Bulgaria's executive agency for small and medium-sized enterprises launched a competition for innovation projects which it will support with a total of 5.0 million levs ($3.3 million/2.6 million euro) from the National Innovation Fund.
The fund's strategic objective is to increase the competitiveness of the Bulgarian economy by encouraging market-oriented projects and creating conditions for attracting private equity to finance innovation.
Companies are invited to apply for the grants with projects for research and development, as well as technical feasibility, the agency said. Research and development projects, which should be completed in 12 or 36 month, will receive up to 500,000 levs, while feasibility projects, which have to run for a year will get up to 50,000 levs, the state-run Bulgarian National Radio reported.