Spotlight: CORFO Grant Funding – A New Opportunity for Innovation
As the global aquaculture industry continues to evolve, innovation remains the differentiator. That’s why we’re excited to highlight a major funding source that can support your research and product development efforts in aquaculture health: the Chilean Economic Development Agency (CORFO).
What is CORFO & What Are the Grants For?
CORFO (Corporación de Fomento de la Producción) is Chile’s public agency dedicated to promoting productive diversification, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Among its many instruments are grants, subsidies, co-funding programmes and guarantees aimed at supporting:
· Investment projects and infrastructure implementation.
· Innovation and technology-based development (prototypes, validation, process innovation) for companies.
· Partnerships and R&D collaborations, including multinational calls.
Why This Matters for Aquaculture & Your Research
For companies and research organisations working in aquaculture, this presents an attractive synergy. It enables development of novel vaccines, therapeutics or health tools by leveraging funding designed for technological innovation. It provides access programmes that emphasize validation, prototype to commercial transition, precisely where many aquaculture health solutions need the most support. The funding environment is globally minded as well, and includes international collaboration opportunities, which can amplify your reach and credibility in global industry.
How Onda Can Help You Leverage It
At Onda, our role is to partner with you to help overcome research bottlenecks, and this funding landscape strengthens our offering. With our expertise in challenge models, disease modelling, and aquaculture health R&D, we can assist you to:
· Design studies aligned to grant-funding requirements: prototype validation, process development, industrial relevance.
· Position your project so that it meets the eligibility criteria of CORFO’s co-funding and innovation subsidy programmes.
· Maximise the data value by generating rigorous, real-world-relevant endpoints that support both grant applications and subsequent market or regulatory stages.
Getting Started: What to Know
· Eligibility: Many CORFO programmes target Chile-based companies. Some calls permit collaboration with research centres abroad via Chilean lead entities.
· Co-funding: These programmes frequently require co-financing or matching from the lead entity. For example, one call allowed up to 60% of project cost co-funded.
· Stage of development: Many grants focus on technology validation, prototype to commercial scale, rather than purely basic research.
· International linkages: Some calls enable cross-country R&D partnerships with portions of project cost subsidised depending on company size.
Next Steps: If you’d like to explore a specific CORFO call or assess alignment with your development pipeline reach out to our Scientific Advisor, Julianna Stangroom, to schedule a call to map your project, draft a timeline, and identify how Onda can support the study design and grant application process.