EU SME Instrument Relevance for Oil and Gas Entrepreneurs

The EU is now focusing on radical, market creating innovation.

We wrote in October about how the EU’s SME Instrument will be simpler and friendlier to entrepreneurs by removing the sectoral topics. Last week in Brussels we learnt that SMEs who develop solutions to make oil and gas production more efficient and reduce its CO2 impact can also compete.

For Phase 2 applications which offer a funding opportunity of up to 2,5 million Euro our interpretation of the overall requirements is:

• The technology is tested at TRL 6 and is proven to work in industrially relevant environments; scalability is important. Read more about TRL 6 at the EU website.
• The technology should be radically innovative
• Your business has the potential to become a growth company (the European equivalent of a unicorn: a startup company valued at over 1 billion Euro)
• You have a clear commitment to create jobs