Recognizing the importance of innovation in the economic development of the country and strengthening competitiveness, the Government of Montenegro is constantly working to improve and stimulate innovation through legal and strategic frameworks. In July 2020, the Government adopted new regulatory framework for boosting innovation in public and private sectors and for improving governance structure for implementing innovation measures at national and local level. The Law on Innovation Activity regulates the institutional, governance and financing framework for innovation ecosystem in Montenegro, while the main aim of the Law on Incentives for Research and Innovation Development is to stimulate increased investment in R&D and innovation in the country and increase intensity of innovation activities through various fiscal incentives. 
One of the most important measures introduced by the Law on Innovation Activity is the establishment of the Innovation Fund of Montenegro (IF).
The Government of Montenegro adopted the Decision on the Establishment of the Innovation Fund and Statute of the Fund, and new legal entity has been registered in September 2021 as a state-owned limited liability company (L.L.C.). The Innovation Fund will ensure the implementation of innovation policy through the provision and implementation of funds to encourage innovation. IF will play a key role in developing and implementing government innovation policy based on the smart specialisation concept and is intended for innovative entrepreneurship as a driver of sustainable economic development. The UNDP has been supporting the process of creating functional governance and management structure of the Innovation Fund includes a number of different trainings and activities. 

By pursuing the evidence-based policy and putting in place financial, expert and other assumptions, the aim of the Innovation Fund is to create a transparent framework for transforming innovation into commercial products for the market. By providing grants and by promoting and attracting investments in entrepreneurship, the Fund will provide an environment conducive to commercialisation of scientific outputs and development of innovative entrepreneurship within the existing or new businesses. The operation of the Innovation Fund will be based on the following operational principles:

• Excellence – the Innovation Fund will recognise and foster scientific, technological and managerial excellence at the highest level;
• Transparency – the Innovation Fund’s operation, decisions and project financing will be fully transparent and public;
• Equality – when evaluated, all project applications will be considered equally and fairly, and evaluation will be unbiased and anonymous;
• Measurability – performance and outcomes of projects supported by the Innovation Fund will be measurable and open to performance assessment;
• Expertise – the Innovation Fund’s decisions will be guided solely by unbiased and professional arguments;
• Care for projects – the Innovation Fund will take the care of a “good husband” for the projects it supports, and values and cares for their success;
• Avoiding conflict of interests – all the activities and decisions will be executed in such a way to avoid direct or indirect conflict of interests of all persons involved in the process;
• Ethics - the Innovation Fund will foster the principles of ethical conduct and good practice;
• Confidentiality – the contents of project proposals, the names of applicants and evaluators, and evaluation findings will be confidential.

The funds of the Innovation Fund will be distributed within designed programme framework and following the predetermined procedures within public calls. Each public call will clearly stipulate goals, application criteria and terms as well as the project selection process.
In the first two years of the Innovation Fund operations, it is expected that the main source of financing will be State budget. However, the State budget financing should be complemented also with other sources of financing, mostly EU sources. Montenegro currently has access to IPA pre-accession funds and participates in EU programmes, such as Horizon Europe. The Innovation Fund’s operations will facilitate the development of administrative capacities in terms of structure, human resources, and the system and procedures, which will enable efficient implementation of the programmes and projects funded by the Union, such as the ones to foster small, medium and large businesses to cooperate with international partners in launching research and development (R&D) activities. 

Designed programmes framework should be mix the Innovation Fund’s core and shared programmes. Core programs should cover main stages of the innovation value chain: concept testing and verification; development; and early commercialisation. In addition, to core programs idea is that the Innovation Fund will implement shared programmes, which will be mix of the core programmes in combination with specific goals in line with S3, European Green Deal goals and taking into consideration gender-sensitive policy design.

UNDP office in Montenegro is recruiting a consultant to support development of legal documents necessary for efficient functioning of the Fund as well as to ensure that funding will the implemented respecting State Aid rules.

Job content:

The Individual Consultant is expected to provide technical assistance to the Innovation Fund and perform the following activities:

• Liaise and ensure communication/coordination with IF Management Team members regarding all aspects of the assignment;
• Conduct an analysis of relevant documents related to Innovation Fund and identify needs for legal acts to be developed;
• Support Fund and work closely with Legal and Procurement Officer/advisor in development of legal acts of the Fund;
• Support preparation of legal acts for granting and contracting process and ensure that funding will the implemented respecting State Aid rules;
• Provide support and expert inputs for other documents/guides and manuals for users and beneficiaries of the Fund; 
• Organize at least two visits to the IF
• Organize training related to the State Aid rules

The expected results/deliverables:

Under the guidance of the Innovation Fund, expert is expected to deliver the following results:

• Prepare inception report to provide IF management team with written advice on needs of legal documents, including a time-focused roadmap for adoption/implementation of these acts;
• In collaboration with IF Legal and Procurement Officer provide expert support in preparation of legal acts and regulations necessary for creating functional governance and management structure of the Innovation Fund;
• In collaboration with IF Legal and Procurement Officer support in preparation of contracts for future beneficiaries of the Innovation Fund;
• prepare quarterly reports including reports from meetings and trainings.
• Report on conducted trainings and user manuals

Timing and reporting: 

The assignment will start in February 2022;
The consultant shall report to the Executive Director of the Innovation Fund and to UNDP regularly on an ad-hoc basis, and formally quarterly on the activities and recommendations (5 quarterly reports). 
The final report to be submitted in July 2023 shall include the description of the achievements of the assignment.

Time duration and travel:  

The duration of the total assignment is expected to be for 60 days within the period of eighteen months, starting from 1st February 2022 until 25th July 2023.
It is expected that the Consultant will be engaged more intensively in the first 6 months due to the needs of the IF. During that period it is envisioned that the consultant’s work will require at least two trips to Montenegro: first in Feb/March 2022 (at least 2 days) to meet with the Fund management and staff members, and the second visit in June/July 2022 (3 days) to follow up on execution of the agreed action plans and to conduct training to the employees and other innovation funding actors (such as representatives of the Ministry of Economic Development and Science Tech Park) on the topic regarding “State Aid Rules”.

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UN/UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting;
• Builds strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills;
• Strong teamwork and interpersonal skills;
• Demonstrates ability to manage complexities and work under pressure, as well as conflict resolution skills.

Education:

• University degree in law, an advanced degree would be an asset.

Experience:

• At least 10 years of relevant professional experience; 
• Minimum 3 years of experience in research and innovation policy development or on experience in preparation of calls for proposals, contacting and monitoring implementation of grants/projects;
• Proven analytical skills and ability to conceptualise and write concisely and clearly;
• Ability to formulate consensus and clear conclusions from group discussions;
• Knowledge of international good practice on innovation development (innovation strategy in EU, etc); 
• Ability to interface effectively with government and private sector;

Language:

• Fluency in local language;
• Excellent knowledge of English language. 

Other:

• Excellent computer skills.

Criteria for selection:

Combined Scoring method will be used. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as: (i) responsive, compliant, acceptable, and (ii) having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

• Technical criteria weight - 70% (Background and education 10%; Relevant previous experience 20%; Substantial knowledge/Required competencies 30%; Required language 10%);
• Financial criteria weight - 30%.

Only offerors obtaining a minimum 490 points for technical criteria will be considered for the financial evaluation. For more information on procurement methodology for Individual Contractors, please refer to Procurement Notice.

Application procedure:

Interested applicants are requested to submit their applications by January 19, 2022 by using the Apply now button. The application should contain CV or P11 that can be downloaded at https://www.me.undp.org/content/montenegro/en/home/jobs.html. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file.

Only the short-listed applicants will be contacted and requested to submit a letter of interest including a price quotation indicating the lump sum (in EUR) requested for the work envisaged in the section "Description of Responsibilities".