INVESTITIONS-UND FORDERBANK NIEDERSACHSEN (NBANK)

Their core work

NBank is the state development and investment bank of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany, responsible for distributing public funding and supporting regional economic development. Within H2020, NBank operates as the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) node for Lower Saxony, delivering innovation management services to SMEs — including innovation audits, capacity building, and key account management for high-potential companies. Their role is essentially bridging EU innovation support programs with the regional SME ecosystem in northern Germany.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

NBank's H2020 participation follows a single continuous thread: delivering SME innovation support through the EEN, renewed in successive funding periods from 2014 to 2021. The early projects (2014-2016) emphasize innovation audits and the SME Instrument connection, suggesting a focus on helping SMEs access EU funding. From 2019 onward, the terminology shifts to EIMC (Enhancing Innovation Management Capacities) and KAM, reflecting the EU's formalized program structure and NBank's deeper embedding in systematic SME capacity building rather than one-off audits.

NBank is deepening its structured SME innovation support under the evolving EEN framework, with growing budgets suggesting expanded regional reach and service scope.

How they like to work

NBank exclusively coordinates its projects — all five are led by NBank with no participation-only roles. The consortia are extremely small (only 2 unique partners across all projects, in a single country), indicating these are regionally focused operational grants rather than research consortia. Working with NBank means engaging a regional public institution that runs tightly scoped support programs rather than building broad international partnerships.

NBank operates with a very small, domestic network — just 2 unique consortium partners, all within Germany. This reflects their role as a regional implementation body rather than an international research collaborator.

What sets them apart

NBank is not a research organization — it is a state-level public bank that channels innovation support to SMEs in Lower Saxony through the Enterprise Europe Network. This makes them uniquely valuable as a gateway to the northern German SME ecosystem: they know which companies have innovation needs, have established trust relationships, and control regional funding instruments. For anyone looking to reach Lower Saxon SMEs with technology offerings or partnership proposals, NBank is the institutional door to knock on.

Highlights from their portfolio

• N-Supp_INNO-20-21
  Largest budget (EUR 209,344) and most recent project, representing the mature version of NBank's EEN innovation support service.
• N-SUPP_INNO
  The founding project (2014) that established NBank's EEN innovation audit and SME support activities under H2020.