The Innovation Fund is aimed at all kinds of small and medium-sized enterprises registered in China, and focuses on supporting technological small and medium-sized enterprise projects with early industrialization (seed stage and initial stage), high technology content, good market prospects and high risks, which most need government support for commercial capital to enter, and plays a foreshadowing role for their entry into industrial expansion and commercial capital intervention. The Innovation Fund encourages and gives priority to supporting joint innovation in Industry-University-Research, and gives priority to supporting various projects with independent intellectual property rights, high technology content and high added value, which can attract a large number of jobs, save energy and reduce consumption, and are conducive to environmental protection and export.
The innovation fund does not aim at profit, but supports the technological innovation projects of small and medium-sized enterprises in three ways: loan discount, free subsidy and capital investment. The projects supported by the Innovation Fund must conform to the national industrial technology policy, have a high level of innovation and strong market competitiveness, have good potential economic benefits and social benefits, and are expected to form high-tech achievements transformation projects in emerging industries. The project enterprise must be registered in accordance with the law, have the qualification of enterprise legal person, have a sound financial management system, and the number of employees shall not exceed 500 in principle. Project enterprises should mainly engage in research, development, production and service of high-tech products, and the annual expenditure on research and development should not be less than 3% of sales. For enterprises that have leading products and will gradually form batch and large-scale production, they must have good business performance.
The Innovation Fund is managed by the Ministry of Science and Technology and supervised by the Ministry of Finance. The technological innovation fund management center of small and medium-sized scientific and technological enterprises is the daily management organization of innovation funds. Entrusted by the Ministry of Science and Technology, it is responsible for the acceptance of the application for innovative funds, the project establishment, the supervision and acceptance of the implementation process and the comprehensive evaluation of the use effect. In order to better reflect the principles of "honest application, fair acceptance, scientific management, merit-based support, openness and transparency, and earmarking" in the use of innovation funds, the innovation fund management center is open to the whole country, and publicly accepts project applications, and publicizes the projects to be supported in relevant media and accepts social supervision. Each fund project must pass the strict examination of project establishment, and accept the supervision and management of fund use and project progress in the implementation process.