- Singapore officially joined the Eureka network1 as an Associate Country today, with the Associate Agreement signed by Singapore Minister for Trade and Industry, Mr Gan Kim Yong, and Austrian Federal Minister for Digital and Economic Affairs, Dr Margarete Schramböck2, at the Global Innovation Summit 2021. Under the agreement, Enterprise Singapore will support the facilitation and funding of joint innovation projects between companies from Singapore and Eureka member countries, and explore further partnerships within the network3. With a network spanning over 45 countries across Europe, North America, Africa and Asia, the Eureka network provides a platform for Singapore companies to participate in more cross-border co-innovation collaborations.
- Singapore’s association with the Eureka network will enable Singapore companies to have greater access and flexibility to participate in joint innovation projects4 with entities from other Eureka countries and access the markets by tapping initiatives such as – (i) Eurostars, bi-annual call for joint innovation projects between entities from 36 Eureka member countries; (ii) Eureka Clusters, long-term and strategically significant thematic calls initiated by European industries under Eureka; and (iii) Eureka Network Projects Programme, a flexible instrument that allows Eureka member countries to set up country
specific thematic calls of interest within a shorter timeline.
1 Established in 1985, Eureka is an intergovernmental network that supports market-oriented R&D and innovation projects by industry, research centres and universities across all technological sectors. 2 Austria is currently the chair country of Eureka.
3 Singapore companies may partner with companies and research institutions from other countries on Eureka projects, depending on each country’s funding regulations.
4 Previously, Singapore companies had to partner at least two other entities from two Eureka member countries. As an Associate Country, Singapore companies can now participate on a 1-1 basis.
- Prior to joining the network officially, Enterprise Singapore worked with Eureka on three co-innovation calls through which more than 40 Singapore companies were supported for joint innovation projects with overseas enterprises from more than 20 partner countries.
i) The first Eureka Globalstars-Singapore call in 2019 involved Singapore and seven Eureka countries – Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Turkey and the UK. It attracted 36 joint applications, with 17 projects across the medtech and advanced manufacturing sectors selected for funding.
ii) In 2020, the second Eureka Globalstars-Singapore call involved Singapore and 14 participating Eureka countries – Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Estonia, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. It received 84 joint applications, the largest number among all the Eureka-Globalstars calls to date. Of these, more than 20 new projects across the transport and logistics, medtech and space tech sectors were selected for funding support.
iii) Last year, Singapore was among 16 countries that participated in the first Eureka Clusters Artificial Intelligence (AI) Call. Two projects involving Singapore companies were funded.
- Mr Jonathan Lim, Director of the Global Innovation Network at Enterprise Singapore, and the appointed Singapore High-Level Representative to Eureka, said, “Even amid the challenging conditions of a COVID-19 environment, Singapore companies actively participated in these co-innovation calls. This shows their keen interest to engage in research and innovation to develop stronger offerings, as well as their desire to capture new overseas opportunities. We are excited to become an Associate Country of the Eureka network as this provides the opportunity for Singapore companies to participate in all Eureka initiatives and tap into the knowhow of entities from over 45 countries. We also welcome Eureka member countries to work with us, and leverage Singapore as a launchpad to access the growth opportunities in Southeast Asia.”
- Dr Ulrich Schuh, Eureka Chairperson and President of the Eureka Association, said, “I am delighted to welcome Singapore to the Eureka network. It’s one of the most innovative countries in the world – in the top 10 global innovation rankings, with a tremendous number of innovative companies, universities and research institutes. Singapore’s superb public funding and support, global trade position and investment and networking opportunities make it a formidable partner in Eureka. I’m pleased to learn that Singapore is not only increasing public spending on R&D, but it is also continuing to strengthen its innovative businesses with many support mechanisms for receiving patents, market expansion, accessing private investment and international collaboration to solve industry challenges.”
- Singapore trade technology solutions provider GUUD (previously known as vCargo Cloud) was one of the participants in the first Eureka Globalstars-Singapore Call. It partnered Belgium startup T-Mining to jointly develop technologies that enable platform-to-platform exchange of trade documents in a secured manner. The pilot solution targets the 1,200 Belgian SMEs that currently export to Singapore, and would subsequently be adapted to cater to the wider Asian and European markets.
- Singapore energy startup, EverComm, a participant of our Scale-up SG programmme, benefitted from the second Eureka Globalstars-Singapore call. It partnered UK tech company, IONATE, to develop a platform that leverages AI to optimise equipment performance in an energy efficient and cost-effective manner. The solution makes sustainability services more affordable and accessible by reducing the cost of managing grid efficiency by 40% and allowing customers with no prior domain knowledge to easily participate in the energy market transaction. With new capabilities developed through this project, EverComm aims to capture opportunities in the Demand Response energy market in Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, as well as explore opportunities to enter the UK through IONATE.
