Program TREND (Applied Industrial R&D)

Program TREND (seed)

Funds Czech industrial development through TAČR-administered applied research calls and consortium collaboration.

Program TREND is a Czech applied industrial R&D grant program financed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MPO) and administered operationally by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TAČR). The program runs from 1 January 2020 through 31 December 2030 and issues annual public calls through 2027. The total MPO budget commitment exceeds 17 billion CZK, with approximately 10 billion CZK allocated through 2027 across all calls; average grant support intensity is approximately 65%, meaning recipients fund roughly 35% of eligible project costs. The program's primary objective is to expand Czech industrial competitiveness by helping companies enter new markets and deepen integration into global value chains, with Industry 4.0 as a cross-cutting priority.

Eligible applicants are Czech-registered companies and, in certain sub-program configurations, research organizations and universities. TREND operates through two sub-programs: Technology Leaders, open to companies with existing R&D capacity either solo or with a research-organization partner; and Newcomers, targeting companies without regular R&D activity, for which a formal partnership with at least one research organization is mandatory. Individual award amounts and per-cycle pool sizes are published at the call level by TAČR and were not available from MPO-side sources at the time of data capture.

Because TAČR administers all call processes, evaluation, and contracting on MPO's behalf, applicants must engage through the TAČR portal at tacr.cz rather than mpo.gov.cz. MPO program contact is Jan Kulík (jan.kulik@mpo.gov.cz). The multi-year annual-call pattern through 2027 gives companies a predictable window to plan proposal development, and organizations without prior R&D track records are explicitly welcomed via the Newcomers sub-program, provided they secure a qualifying research-organization co-applicant.