activities themselves may be conducted abroad.

This call is open-ended and grant applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis. Applications will be processed in groups. For more information, see “Anticipated notification of funding decisions” (under “Administrative procedures”).

The Norwegian-language call for proposals is the legally binding version.

State aid This call for proposals constitutes a funding scheme that is notified to the EFTA Surveillance Authority. More information about what this entails is presented in the section below, “Conditions for funding”.

Funding awarded under this scheme is granted in accordance with Article 25 of the General Block Exemption Regulation for state aid (Commission Regulation (EU) No 651/2014 of 17 June 2014). In addition, the common provisions set out in Chapter 1 of the regulation must also be applied. See the regulation here.

This funding scheme is to be practised in compliance with the EEA state aid rules. This means that conditions and concepts are to be interpreted in keeping with corresponding conditions and concepts in the state aid rules. In the event of conflict between the text of the call and the state aid rules, the latter will have precedence. The text of the call may be adjusted for this same reason.

State aid may not be given to an undertaking which is subject to an outstanding recovery order following a formal decision by the EFTA Surveillance Authority or the European Commission that state aid received is illegal and incompatible with the internal market. Nor may support be granted to an enterprise that is defined as an “undertaking in difficulty” under the state aid rules.

The call for proposals has been approved as an aid scheme by The EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) with the reference: GBER14/2020/R&D&I.

Requirements relating to the Project Owner

• The Project Owner must be a supplier company for the petroleum sector that carries out activities of an industrial or business nature and has been issued an enterprise number under the Norwegian Register of Business Enterprises.
• The Project Owner must secure project funding (in addition to any Research Council funding) and implement other measures needed to utilise the project results in connection with its own activities.

Requirements relating to collaboration and roles in the project

• The Project Owner is required to carry out the project in effective collaboration with companies that are end-users of the technology. End-users are normally oil companies, but shipowners, suppliers or others operating within the petroleum industry may also be relevant. End-users must provide binding financial and/or professional contributions to the project. Letters of Intent/Interest from the end-users describing their commitments must be attached to the grant application.
• The Project Owner may carry out the project in binding cooperation with other supplier companies in Norway. These companies will have a portion of their project costs covered through the Research Council’s support for the project, which means they will become recipients of state aid.
• Norwegian and international specialist groups and research organisations, or companies that are suppliers of R&D services, may take part in the project as sub-contractors responsible for carrying out specific R&D activities commissioned by companies involved in the project. Suppliers of R&D services to the project may not claim any rights to project results.
• A project participant may only be assigned a single role in the project. This means that the Project Owner and any partners (company partners) must not serve as a supplier of R&D services in the same project, and vice versa.
• Companies taking part in the project may be not in a dependent relationship with any of the R&D suppliers in the project, for example as part of the same business concern. They must operate according to the arm’s length principle.
• Companies (Project Owner, company partners and end-users) participating in the project that are in a mutually dependent relationship with one another will be considered to be one and the same recipient in accordance with the state aid rules.
• Other international stakeholders may take part in the project, but their costs will not be eligible for support from the Research Council.

About Demonstration Projects

• Demonstration Projects build on a specific innovation produced by the companies participating in the project. The innovation can be in the form of a new product, service or production process, or a new means of delivering products and services. The innovation may also entail significant improvements in or new characteristics of existing products, processes or services.
• Companies need to demonstrate and verify technology/innovations before market launch and moving forward with commercialisation. It is this need for development (“experimental development”) that the project is to cover.
• The scope and risk profile of the project must be such that the companies would not be able to carry out the project without public funding. The support from the Research Council must be essential to reducing risk sufficiently for the participants to implement the R&D activities. Project funding should also be crucial to obtaining private investment in the company in order to realise the innovation.
• The Demonstration Project must incorporate clear targets and a concrete plan for carrying out the R&D activities under the project and for utilising the results. Grant proposals must provide a description of the users to be involved in the specific project. Both short- and long-term impacts and outcomes are to be described in the grant application.
• Demonstration and qualification activities are to be carried out under genuine conditions offshore or in suitable facilities on land. The project description must include a clear plan for these activities.