Design-Business Collaboration Scheme (DBCS)

(please click here for the fact sheet of DBCS)

(for details, please refer to our Guide for the Design-Business Collaboration Scheme)

The DBCS aims to promote the interest and investment of small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in relation to utilizing design and transforming design activity into tradable deliverables that manifest exploitation and deployment of intellectual property, which may comprise patent, copyright, trademark or industrial design.

Eligible Applicant

Local design companies or academic institutions are eligible to apply, provided that the applicant must collaborate with a local SME which is not related to the applicant in terms of ownership or management.
The applicant and the collaborating SME need to contribute in aggregate at least 50% of the total project cost.

Form of Funding Support

Funding support is normally given as a grant up to 50% of the approved project cost or HK$100,000, whichever is the lower.

The grant will be disbursed upon the project completion.

Application

Applications for the DBCS are welcomed throughout the year.

Timeline for Submission of Application

Application should as far as possible be submitted before project commencement and in any event no later than one calendar week after project commencement.

Submit application

No application fee will be charged.

New Arrangement

Following a review of the Design-Business Collaboration Scheme (DBCS), new arrangements are introduced with effective from 18 June 2008:

• Each SME applicant will be eligible to a maximum grant of $100,000 for four projects at most.
• The SME should be the sole party to contribute the matching fund in cash.
• The design company and the SME will be co-applicants in a project application under the DBCS. Either of them, with the consent of the other party, is eligible to lodge an application under the DBCS. Pending some system amendments, SMEs may expect to start lodging applications within the third quarter of this year, exact date to be announced.
• The applicants are required to provide brief description of the work steps involved, duration of time, manpower and cost breakdown.
• The design company and SME in an application are duty-bound to make presentation(s) of the outcome of their project to the Panel and to report the commercialisation status of the project outcomes.
• The SME is required to give a brief plan in the application on the commercialization and seeking of intellectual property right on the project outcome.