The Regional Council of Burgundy-Franche-Comté and UBFC have created the Itinerary Researcher-Entrepreneur (I.C.E.) scheme in 2019.

Through this device, the Regional Council wishes to promote the emergence of companies/organizations with high added value on the territory by identifying and professionalizing upstream researchers with a desire to join a creation project.

This approach involves financing a thesis or post-doctoral course, integrating a dual skill set of research and entrepreneurship/management.

The objective of the intervention are :

– to finance a course integrating a double scientific and entrepreneurial training in order to create a company/organization on the basis of high-tech, social, organizational, commercial or business model innovations;

– to encourage researchers to valorize their research or to create a company in connection with or as a result of their research work;

– to identify and develop research projects likely to be part of a high-tech entrepreneurship program.

A call for applications is launched each year for regional research laboratories. Two distinct paths can be financed:

– 36-month thesis program

– 12-month post-doctoral program

The selections are made in two phases:

– a first phase of project selection

– a second phase of selection of the candidates, before a jury made up of company managers, representatives of the academic world and representatives of structures in connection with entrepreneurship and the valorization of research.