Innovation Fund Denmark (IFD - Innovationsfonden)

The Danish National Research Foundation supports research with a clear and obvious applied angle. In most cases,group leaders at a university can only attract funding if the outlined project is done in close collaboration with a company.One might say that the foundation invest in projects aiming to generate a profit rather than grant money for basic research.

The largest, yearly grant from Innovation Fund Denmark, is the Grand Solutions. Here, public institution and private companies collaborate with the ambition to develop a new product or technology that should be mature enough to enter the market within the life span of the project. These grants are worth up to 40 million but also requires a significant amount of cofunding from the collaborating company(ies).

The Innovation Fund Denmark has several other funding instruments, including industrial PhD and postdoc programmes, funding young researchers shared between companies and research institutions.