Small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) in the export field have been severely affected by the strong Swiss franc. One way of combatting this is to continue to innovate at all times. In order to encourage this practice, the federal council has approved special measures by the CTI to promote innovation amounting to 61 million Swiss francs. These conditions are only available until the end of 2016.
These measures exist in particular to exempt an industrial partner in a CTI project from the 10% cash contribution that they would normally have to pay. Moreover, their participation towards the overall costs of the project may be reduced to 30% (usually : >50%).
These special conditions are reserved for Swiss SMEs of less than 250 employees, that achieve at least 50% of their turnover by export, or that work as a subcontractor for exporting companies.
Detailed information on the application of these special conditions for 2016 are available on the CTI website.