In the coming period, the team of the Innovation Fund will work on checking the fulfillment of the formal conditions for the received applications. All projects that meet the eligibility requirements will be referred to an international independent evaluation conducted by technical reviewers and an Expert Commission.

After the first phase of evaluation, the highest quality projects will have the opportunity to present their innovations live before the Expert Commission, after which the final decision on funding will be made based on the quality of projects and available funds allocated for the public call. The decision on the shortlist is expected at the end of October 2021, while the finalization of the procedure for the final selection of projects for financing is expected at the end of December 2021.

223 applications were submitted to the public call, which was launched on July 5, 2021, of which 150 applications for the Mini Grants Program, of which 86 projects were submitted by informal teams, 44 applications for the Matching Grants Program and 29 applications for the Collaborative Grant Scheme Program (CGS program).

Funds for the realization of the public call with a total value of 9 million euros were provided from the pre-accession funds of the European Union for 2021. The next public call for the same amount for funding programs is expected at the end of November 2021.