Serbia, coordination
Innovation Fund Collaborative Grant Scheme (Program saradnje nauke i privrede)
Serbia's Innovation Fund financed 79 joint research and development projects of private small and medium firms with public research organisations across eight calls of its Collaborative Grant Scheme, the eighth call, decided in 2024, funding eight.
79 consortium projects, collaborative grant scheme projects listed as funded, all eight cycles (counted from the fund's per-cycle lists), cycles one to eight, to 2024. 8 consortium projects, projects funded in the eighth cycle, 2024. Innovation Fund of the Republic of Serbia (Fond za inovacionu delatnost), Collaborative Grant Scheme, funded projects, all cycles, retrieved 2026-10-02.
The move, and what it needed
The national innovation fund runs competitive calls in which a private SME leads a consortium with a public research organisation, pays part of the budget, and must route at least 15 percent of the grant to the research partner.
Preconditions
- An arm's length innovation agency with grant management capacity built under donor projects
- Accredited public research institutes and faculties able to contract with firms
- SMEs able to co-finance a third or more of an R&D budget
Where else it has been used: Montenegro's Innovation Fund runs a Collaborative Grants programme on the same template.
Limits: The Fund reports on its own programme and publishes no total: 79 is our count of the project entries on its per-cycle pages (14, 9, 13, 12, 11, 6, 6 and 8 projects in cycles one to eight; each page renders every project twice, and the count is of distinct titles). The pages carry no dates, so the year of each cycle is not read there; that the eighth call funded eight projects in 2024 is from the Ministry of Finance CFCU release of 15 August 2024 ('8 under the Collaborative Grant Scheme Program'), and a Fund release of 20 March 2024 reports six joint projects in the call before. The counts are grants awarded, not completed projects or commercial results. The scheme is co-financed by the European Union through IPA and began under World Bank financing, so the delivery is the Fund's but the money is partly external. Annual volume has fallen from 11 to 14 projects a call in the early cycles to six to eight, and the programme page shows the call as closed with no ninth cycle listed on 2026-10-02, so 'operating' rests on the absence of any announced end. The started year is approximate: the first cycle is not dated on the cited page. Each consortium needs only one firm and one public research organisation, and requires firms to co-finance 30 to 40 percent, so 79 projects is a small national volume.
This record describes what Serbia delivered. It is linked to University-industry collaboration because no comparable dataset measures that capability. It does not affect the score or confidence.
More from Serbia
5 other deliveries from this country.
National Employment Service labour market training, and its 2025 non-delivery
Serbia's National Employment Service put 1,613 unemployed people into labour market training (obuke za trziste rada) in 2024, but in 2025 it delivered none of the 1,100 places planned for that year for lack of accredited providers, and only 626 people trained under contracts carried over from the 2023 and 2024 plans.
Three minimum wages paid to private employers in the 2020 state of emergency
After the state of emergency of 15 March 2020, Serbia's Government presented a EUR 5.1 billion economic package on 31 March that included paying micro, small and medium firms one minimum wage per employee for three months if they cut staff by no more than 10 percent, and on 7 May 2020 the Ministry of Finance paid about RSD 32 billion as the first minimum wage for 1.055 million employees of 232,000 businesses.
Moja prva plata, state-paid first-job training placed with employers, and its 2025 halt
Serbia's Government paid a monthly allowance to young people without work experience while employers trained them for nine months under the Moja prva plata programme run by the National Employment Service, which placed 9,237 young people with 5,471 employers in the 2021 cycle and 7,214 with 4,520 employers from the 2023 call in January 2024, but ran no call for 2024 and started no activity under the measure in 2025 against a plan of 10,000 places.
Corridor X motorway sections (E-75 and E-80)
Serbia's state road company Koridori Srbije built 45.5 km of Corridor X motorway on the E-75 towards North Macedonia and the E-80 Dimitrovgrad bypass towards Bulgaria under a loan approved in July 2009, finishing at a total project cost of EUR316.2 million against an appraisal estimate of EUR318.2 million, but taking about 10 years from approval to full completion against a planned 6.5, with the loan closing in September 2019 instead of December 2015.
Recovery from the May 2014 floods: power supply and flood defences
After the May 2014 floods evacuated about 32,000 people and flooded the Kolubara open-pit mines that fuel 40 percent of Serbia's generating capacity, the state utility EPS dewatered the Tamnava West mine by the first quarter of 2015 and kept supply at pre-flood levels with no recorded shortages, and the Directorate of Water Management rebuilt or upgraded 71 km of flood protection that by October 2019 covered 24,944 households against a target of 9,000.
The same indicator elsewhere
37 deliveries linked to University-industry collaboration in other countries.
The Fraunhofer contract-research model
Germany funds the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's institutes in proportion to what they earn from industry, and in 2025 the society performed 3.2 billion euros of contract research, 966 million euros of it paid by industry.
EMBRAPII, industry-led applied research
Created in 2013, EMBRAPII funds industrial research that companies contract with accredited public and private research units, and it contracted a record 811 new projects in 2025, 25.35% more than in 2024.
SIBRATEC, the national technology networks
To foster university-firm interaction, the Federal Government set up SIBRATEC, coordinated by the Ministry of Science and Technology with FINEP, BNDES and INMETRO taking part, as a national system of 56 research and development networks by 2010: 14 innovation-centre networks, 20 technological-service networks and 22 state-level extension networks.
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships
UKRI reported more than 1,000 Knowledge Transfer Partnerships running at one time and more than 1,100 Associate projects in May 2026, joining businesses with universities or other research organisations through jointly supervised innovation work.
Cooperative Research Centres programme
Australia's Department of Industry reported that its Cooperative Research Centres portfolio facilitated 304 businesses establishing research-focused collaborations in 2023–24, across 114 CRC and 190 CRC Projects partners, above the year's target of 248.
Portugal's CoLAB applied-research network
Portugal's Agência Nacional de Inovação reported 41 recognized Collaborative Laboratories (CoLABs), and its 2024 innovation report recorded 639 highly qualified staff contracted by CoLABs, 32 percent of them PhDs.
TÜBİTAK 1505 university–industry support programme
TÜBİTAK's 1505 University–Industry Collaboration Support Programme received 116 project applications and began support for 59 projects in 2024, with 52 fellows working across the collaboration pipeline.
ANII Alianzas para la Innovación
Uruguay's national research and innovation agency ANII began co-funding joint academia-firm projects through Alianzas para la Innovación in 2009 and had signed 29 such contracts, committing US$3.85 million and drawing US$1.71 million from firms, by 30 June 2016; in 2023 it approved 23 projects joining the productive sector and academia, matching the 2022 record.
Doktorat wdrożeniowy (implementation doctorate) programme
Poland's science ministry opened the implementation doctorate in the 2017/2018 academic year, funding doctoral candidates to do their research inside a firm or institution. In its first five editions 2,293 projects were approved, 479 people qualified for the sixth edition in 2022/2023, and 69.6 percent of the doctorates ran in the private sector.
SFI Research Centres programme
Science Foundation Ireland funded a network of 16 university-based research centres from 2013, whose cumulative SFI investment of €684 million was matched by €638 million of industry commitment by 2021 (Annual Report 2021), and which by the end of 2022 had signed 1,426 collaborative research agreements with 688 companies, 366 of them in Ireland.
Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation (SHOKs), terminated in 2015
Finland ran six Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation from 2008, company-form consortia of firms, universities and research institutes funded about 60 percent by Tekes, with funding of EUR 88 million in 2014; the Sipilä government's austerity programme ended the earmarked funding at the end of 2015 and the programme was closed, with the last Tekes-funded projects wound down between 2016 and 2018.
Innosuisse innovation projects with implementation partners
Innosuisse, the Swiss federal innovation agency, recorded CHF 113.95 million of contributions in 2025 to innovation projects in which a Swiss research institution works with a company or other implementation partner that bears 40 to 60 percent of the project cost, and held CHF 144.3 million of further commitments to such projects at the end of the year.
France's research ministry has funded Cifre industrial doctorates since 1981, paying an employer 42,000 euros over three years to hire a doctoral candidate whose thesis research is run in partnership with an academic laboratory; ANRT, which operates the scheme for the ministry, accepted 1,700 new Cifre in 2025 across 1,029 distinct employers.
Competence Centres Programme (Kompetenscentrumprogrammet) 1995 to 2005
Sweden's NUTEK, and later Vinnova and the Swedish Energy Agency, ran a ten-year programme from 1995 that built 28 competence centres at eight universities, each founded on a three-party contract between a university, a group of firms and the agency; more than 300 companies joined as contracting parties and industry put in 1.7 billion kronor between 1995 and 2005.
Doctorados Industriales (State Research Agency industrial doctorates)
Spain's State Research Agency funds four-year contracts for doctoral candidates employed in firms and other entities to write a thesis on an industrial research or experimental development project; in the 2024-2 call, resolved in October 2025, it awarded 65 grants worth 7.6 million euros.
CRADLE, DOST's collaborative R&D grant for academe and companies
From 2017 the Department of Science and Technology's CRADLE programme funded 82 projects in which a university or research institute did R&D on a problem set by a Filipino company, worth 373.6 million pesos and involving 36 HEIs or RDIs and 83 companies by early 2022.
Public-Private Research Network (PPRN) matching grants
Malaysia's Ministry of Higher Education approved 680 Public-Private Research Network projects involving 634 companies by the end of 2022, with a total allocation of RM27.7 million, and 469 of them had closed as successfully completed.
TIA Technology Stations Programme, and its erosion
South Africa's Technology Innovation Agency runs a network of university-based Technology Stations that gave 2,907 small firms science, engineering and technology services in 2024/25, against 3,167 at the five-year high in 2021/22, while the programme's budget fell from R105.9 million in 2020 to R93.98 million in 2025 and only 80 percent of the stations were operational.
CORFO Programas y Consorcios Tecnológicos
Chile's development agency CORFO had 49 technology programmes and consortia in execution during 2024, 38 technology programmes and 11 technology consortia, the consortia joining firms with universities and technology centres in multi-year R&D portfolios, after awarding six new consortia in 2023 with 1,500 million pesos of co-financing each.
Manufacturing USA innovation institutes
In fiscal 2023 the 16 reporting Manufacturing USA institutes, public-private consortia sponsored by the Departments of Commerce, Defense and Energy, managed 929 applied research and development projects and held 2,921 memberships, 655 of them universities, community colleges and other academic members alongside 1,315 small and 493 large manufacturers.
Mitacs Accelerate research internships
Mitacs, the federally and provincially funded not-for-profit, placed 4,859 students, recent graduates and postdoctoral fellows in Accelerate research internships with 2,314 host organisations under 2,406 professors in 2024-25, out of 20,885 internships across all its programmes that year.
COI-NEXT, co-creation centres for industry, academia and government
Japan Science and Technology Agency ran 42 COI-NEXT co-creation centres in April 2023, 30 full-scale and 12 in a development stage, most led by universities and some by national research institutes, which in fiscal 2022 counted 1,073 participating organisations, 256 universities and research institutes and 817 companies and others, with 2,566 participants from the company side.
MAI/DAI, innovation scholarships for research with partner companies
Brazil's research council CNPq, with CAPES co-funding the 2024 call, has run four calls of its Mestrado e Doutorado Acadêmico para Inovação programme (2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024), in which about 80 science and technology institutions and more than 200 companies had taken part and at least 5,000 scholarships had been granted by 2024 for undergraduate and graduate student research on projects defined with partner firms.
NWO Perspectief, ended by the 2026 spring budget
NWO's Perspectief programme, funded mainly by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, awarded 12 public-private technology consortia in 2025 with 46.4 million euros of subsidy, each joining at least three knowledge institutions with at least four companies or other users paying at least 30 percent of costs; the ministry's own page records that the last Perspectief round started in July 2026.
Matching Fund Kedaireka university-industry matching grants
Indonesia's Directorate General of Higher Education, Research and Technology funded 427 university-industry collaboration proposals through the Kedaireka Matching Fund in 2021, its first year, and 1,093 in 2022.
Government Resolution 218 complex projects for high-tech production
Under Government Resolution 218 of 9 April 2010, Russia's Ministry of Science and Higher Education subsidised 41 joint firm-university complex projects in their R&D stage in 2024, from the 14th and 15th selection rounds. Federal funding was 2.708 billion rubles, and firms put in 4.14 billion rubles of their own (156 percent of the budget funds). The ministry reports 161 technologies developed and handed over to production by January 2025.
Collaborative Research and Innovation Grant Scheme (CRIGS)
The Mauritius Research and Innovation Council's Collaborative Research and Innovation Grant Scheme, which co-funds projects led by a local company with a local academic or research institution, had completed 17 projects and had 14 more under way as at 30 June 2020, with 61.5 million rupees of private contribution to the completed ones.
COMET, Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies
Austria's COMET programme, run by the FFG for the federal ministries and co-funded by the Länder, had approved 81 competence centres and K-projects with eligible costs of 1,669.80 million euros by 30 March 2017, in which about 450 scientific partners and about 1,000 company partners cooperated, according to the Court of Audit.
Centra kompetence, the Technology Agency's competence centres programme 2012 to 2019
The Technology Agency of the Czech Republic funded 34 competence centres under its Centra kompetence programme from 2012, joining 334 participants, 115 research organisations, 118 SMEs and 101 large firms, against a planned 31 centres and 248 participants.
Erhvervsforsker, the Industrial PhD and Industrial Postdoc programme
Denmark's innovation fund (Danmarks Innovationsfond, formerly Innovationsfonden) awarded 138 Industrial Researcher grants in 2025, from 252 applications and for 147.4 million kroner, each funding a researcher employed by a company and enrolled at or supervised by a university.
Dottorati innovativi con le imprese (PNRR M4C2 investment 3.3), XXXVIII cycle
Italy's Ministry of University and Research funded 1,708 company co-financed innovative doctoral scholarships in the 38th doctoral cycle (academic year 2022/2023), against the 5,000 that decree 352/2022 had allocated for that year, and cut the measure's target from 15,000 scholarships and 450 million euros to 6,000 scholarships and 360 million euros.
Inočekiai LT, innovation vouchers for SMEs to buy research services from universities and institutes
Lithuania's Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (MITA) funded 815 innovation-voucher projects in three calls from 2012 to 2014, in which small firms bought applied research, experimental development or feasibility services from universities and research institutes, and 776 of them were completed successfully.
Kompetences centri, the industry competence centres programme
Latvia's six industry competence centres, funded through the Investment and Development Agency with 53.2 million euros of ERDF money, had run 231 research projects involving 164 companies and 33 scientific partners by 31 December 2014, of which 78 were completed and 44 percent involved cooperation with scientific institutions.
Senter for forskningsdrevet innovasjon (SFI), Centres for Research-based Innovation
The Research Council of Norway allocated 354 million kroner in 2025 to its Centres for Research-based Innovation, eight-year consortia of research institutions, companies and public bodies whose business and public-sector partners must co-finance at least half the cost, and in December 2025 named eight new centres with 98 business partners and 22 public-sector partners.
ANCD innovation vouchers (Vouchere Inovationale) for SME research services
Moldova's National Agency for Research and Development (ANCD) financed 13 innovation voucher projects in 2025, in which small and medium firms buy research and development services from research organisations, after 28 applications to the 2025-2026 call yielded 10 funded projects and four funded projects were stopped when the firms declined to sign contracts.
Proiect de transfer la operatorul economic (PTE) research-to-firm transfer grants
Romania's research funding agency UEFISCDI accepted 35 firm-led projects with research organisation partners for funding in the 2024 PTE (transfer to the economic operator) competition, plus one more on a second list, after 47 in the 2021 competition.
Innovation Consortia Matching Grant Program (Fostering Productive Innovation Project)
Kazakhstan's innovation ministry (MDDIAI), through the Innovation Consortia Matching Grant Program of the World Bank financed Fostering Productive Innovation Project, had supported 33 technology consortia of research teams and firms, including 12 competence centres, by September 2024, whose first sales and signed contracts totalled about 17 billion tenge.