Questions and answers about development projects

Food Data Finland aims to bring concrete solutions to data cooperation in the food chain, and concrete results are created through co-development projects. Under the project, they form a complementary whole - a greater benefit than the sum of the parts of the individual projects. Development projects create scalable competitiveness for the industry. On the other hand, project members are among the first to benefit from the results of the projects to gain a competitive advantage.

The development projects of the program should concentrate on data. They should also support the program's goal of increasing the international competitiveness of the Finnish food chain through data based on open, interoperable and global standards. Improving the transparency of the chain, ease of data sharing and promoting data aggregation should also be taken into account.

The development project must support the objectives of the program and the overall development of the food chain. The project should identify elements that promote the use of data in the food chain, such as improving chain transparency, ease of data sharing and promoting data aggregation.

The projects must be implemented in cooperation between different actors, i.e. the company cannot implement the co-development project alone. For example, Business Finland's co-innovation funding requires that the project involves a research organisation and several companies. If Business Finland funding is applied for, a contribution from the companies themselves is also required.

Food Data Finland is a growth engine program partly funded by Business Finland, which enables co-development projects to receive funding. On the other hand, the program can also carry out development projects without Business Finland funding.

Read more: Get funding

A member of the project network can propose a project idea and gather a project team from other companies, research institutes and organisations. Alternatively, they can join a project initiated by others, if the project team so decides.

First, a preliminary project plan should be drawn up and discussed with the project coordinator. The final plan will be presented to the project steering group, which will decide whether to recommend the project to be included in Food Data Finland. Finally, the project plan will be finalised and, if necessary, funding will be sought from Business Finland.

Read more: From idea to development project

A development project can apply for Business Finland's research, development and innovation funding. Business Finland typically provides 40-70% of the funding for projects (grant 40-50%, loan 50-70%). In addition, organisations must have their own internal decision to earmark self-financing contributions for the implementation of the project.

Development projects can also be implemented without Business Finland funding.

The member who came up with the idea for the co-development project can be the project leader or the leader can be chosen from another organisation. The project coordinator can support the presentation of the project to the other members of the network, but does not participate in decisions on the formation of the project organisation.

GS1 provides support to the proposer of a project idea to fine-tune the funding application and the tools to present it to the rest of the network and the program´s management team.

GS1 Finland also implements own development projects. In addition to project management, GS1's role is to act as an expert on supply chain data standards in these projects.

The Food Data Finland´s management team plays the role of evaluating development project ideas. The team assesses whether the proposed project idea fits the program's objectives. When the management team endorses a proposed project idea, it has a better chance of receiving a positive funding decision from Business Finland. The management team does not make the funding decision itself.

The development project organisation may choose to report regularly to the management team on the progress of the project.

The publication of the results of the development project is agreed separately between the project organisation and its funding partners (e.g. Business Finland). Typically, public funders will require some degree of publication of the results, but the details will always be agreed on a case-by-case basis.