Water Wise Societies: industrial water feasibility studies

Fund a joint feasibility study of a complex water challenge facing industry or business, including agriculture and forestry. The study should build or strengthen a lasting group of partners and assess whether further industrial research or experimental development can work. Most project costs must relate to this joint feasibility work.

Your challenge must be relevant in Sweden and contribute to at least one Water Wise Societies mission. These cover secure water supplies, drinking-water quality, flooding and drought, building in harmony with water, sustainable water abstraction, reduced use and leakage, water and resource reuse, healthier water ecosystems, less hazardous pollution and less eutrophication. Adapting to floods and drought is one eligible route among these missions.

The 2026 round offered up to SEK 600,000 per project, covering at most 70% of the whole project's eligible costs. A study could last no more than 11 months. Individual partners' rates differ: a 100% partner rate does not remove the 70% ceiling for the whole project.

For feasibility studies by companies, the maximum rates are 70% for small companies, 60% for medium companies and 50% for large companies. Vinnova uses the EU company-size definition: check staff numbers, annual turnover and balance-sheet totals, including data from partner and linked companies, using its linked size guide. Organisations working without offering products or services on a market can receive up to 100% for that non-economic activity; mixed economic and non-economic activity must be accounted for separately.

Companies may instead receive up to 100% under the de minimis route: small amounts of public aid counted against a three-year allowance. The allowance is EUR 300,000 for the company and its group, for aid granted in Sweden across funders and projects. Submit the signed declaration of previous de minimis aid with the application.

That de minimis route excludes primary agricultural production and primary fishery or aquaculture production. Fishery/aquaculture processing and marketing are excluded when aid is based on product price or quantity. Agricultural processing and marketing are excluded when aid is based on prices or quantities purchased from primary producers or marketed, or must be passed to primary producers. It also excludes aid directly tied to export quantities, export distribution networks or other current export expenses, and aid conditional on using domestic goods or services. A business with both excluded and permitted activities can receive this aid only for the permitted activity, with activities or accounts separated so excluded work does not benefit.

Municipal water companies may use the non-economic route for work within their legal monopoly only if costs, financing and income from economic and non-economic activities are separated. Vinnova notes that this legal classification has not been tested in Sweden.

Eligible costs include project staff, project-use equipment and premises, external consultancy and licences, necessary materials and travel, and overhead. Equipment and specific premises costs count only for the share and time used in the project. Consultancy and licences normally may not exceed 20% of each organisation's budget; Vinnova may accept more for a special need justified in the application.

Overhead normally covers actual costs up to 30% of eligible salary costs. Universities and higher-education institutions use their full-cost accounting principle. For non-economic work, state-controlled research companies, research foundations where government appoints board members, and state authorities mandated to do their own research can claim actual overhead up to 45% of eligible salaries if a government decision funds their independent research. Separate accounts are required if they also do economic work; the 30% rule applies to that work.

Costs must be actual, reasonable, necessary and separately booked to a project code. Project costs cannot be covered by other public grants or by own funds earmarked for other projects. Partners cannot buy goods or services from each other. Costs outside the approved project period do not qualify, except salary costs for completing the final report. Costs of entering the project agreement do not qualify.

Consultants normally must be external suppliers on market terms. Related companies are not external. In exceptional cases Vinnova can allow related-party purchases disclosed and justified in the application; only the supplier's actual gross salary and payroll costs qualify, not a market consultancy rate. This does not permit purchases between project partners.