Twice a year – in May and November – we have an open call for new projects to join SPARK Finland program. An info session is organized during every call period, you will find a time and link below in the section “How to apply”. After the application period, an expert panel of industry, investor, and academic advisors reviews proposals submitted, and finalists are invited to present to the panel before final selections are made. On top of that, we have partner programs – the first one is a Finnish version of BioDesign – from which we have a separate path of advancing to SPARK.
In open calls, SPARK Finland looks for projects and teams from Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Kuopio and Joensuu regions – scientists, students, and healthcare professionals – from our member institutions.
Typical characteristics of the projects are:
– focus is on a health related problem
– target is to develop a product/solution
– potentially enhance industrial development or production process
– requires clinical validation
– requires regulatory approval
HOW TO APPLY?
Calls are targeted for wide spectrum in health tech and life science field; from drugs and vaccines to diagnostics and med tech – all the way to bioinformatics and healthIT.
The solution of the proposed project must:
Applicants are not required to have external funding for applying the program.
For Biodesign Finland winners we have a special route. Those applicants we ask to contact first Biodesign program managers and get their endorsement. (Notice: If your project is not associated with Aalto, UH or HUS, unfortunately you are not eligible to get to SPARK.)
For more information take a closer look to our frequently asked questions.
NOTICE: If you have already an operating company then you will receive support from existing business development service providers (incl. accelerators, incubators…).