In 2023, France launched a call for projects dedicated to the Deeptech ecosystem to identify and support its “PUI” (Pôle Universitaire d’Innovation) or Research and Innovation Centers.

The aim of the PUI call for projects – 165M€ over a period of 5 years – is to offer funding to each innovation ecosystem to help its players structure themselves to create a common innovation dynamic at a regional level.

Each PUI is made up of a lead university and other members from both the research and business communities. The aim is to clarify the actions and perimeter of each actor, so that they can cooperate more effectively in supporting a research project through to its economic development, starting with its development as a startup.

Bpifrance is both the State’s operator for the funding of this programme and responsible for providing cross-functional support for its deployment by creating content, tools and forums to encourage the sharing of optimal practices between PUI at national level.

Bpifrance also hopes to rely on the PUI to continue deploying the Deeptech Plan – which celebrated its 5th anniversary at the end of March – and reach the national objective of creating 500 deeptech startups a year by 2030. The PUI dynamic could – by using the intra-territorial cooperation to capture the entrepreneurial potential of research projects earlier – enable Bpifrance to help the project sooner and greater through the whole process before the creation of the startup, by offering pre-creation business support thanks to its new « French Tech Lab Grant ». The final aim is to increase both the volume and quality of the deeptech start-ups eventually created to reach the objectives of the Deeptech Plan.

For more information, please contact Nolwenn Simonot.