For innovative ideas to be transformed into actual products, not only time is required, but also money and expertise. Since 2005, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has supported young scientists and clinicians who want to start a business to turn their promising ideas into market-ready products with the founding initiative Biotechnology GO-Bio. The successful funding programme now finds itself in its 8th selection round. The life sciences research teams have until the 15th of June 2017 to submit their application to Project Management Jülich and be in the running for a million Euros in funding. Very few scientists still dare to take the leap from the laboratory into business. Life sciences research projects are considered to be particularly risky due to long development periods and increased financial requirements. Thus, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) founded the GO-Bio initiative 11 years ago to boost the biotechnology sector.

GO-BIO +++ 8TH SELECTION ROUND+++ CALL FOR PROPOSALS +++ GO-BIO

The current call for proposals for the 8th selection round of the GO-Bio competition. Interested scientists can have until 15th of June 2017 to apply.

Call for proposals on the BMBF website

Leaflet for the 8th GO-Bio selection round (PDF)

Präsentation zur 8. Auswahlrunde GO-Bio (PDF) (PDF, , File does not meet accessibility standards)

Out of the seven previous competition rounds, 50 have been funded so far. Here you will find a summary of all GO-Bio projects. Up to now 24 companies have been founded or became operational during the time they received GO-Bio funding. The new companies have already accumulated more than 60 million Euros in private capital and employ about 150 employees.

Two-tier funding

GO-Bio funding involves two phases over a period of up to three years maximum. During the first funding phase, the teams work out and assess the potential for implementation. They should also develop specific commercialisation strategies for further implementation. An interim evaluation decides whether a team can enter the second funding phase and is ready for economic exploitation. During the second phase, a spin-off is founded, which must acquire co-financing from the private sector – in addition to GO-Bio funding. The BMBF provides 20 to 30 million Euros for each funding round. On average a funding project receives about 2 million Euros.

On top of that, universities and research institutions can obtain up to 350,000 Euros for technology transfer, if they have hosted one of the GO-Bio projects that has successfully entered the second funding phase.

Five winners from the 7th GO-Bio round

In April 2016, the winners of the 7th GO-Bio round were chosen at the Biotechnology Days event in Leipzig. The five research teams were delighted to receive a total of 17 million Euros in seed funding. Teams can submit their project sketches for the current 8th GO-Bio round. Scientists from universities, colleges and non-university institutions are called upon to send their ideas to Project Management Jülich by the 15th of June 2017. Contact Dr. Jan Strey (j.strey@fz-juelich.de) or Dr. Ute Fink (u.fink@fz-juelich.de) for more information.