Simpler and easier to identify, the various funding opportunities offered by Oséo and the Lower Normandy Regional Council have been pooled together via a common agreement, in order to offer a more appropriate response to business needs. An aim which has taken full stock of the current economic context.

Help for development and innovation

Help for development and innovation
Starnav, a company accommodated by the Incubateur de Basse-Normandie from 2006 to 2008, is one of those to have benefited from regional help for development and innovation. The company’s project, based on the development of attitude measurement related technologies, was one of the regional innovation competition prize winners. “We were awarded a reimbursable advance of 50,000 Euros from Oséo and a Regional Council grant of 25,000 Euros. This funding enabled us to finance approximately two months’ research work,” explains Georges Lamy au Rousseau, the company’s director. Since the company already benefited from a research tax credit, it declined the offer of a reimbursable advance. “Our treasury was relatively healthy so we opted for what appeared to us to be the most advantageous solution. We preferred taking full advantage of the total tax credit the first year, rather than doing it gradually whilst reimbursing Oséo’s advance.” Consequently, the company has succeeded in selling certain of its studies and expert’s reports to the Ministry of Defence or space centres, in order to accumulate some capital, hence avoiding, as far as possible, resorting to bank loans.

More than ever, OSEO is mobilising its regional teams to help entrepreneurs to face the economic crisis,” announced François Drouin, General Manager of OSEO, when signing the new Oséo-Regional Council agreement on the 21st of November 2008. Indeed, “among the measures adopted in support of SMEs, help is available for them to maintain their treasury,” explains Laurent Beauvais, President of the Regional Council.
This agreement follows the exploratory draft agreement signed in March 2006. Scheduled for a period of five years (2009-2013), the partnership will be highlighting enterprise innovation, development and transmission, along with any international initiatives.
And to fund associated action, the agreement provides for a doubled regional contribution, among other sources. Consequently, the initial fund of 2,000,000 Euros has been supplemented with 1,904,000 Euros from the Regional Council. It should enable several loans to be co-guaranteed in conjunction with Oséo’s national fund.

Innovation on a pedestal

As regards innovation, two direct and complementary funds, not included in the Lower Normandy regional guarantee fund, are worthy of note:
- l’aide au développement de l’innovation (help for development and innovation), aimed at innovative projects and enabling, for example, the funding of internal and external expenses during study, test or prototype phases. The fund is financed by Oséo’s reimbursable advances along with Regional Council subsidies. The total budget amounts to some 10 million Euros for 2009 (1.6 million of which are in the form of Regional subsidies).
- Emergence-Innovation support, during the preparatory phase of innovative and foundation projects in support of recruitment. It is financed by the Regional Council (200,000€), the EFDR and Oséo, in the form of subsidies.
“In terms of innovation, such support illustrates the Region’s voluntarist policy. The Council plans to devote 5% of its total budget to research and innovation: a policy aimed at encouraging private companies to invest more ambitiously in research,” explains Fabrice Salemi, in charge of the Regional Council’s innovation centre.

Fabrice Salemi
Head of the Regional Council’s Innovation Centre
Tel: 02 31 06 96 78

Alexandre Jeanne
OSEO Innovation Representative
Tel: 02 31 46 76 76

Georges Lamy au Rousseau / Starnav Navarre
14 370 Chicheboville
Tel : 02 31 71 00 48
Website: Starnav

Send post as PDF to