You can apply for the AAU PoC funds if you're an employee at Aalborg University. Funds can be applied for the following areas:

• Inventions
• Software
• Research results which cannot be IP protected as inventions

Before applying for the AAU PoC, you must fulfill a number of formality requirements, which are:

• AAU has 100% rights to, or
• Third party rights must be transferred to AAU in order to be eligible for PoC funds.
• Particularly for non-IP protectable inventions: An agreement must be entered for transfer of parts of the inventive property to AAU before Proof of Concept funds may be granted.
• You must have a specific business/partner's interest. As a rule, there must be a Letter of Intent/Interest (see "Expression of interest") attached to the application.
• Have financial support from Institute/Faculty (see "Financial requirements for AAU PoC" for more info)
• Finally, ownership of the IP rights must be established at the time of application.

All applications for the AAU PoC are made in collaboration with the Technology Transfer Office. If you are interested in applying, you should contact our AAU PoC Manager Jens Frede Rasmussen via jfr@adm.aau.dk. 

To apply for AAU PoC funds, you must, as mentioned in the section before, have an expression of interest from a company/partner.

This is because the purpose of the AAU PoC is to mature research-based inventions to generate interest among companies, innovation environments, and venture capital companies. These can contribute to the development of the inventions, which can thus form the basis for new or improved products via licensing, rights purchase, or the founding of spin-out companies together with AAU.

An expression of interest from one or more companies/partners in connection with your AAU PoC application therefore helps to show that there is a commercial interest in the final product.

A good expression of interest includes:

• Interest in the company's invention, viewed in relation to the market potential the company envisions, in comparison to the products the company delivers/produces.
• Specific technical requirements that must be met in order for the company to license/purchase rights or participate in the founding of a spin-out company.

See examples of Letters of Interest/Intent here.

The AAU PoC funds can be used to:

• Buy out researchers, ph.d., and scientific assistants from teaching and research for the purpose of focusing on the development of their invention.
• Employ project workers who can work focused on the invention together with the researchers.
• Purchase, operation or lease of necessary equipment and materials.
• Travel expenses for own staff and external consultants.
• Purchase of external services - feasibility studies, trials, development of prototypes, market research, preparation of business plan, etc. and to involve external assistance for market assessment and commercialization of the invention.

The AAU PoC funds are financed 50% by the faculty and 50% by the department at which you are employed.

AAU PoC is administered and run by the Technology Transfer Office, which means that you as an applicant must apply for budget approval from the faculty and department before you can apply for AAU PoC funds from us.

You can apply for AAU PoC funds for two different types of projects. Each type varies in grant size and length of the project. We distinguish between Type 1 Projects and Type 2 Projects:

TYPE 1 PROJECT

The purpose of a type 1 project can, for example, be to help clarify the invention in order to limit both the technical and commercial risks.

Type 1 projects can apply for funds of up to DKK 100.000 with a maximum project duration of 6 months.

TYPE 2 PROJECT

A type 2 project includes activities to develop, quality-test, and verify an invention. In other words; maturation and documentation of an invention's technological and commercial potential.

The funds can, for example, be used to carry out technical trials and prototype tests with the purpose of documenting the potential of a new technology and to uncover application possibilities and market potential, to develop a business model, and to engage commercial partners in the further development of a new research-based invention.

Type 2 projects can apply for funds of up to DKK 500.000 with a maximum project duration of 9 months.

In general, however, it applies to all AAU PoC applications that these are not only limited to the above-mentioned project types and associated funds.

If you can supplement your AAU PoC application with additional external funds, if you have access to such, your application will be processed at the same level as applications without additional external funds.

ESPECIALLY REGARDING NON-IP PROTECTABLE INVENTIONS

AAU PoC has annually set aside up to 10% of the funds specifically aimed at non-IP-protectable inventions. The same requirement for co-financing applies to these projects.