A €45 Million Compete Tender Steps In for Portugal's Collaborative Laboratories After Their Recovery-Plan Funding Ran Out

The Government has opened a €45 million funding line for Portugal's Laboratórios Colaborativos (Collaborative Laboratories, or CoLABs) and Centros de Tecnologia e Inovação (Technology and Innovation Centres, or CTIs), stepping in to replace money that ran out at the start of July. The call, reported by ECO and Jornal Económico on 16 August and by Jornal de Negócios, runs through the Compete 2030 programme, part of the Portugal 2030 EU-funds cycle, and keeps applications open until 15 October 2026.

The support is channelled through an instrument called SIAC (Sistema de Apoio a Ações Coletivas — Support System for Collective Actions), under the heading of transferring scientific and technological knowledge to business and mobilising private investment in research and development. It is co-financed 85% by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER). Because Compete 2030's territory covers only the Norte, Centro and Alentejo regions, the line is open exclusively to labs based there; per ECO, eleven institutions in Lisbon and the Algarve fall outside the eligible map and cannot apply.

Plugging a funding gap

The timing is not incidental. Portugal's network of collaborative labs — bodies that pair universities and research centres with companies to turn science into products and jobs — had been financed through the Missão Interface support drawn from the PRR (Plano de Recuperação e Resiliência, the country's Recovery and Resilience Plan). That funding ended on 1 July 2026, leaving the interface network without core money. The science ministry acknowledged at the time that it was "working on" a replacement instrument; this Compete 2030 tender is that replacement.

The eligible activities, as set out by the Government, run from sharpening the labs' commercial orientation and validating research before it reaches the market to running knowledge-transfer platforms, managing intellectual property and helping firms adopt advanced technologies. The Minister of Economy and Territorial Cohesion framed the labs' ties to the business economy as "essential to Portugal's growth" and "a decisive competitiveness criterion among countries," per Jornal Económico.

The scale of what is being supported gives the €45 million context. Portugal now counts 41 CoLABs and 31 CTIs, according to ECO's reporting. A separate study cited by the outlet in May put the state's investment in the collaborative labs at about €115 million over 2021 to 2025, against roughly €261.6 million in gross added value returned over the same period — a multiplier the study estimated at 2.1 for every euro of added value. Those are background figures for the sector, not the terms of this tender.

What this means for readers

• Researchers and lab staff: if you work at a CoLAB or CTI in the Norte, Centro or Alentejo, the application window closes on 15 October 2026; Lisbon- and Algarve-based institutions are excluded by geography.
• The innovation economy: the line is meant to keep the university-to-business bridge standing after the PRR money expired, not to expand it — this is continuity funding, not fresh ambition.
• A regional tilt: confining the call to three regions concentrates the support away from the two most economically developed areas, a recurring feature of EU cohesion funding.

One detail still to firm up is the formal tender reference: the press coverage sets out the amount, the deadline and the mechanism, but the specific aviso number and any per-project ceilings were not published alongside the announcement. Applicants will find those in the Compete 2030 call documents. For now, the headline is that a network Portugal spent five years building has a bridge over its funding cliff — a €45 million one, open for the next two months.