New round of the “GO-Bio Initial” funding program

Through its “GO-Bio initial” funding programme, the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) aims to identify and develop early research ideas in life sciences that have a clear potential for innovation.

Its purpose is to support project work in order to advance research outcomes to a level where they become eligible for other more established programmes which support validation activities, new business founding and cooperation between businesses, such as the “VIP+”, “EXIST-Forschungstransfer”, “KMU-innovativ” or “GO-Bio” programmes. The overall goal is thus to translate promising innovative ideas directly into practical solutions.

GO-Bio initial: Opening the door to business

Most programmes to fund research and development require a great deal of preparatory work and a high degree of specificity at the very start of a project, which is typically not attained at the early stages of an innovation process. At the beginning, there is often only no more than a general idea about the product or service to be created.

Therefore, the funding under the GO-Bio initial programme kicks in at a very raw and early stage of ideas for exploitation, when there is not even necessarily a patented technology to put them into practice. Likewise, the path for exploitation is not required to be final at the start of the funding process, because in many cases that path is difficult to foresee with any certainty at an early stage of innovation.

For further information see https://www.go-bio.de/gobio/en/