Call period
The call opens on June 15, 2026 and closes on September 6, 2026 at 16:00.
Funding decisions will be made by Business Finland, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation, after notification decisions by the European Commission.
Call description
The biotechnology IPCEI initiative focuses on three closely connected but distinct IPCEI candidates:
- Biobased materials
- Biobased chemicals
- Biobased food and feed ingredients
The call covers research and development projects as well as First Industrial Deployment (FID) investments. The aim is to create European value chains in the above areas in order to overcome identified market failures.
Focus areas
The common objective of all three IPCEI candidates is to support projects that progress from research towards first industrial deployment. The aim is to support highly innovative projects that seek to scale innovative technologies, develop fundamentally new processes or products, and have not yet been brought to industrial scale. The projects must have the potential to become part of Europe’s strategic value chains.
More information on the background and focus areas of the Biotechnology IPCEI (pdf). A brief summary is provided below.
Biobased materials
Focuses on the development of innovative materials and material processes based on renewable biological raw materials, recycled raw materials, waste materials or biogenic carbon sources. Projects focus on adding value to these inputs into high value-added biobased materials and integrating them into various end-use sectors, such as construction materials, packaging, textiles, furniture, cosmetics, bioplastics and new high value-added forest industry products.
Biobased chemicals
Focuses on the development of innovative processes for producing chemicals and chemical intermediates from renewable or circular-economy-based carbon sources. This may include, for example, platform chemicals, intermediate chemicals, monomers, polymer building blocks, specialty chemicals, fine chemicals, dyes, pigments, auxiliaries or chemical intermediates for various downstream processing sectors.
Biobased food and feed ingredients
Focuses on the development of innovative, downstream-processing-based biotechnological production processes for key ingredients and functional components used in food and feed value chains. This may include alternative proteins, fermentation-derived ingredients, cell-cultured ingredients, microbial or algal lipids and oils, amino acids, vitamins, enzymes, biocatalysts, functional ingredients, bioactive compounds, probiotics, postbiotics, prebiotics as well as technological and sensory additives.
The call does not cover:
- primary production (agriculture, aquaculture, other primary production)
- mere production or distribution of raw materials without a processing bioprocess
- manufacture of finished or branded consumer products
- packaging materials and food contact materials (these fall under other biobased material/chemical calls)
- upstream agricultural inputs (e.g. biostimulants), unless they have a direct and demonstrable link to an FID-level food/feed value chain.
Target group
The call is open to Finnish companies that are part of the value chain of the above focus areas, either as a direct participant or as an associated partner. Direct participants’ projects typically focus, in addition to late-stage research and development, on the first investment phase (First Industrial Deployment). Associated partners participate on the basis of their own research and development project that supports the overall IPCEI objectives. The projects of associated partners within an IPCEI are typically experimental development.
The roles are defined in more detail in the document (pdf). Applicants should familiarise themselves carefully with this guidance. In both forms of participation there are mandatory IPCEI-related criteria that the applicant must meet.
The IPCEI candidates may at a later stage continue either as three separate IPCEI projects, or they may develop into one or two combined IPCEI projects, depending on the type of projects and the number of direct participants. At the application stage, the company must indicate which of the three IPCEI candidates its project fits best.
Any of these three biotechnology-related IPCEI projects will only materialise if, based on the national calls, a sufficient number of direct participants have been selected in at least four Member States.
Conditions for granting funding
The company must be part of the renewable European value chain in the above-mentioned themes, aiming at the industrial exploitation of new processes and materials.
Industrial deployment projects must:
- enable the development of a new product or service with a high research and innovation content, and/or
- enable the introduction of a fundamentally innovative production process.
- Research and development projects must:
- be based on significant innovation, or
- generate significant added value for R&D activities, taking into account the latest state of the art in the field.
First industrial deployment means the scaling of pilot plants or the very first equipment and installations, covering the stages after the pilot line – including the testing phase – but not mass production or commercial operations.
The company must disseminate the new knowledge generated through the funded activities (spillover) not only to its customers, suppliers and project partners, but also across the entire EU. IPCEI projects must enable the wide dissemination of the acquired knowledge, regardless of whether it is protected by proprietary rights or intellectual property rights. The mechanisms for knowledge dissemination must be described very clearly in the companies’ project portfolios. Protected results are disseminated on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory market terms.
The following are not considered IPCEI projects:
- continuous improvement of existing production lines without an innovative dimension
- development of new versions of already existing products.
Obstacles to granting funding
The company must not be in difficulty within the meaning of the EU state aid rules (Guidelines on State aid for rescuing and restructuring non-financial undertakings in difficulty, section 2.2) at the time the aid is granted.
Read more: Funding obstacles
A project can only be supported with public funding if there is a market failure, i.e. the project cannot be implemented without public support.