With the award of new funding to provide free support to Lincolnshire SMEs, we have been getting some questions about our service rates and eligibility criteria. We hope the information on this page will be helpful to you.

NB: Due to demand, we have temporarily paused enrolment of new beneficiaries and will be operating a waiting list for the time being. For more information, please email loric@bishopg.ac.uk.

What it is

Fully-funded support is available to help Greater Lincolnshire SMEs with data-driven innovation. This could take the form of bespoke consultancy, support in creating a new product or service to the company, support in bringing a new product or service to market, a digitization project, or anything in between.

Eligibility criteria

Funded support through LORIC 2.0 is available to Small and Medium Enterprises that are based in or trading out of Greater Lincolnshire.

Eligibility criteria for free support states that:

  • A beneficiary can be a self-employed individual, or a company with less than 250 staff and less than a 50-million-euro annual turnover.
  • A beneficiary must be eligible to receive GBER support. That means the candidate must not have received an excess of 200,000 euros worth of GBER funding in the last 3 financial years. (Not sure if that’s you? If you were previously part of an ERDF programme, you would have received a statement at the end of your work that specified how much support you received.)
  • The beneficiary company must be based in or operating in Greater Lincolnshire. That means the beneficiary’s registered address is within Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, or North Lincolnshire counties.
  • The following sectors are covered by other funds, and thus companies operating in them are not eligible for this programme: fisheries and aquaculture; primary production, processing, and marketing of agricultural products; coal, steel, and shipbuilding; synthetic fibres.
  • Providers of generalised (school age) education are not eligible for this programme.
  • Banking or insurance companies are not eligible for this programme.
  • Retail businesses may be eligible if they meet certain criteria. Please fill in an expression of interest form or get in touch.

If you are not eligible for free support through LORIC 2.0, we are happy to refer you to another provider or to explore other funding options with you.

How is this funded?

LORIC 2.0 part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and is part of Bishop Grosseteste University. The LORIC project is receiving up to £399,030 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government is the Managing Authority for ERDF. Established by the European Union, ERDF funds help local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regeneration.

For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding