HiPOC Grants are for University of Helsinki life science researchers with a doctorate considering or involved in an invention disclosure to HIS, or listed as inventors on a pending patent application owned by UH. The project can have co-applicants within UH and collaborators representing external organizations, but funding is granted and used within UH for research or IP owned by UH.
Note! You cannot receive HiPOC funding if you have already received funding or the funding decision is pending from UH POC.
Funding is granted in three categories:
Funding can be used to supplement externally funded projects e.g. from Business Finland R2B program or as host contribution (e.g. 20% seed money) when applying for other sources of Proof of Concept funding from outside the UH. Research results obtained with HiPOC funding are owned by UH (i.e. HiPOC projects are defined as contract research) completely or in proportion to the funding HiPOC provides to a larger project based on an agreement. Applications where the IP/ownership/collaboration is unclear cannot be funded by HiPOC.
HiPOC funding can be used for salaries (except applicant), equipment (at most 9,999 EUR), reagents, and services. Costs related to the commercialisation process can be covered up to 1 500 euros. Services provided by UH or HIS (e.g. lawyers and patent attorneys) are not covered. HiPOC funding is not for conferences, travel costs, or overhead expenses. One project can only have one HiPOC Grant, and researchers may only have one ongoing HiPOC Grant.
A single HiPOC Grant can be up to 50 000 euros for a maximum of 12 months. Projects with an immediate, well documented need for funding are prioritized. Funding not used by end of project is not transferrable. Currently a maximum of 500 000 euros is available annually for funding HiPOC Grants.
Submit you application via this link (open May 2 - June 4, 2023):
https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/123505/lomake.html
In addition to the online form the application is to include a single pdf file with these elements (in order):
1. Project description (max 20 000 characters including spaces)
2. CV of the applicant and potential co-applicants (max 2 pages each)
3. Possible relevant invention disclosures and/or patent applications
4. Clarification of IP/ownership/collaboration of/within the proposed project including a list and short explanation of possible agreements, and relevant agreements attached.
Review is expected to take no longer than a few weeks after the application deadline.
Applications are reviewed by members of HIS or other external experts following non-disclosure agreements using the following evaluation criteria:
Decisions on grants are informed to the applicants by e-mail within a few weeks from sending to review. Applicants with granted projects are to provide short reports within 2 months following the end of the project. The reports should be focused on how the HiPOC funding contributed to the filing of invention disclosure or patent application, or promoting the commercial value of filed patent applications, and on whether the obtained results attracted external funding.
Is my project too early-stage or too late-stage?
Can I apply for HiPOC even if I cannot file any patent?
Am I eligible for a grant as a PhD student?
Can figures and illustrations be included in the research plan and how to count the ‘space’ they take in characters?
I have already registered my company. Will that affect my application for this proof of concept grant?
If I apply for this grant, will I need to delay publishing the results that form preliminary data and are required to substantiate the HiPOC application? In other words, do you expect an invention disclosure to HIS prior I could publish elsewhere?
Which parts of the grant will be publicly displayed and which are only seen by the evaluation committee?
The main applicant (a person who will apply for the grant) cannot use the grant for her/his salary, but how about the co-applicant? Can the main applicant use the salary for one of the co-applicants?
How are salaries budgeted?
Are references counted towards 20 000 character limit?
Is it possible to add a person to the invention disclosure even if she/he is not included in the HiPOC application as a co-applicant at this stage?
Can you review my application before submission?
Should the applicant or the co-applicant be employed by the University of Helsinki?
We have the invention disclosure form and the notification of invention disclosure from HIS. Should we include both forms or one of them as attached files?
There is no need to attach forms related to invention disclosure. HIS will be evaluating the applications, and they have those forms already.