FFI Zero Emissions

FFI Nollutsläpp supports research and innovation that reduces transport’s climate and environmental impact and strengthens Swedish industry’s competitiveness. Projects can address vehicle hardware and software, power electronics, charging and refuelling, vehicles as energy storage, resilient transport energy systems, users and enabling policy. Explain the contribution to the Zero Emissions section of FFI’s roadmap and its wider sustainable-road-transport goals.

Feasibility or smaller studies last six to nine months and can request up to SEK 500,000. Full projects can last up to four years. The latest published round has about SEK 75 million available across awards; this is not a per-project ceiling.

Every project needs at least two parties and business-sector co-financing of at least 25% of its total budget, including at least 10 percentage points from private business. Requests for more than 75% support for the whole project are rejected. The programme’s separate ambition of 50% average business funding is not the minimum for each project.

Each participant’s rate also depends on its activity. Non-economic work—work outside a market for goods or services—can receive up to 100% of that participant’s eligible costs, while the project-wide limits still apply. For companies, feasibility studies and industrial research have maximum rates of 70%, 60% and 50% for small, medium and large businesses. These cover assessing a project’s potential or gaining new knowledge for products, processes and services. Experimental development, using existing knowledge to develop and test improvements, has rates of 45%, 35% and 25%; routine changes do not qualify. Basic research without a direct commercial application can receive up to 100% at participant level.

Industrial research and experimental development can gain up to 15 percentage points for qualifying collaboration or wide dissemination, with a resulting ceiling of 80% for those categories. Company collaboration must include an SME unless conducted in at least two EU countries, and no company may bear more than 70% of eligible costs. In company–research-organisation collaboration, the research organisation must bear at least 10% of eligible costs and retain the right to publish its own results. Alternatively, results must be widely shared through conferences, publications, open databases or free/open software. The 75% whole-project ceiling and business contribution remain mandatory.

Eligible costs include recorded project staff time, equipment use, building depreciation and land costs, external research, knowledge, patents, consultancy and direct operating costs. Depreciation covers the share of an asset’s cost allocated to project use. Costs must be your own, reasonable, auditable and incurred during the approved period. Unpaid work and recoverable VAT do not qualify. Overheads are shared costs such as general administration, office supplies or IT systems that do not arise directly from the project. Actual overheads are normally capped at 30% of eligible salary costs. Universities and higher-education institutions use their full-cost method. A 45% ceiling on eligible salary costs applies to research organisations constituted as limited companies or partnerships under direct or indirect state legal control, research foundations with one or more government-appointed board members, and government agencies mandated to conduct their own research, excluding universities and higher-education institutions. To qualify, the organisation must receive funding by government decision for independent research and participate through its non-economic activity, such as independent research rather than commissioned research services. Only actual overheads qualify. Economic activity, including commissioned research, must be accounted for separately; project work within that activity uses the ordinary 30% ceiling.

You cover the remaining costs and overruns. Another organisation’s unpaid contribution cannot count as your own cost. Report other public or EU funding sought, received or planned for the same costs; combined support must remain within the aid limits. Project parties cannot subcontract each other; separate related-company consultancy can qualify at the supplier’s actual salary cost.