Concours d'innovation i-PhD — 7e édition
Supports PhD founders building deep-tech companies with entrepreneurship guidance programs.
⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.
The 7th edition of the Concours d'innovation i-PhD is a State innovation competition operated by Bpifrance under the France 2030 plan, targeting young researchers who have a deeptech startup project derived from their academic research. The program is explicitly positioned as the upstream precursor to the i-Lab competition: winning i-PhD prepares doctoral entrepreneurs to subsequently compete for the i-Lab grant of up to €600,000. Eligible applicants are doctoral candidates from at least the second year of their thesis, or doctors who defended their thesis within the last five years. All applicants must be accompanied by a Technology Transfer Organisation (TTO) — a SATT (Société d'Accélération du Transfert de Technologies), a national research body such as CNRS or INSERM, or an approved public-research incubator. Applicants who are unsure which TTO to approach can contact i-phd@bpifrance.fr.
The award is a structured one-year programme rather than a cash grant: laureates receive monthly coaching sessions (individual and collective), Learning Expeditions to meet other laureates and deeptech ecosystem actors, entrepreneurship training on startup fundamentals, and visibility for their project. There is no cash grant component and awardMin/awardMax are not applicable. The 7th edition accepted applications from 23 March to 30 April 2026 via the demarche.numerique.gouv.fr platform. Selection involves an initial eligibility review followed by jury presentations by videoconference; jury members evaluate entrepreneurial motivation, deeptech startup potential, and environmental impact.
The 7th edition is now closed; the 8th edition is expected in 2027. Doctoral researchers with deeptech ventures who missed the 2026 window should use the intervening period to formalize TTO partnership, develop their proof of concept, and prepare a competitive i-Lab dossier for the next i-Lab cycle, using the i-PhD programme structure as a voluntary self-development framework. The program covers all technology sectors with no sectoral restrictions.
Supports doctoral researchers and recent PhD graduates with deeptech startup projects, providing a one-year structured entrepreneurship programme to mature their venture before applying to the i-Lab competition.
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