CDTI R&D projects (Proyectos de I+D)

What it funds

CDTI funds applied research and development projects that create or significantly improve a process, a product or a service. It is a loan: the rate is one-year Euribor fixed at approval, the principal is repaid after a grace period, and part of the loan never has to be repaid. That part depends on the project's category and on the region: the generic category has the lowest share, while SME projects co-financed by ERDF get higher shares, highest in the regions the CDTI ficha lists. Software and artificial intelligence qualify when they are genuine R&D.

Requirements and what is left out

• It takes a company operating in Spain: CDTI is the Spanish public innovation agency and funds projects carried out there.
• Generic digitalization: adopting a management system or moving to the cloud is not R&D, even when it costs as much as a project.
• Small projects: below the minimum budget per company the ficha sets, the application does not qualify.
• Anyone expecting the whole budget to be funded: the loan covers a maximum share of the approved budget, and the non-repayable part is computed on an even lower coverage.
• Other public aid for the same project: the ficha rules it out, except aid from autonomous communities that have a co-financing agreement with CDTI, aid from local authorities and aid from the European defense programs (EDIDP and the European Defence Fund).
• When the project is co-financed with European funds managed by CDTI, the rule is reversed: the aid can be combined with any other public aid that does not come from the EU budget.

How to apply

1. Read the current CDTI ficha and place the project in its category, since the category decides the non-repayable share.
2. File online through the CDTI e-office, at any time of the year.
3. After approval the principal is repaid in installments, starting at the point the ficha sets.

The full conditions are on the CDTI page.

What this budget builds

A project of this size is enough to build a new system: a predictive model built on production data, an optimization engine, a platform joining data nobody had put together. I set it up with verifiable technical goals and documentation that holds up to an audit, and I leave the internal team able to evolve it.

This entry is informational and is not advice: I do not handle grant applications, and before committing to a purchase it is worth reading the official source above or talking to whoever files the application.