General ICON conditions

An ICON project consists of two project parts, a research part and a business part, which fit within a broader common objective and are carried out in close mutual interaction.

• The research part concerns strategic basic research, is carried out by research organisations and is supported as non-economic support under the SBO Decree by VLAIO (for SPC-ICON and THEM-ICON) or under similar conditions by the strategic research centre (for SOC-ICON).
• The business part concerns industrial research, is carried out by companies and is supported as State aid under the business support partnership decree. The business part broadly corresponds to an industrial research project.

The conditions for ICON projects follow, as far as possible, the conditions for SBO projects for the research part and the conditions for research projects for the business part. They impose additional or different conditions based on the ICON project type, particularly relating to the combination of both project parts.

For more information, please refer to the ICON manual (only in Dutch).

Eligibility: which projects qualify?

Projects qualify if:

• The share of the supported companies in the budget is at least 50%.
• The share of the research part in the budget is at least 30%.
• There is a clear and well-substantiated presence of an advisory committee.
• All required information is available in the application template.
• Each business partner has not already received more support in the current calendar year than legally permitted (€ 8 million + € 4 million for collaborations).
• Each business partner is a company with operational activities in the Flemish Region.
• The requested support for the business part is > € 100,000 and <= € 3,000,000.
• At least three independent companies participate and at least two companies apply for VLAIO support. A maximum of six companies receiving VLAIO support may participate in an ICON project.
• The project duration is at least 24 months and no more than 48 months.
• A dissemination and valorisation work package is included for the research partners, in accordance with the ICON manual.

If the eligibility criteria are not met at the time of submission, remediation is possible within five working days after the request for additional information. If the criteria are still not met five days after this request, the support application will be declared not eligible.

Eligibility: Cash flow plan

If your company falls into one of the following categories, you must include a cash flow plan with your application:

• Your company is a small or medium-sized enterprise and has existed for less than three years at the time of submission.

The cash flow plan must show the financial impact of the VLAIO project at enterprise level. You must draw up the cash flow plan using the mandatory monthly cash flow planning template.

Companies that do not fall into the above category do not have to upload a cash flow plan when submitting their application. If a cash flow plan is nevertheless needed later for a correct assessment of co-financing capacity, VLAIO will request it during the assessment of your application.