Singapore–Shanghai YRD Joint Innovation Call 2026

Enterprise Singapore and the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality opened the Singapore–China Yangtze River Delta (YRD) Joint Innovation Call for joint research and development projects between Singapore and Shanghai companies. The 2026 call opened on 6 May, closed on 5 June, and scheduled announcement of approved projects for September 2026 (Enterprise Singapore, call document).

Scope and project themes

The Singapore–Shanghai YRD Joint Innovation Call supports joint projects developing innovative products, services or processes with industrial application and strong domestic or global market potential. The 2026 call is open to all technological and application areas, with biomedical industry, life science, artificial intelligence, low-carbon and sustainability technologies, and quantum technology listed as examples. The examples are not a closed list, but an application still needs to show a credible innovation and commercialisation pathway (Enterprise Singapore, call document, published 6 May 2026).

The programme is therefore a co-innovation call for company partnerships, not an open-ended grant for an unrelated individual applicant, a purely academic project or a general business-expansion proposal. The call document says the cross-border collaboration should create a distinct advantage, such as a larger knowledge base, access to research infrastructure, commercial leads or new fields of application. This cooperation benefit must be visible in the proposed project rather than merely in the partners' marketing descriptions (Enterprise Singapore, call document, published 6 May 2026).

Partnership and timing boundary

The consortium must include at least one Singapore company and at least one Shanghai company, and the two companies must be independent and separate rather than linked entities. Academic or research entities and additional companies may participate, including entities from other countries, but Enterprise Singapore and the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality will not fund the partners from other countries under this call. Each national partner must also make a meaningful contribution: the call requires a balanced technological contribution, with neither partner contributing more than 70% of total project contribution measured in person-months (Enterprise Singapore, call document, published 6 May 2026).

The partners must agree in advance on intellectual-property rights and the commercialisation strategy, submit a signed memorandum of understanding, letter of intent or preliminary agreement with the joint application, and plan a collaboration period of at least 24 months. These requirements distinguish the call from a short networking activity: the proposal must show how the parties will develop and bring a product or process to market while managing ownership and implementation responsibilities (Enterprise Singapore, call document, published 6 May 2026).

The call followed a memorandum of understanding signed by the two government entities in July 2025 during the sixth Singapore–Shanghai Comprehensive Cooperation Council. The 2026 timeline opened on 6 May and set the submission deadline at 5 June 2026, 16:30 Singapore time (GMT+8). The September 2026 date is a tentative notification period for selected projects and funding amounts; it is not proof that every applicant was successful or that a named project was approved (Enterprise Singapore, call document, published 6 May 2026).

Singapore applicant eligibility and application route

For the Singapore side, the applicant must be a business entity registered and operating in Singapore, have at least 30% of ordinary shares held directly or indirectly by Singapore citizens or Singapore permanent residents as determined by ultimate individual ownership, and be financially able to complete the project. These are applicant-level conditions; they do not mean that every Singapore business automatically qualifies or that a minority local shareholding alone guarantees an award (Enterprise Singapore, call document, published 6 May 2026).

Singapore companies apply through the Business Grants Portal using CorpPass, selecting the grant titled “EDG (Co-Innovation programme)” and the Singapore–China Yangtze River Delta (YRD) Joint Innovation Call (Shanghai). The call document required an ACRA business profile retrieved within six months of the application date, the company and group-level audited financial statements for the latest and preceding two years or official management accounts, and relevant quotations where specified. The Singapore portal deadline was 5 June 2026 at 16:30 Singapore time; Shanghai applicants followed the submission process and eligibility information published by the Shanghai commission (Enterprise Singapore, call document, published 6 May 2026).

Assessment and funding boundary

Enterprise Singapore and the Shanghai commission first assess applications against the call's eligibility requirements and then conduct independent national assessments under their respective laws, regulations and national evaluation criteria. A project receives support under this joint call only if it is selected and approved by both agencies. The document therefore does not create an entitlement from submission, and the expected September 2026 notification is an administrative milestone for successful partners rather than a universal funding date (Enterprise Singapore, call document, published 6 May 2026).

The Shanghai partner may apply for a maximum of 1 million RMB per project, with self-financing and applied grants in at least a 1:1 proportion under the Shanghai-side requirements. That ceiling applies to the Shanghai applicant's funding route, not automatically to the Singapore partner or to the total project budget. Singapore applicants must rely on the Enterprise Singapore co-innovation programme's applicable assessment and funding rules, so a reader should not add the Shanghai amount to a presumed Singapore grant without checking the final award terms (Enterprise Singapore, call document, published 6 May 2026).