The Innovation Fund designed and launched a public call for Serbian SMEs offering innovative projects that could be rapidly deployed and scaled up to combat the spreading negative effects of the coronavirus. The Fund provides up to 50k EUR per project, but no more than 85% of total costs. The initiative came from the office of the Prime minister of the Republic of Serbia. The IF used a 3-member independent investment committee (comprised of a PhD chemical engineer dealing in tissue regen, an electrical+ICT engineer with experience in telemedicine and software development and one of the top cardiac surgeons in Serbia) to evaluate all proposals based on the relevance of the proposed solution, time of implementation, implementation methodology and company resources. Close to 300 applications were received in 7 days. Applications were processed and reviewed chronologically, after the IF conducted basic eligibility checks. The most promising ones were invited to pitch via Skype for 10 minutes. After 7 days, the final decision was made and the projects begun their implementation (lasting up to April 30th).

The initiative aims to provide quick relief for specific areas deemed to be of priority by the Government of the Republic of Serbia (at the time, it was disinfection, protection, supply chain management and patient/doctor care). The expected impact would be better public health due to area and surface disinfection, better prevention of further contagion through temperature measurement counters and disinfection booths, domestic production of new ventilators (strategic importance) and increase in patient/doctor/general safety.

Innovation Fund; Ministry of science, education and technological development; Office of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia

Potential supply chain issues might arise if some of these solutions would require massive scale-ups; Need for rapid certification of certain items in order to deploy them in a short time frame.