Familiarity with the Incubator of the Science and Technology Park of East Azarbaijan:

One of the important parts of the Science and Technology Park is the Incubators for innovative units. Factual and legal idea owner entities and innovative and technology projects can be settled in this center, and in addition to the utilization of the facilities and infrastructures of the Park they can be benefited from the various supports of the Incubator as well.

Services and supports of the Incubator for the innovative units: 

• Financial and credit supports and services 
• Technical and professional services (laboratories, workshops, etc.) 
• Training services in various management and technical subjects 
• Consulting services in different fields 
• Information and communication services (Internet, library, databases, electronic journals, etc. ) 
• Marketing and advertising services (running) 
• Spiritual support

Admission criteria of the units and projects in the Incubator include:

• Project and central idea should be an innovation one. Being Innovative means being new in the world, national and regional (provincial) levels. 
• Existence of a market for the Project or central idea final product. If the project owner provides evidence indicating purchasers’ willingness will be better.
• Performance of the Project should be economic. This means that in addition to the purchasers who are willing to purchase the final product, the Project should make profit and cover its costs during its mass production in the predicted market.
• The Project should be technological. This means academic and specialized knowledge should be required to make the product or to provide the intended services. 
• The primary goal is to build prototypes or sample. The Projects whose Prototypes have been built are accepted only to improvement.
• The total costs of manufacturing of the prototypes and initial commercialization and marketing should not be more than 25 million tomans. If the sum of these costs exceeds the above mentioned amount, the central idea or project owners must provide evidence indicating other resources to supply the remaining amount, or they themselves assume them.
• The Project should be mature. This means that the project should pass its research phase and should not be just a raw idea. Parks and Incubators are not research institutions in which pure research activities occur but only those research projects that have passed successfully the stage of their research can enter the centers to build their prototypes and commercialization. Those of innovative and technical projects that don’t require special systematic and scientific research but require specialized and academic knowledge to be built, to become mature the Project must be close to the final product and should not be only a raw idea on which several trial and errors should be done. 
• The required work team should be provided. The specialists required to manufacture the product or to provide the intended services should be present in the work team of the project owner (as a partner or founder). In addition to the main individuals involved in the project the project owner should not have problems like conscription.
• The project should contain technical feasibility. In other words, manufacturing of the product or providing the intended services should be possible by the available technical knowledge and facilities.
• The individual or individuals who are project owners should have entrepreneurial characteristics such as risk taking, creativity, ability of proper communication with others, ability to work in groups, etc.
• Projects should be in the form of newly legal personality.  Project owners should possess a newly established and patented legal corporation or at the same time of the approval by the technology council for support and settlement, they should take measure to establish a patented corporation.
• Those of innovative and technological projects which don’t possess a patented and legal corporation or their work team is incomplete or the degree of maturity of their Project is low through containing other conditions of the pre-development stage can be settled in the Incubator (six to nine months) and benefit from the infrastructures and supports of the Incubator while they complete their projects, work team and corporation registration.

Guidance for admission in the Incubator
At first, the owners of the projects and central ideas refer to the reception unit and introduce their Projects. In addition to getting initial information about the owner and his project, if eligible, the receptionist gives him some primary forms (AP-1). After completing the forms by the project owners, the review process of them begins. If the project is approved in the first stage of evaluation, the following forms (AP-C and resuming the project owners) with a form of business Project (BP) are placed at the disposal of the project owners. After submitting the completed forms, an interview will be held with the project owners. Finally, covering all the conditions, the Project (by the owners) is proposed in the technology council of the Center, which is composed of experts and professors in the respective fields. If it is approved by the Council and a supervisor is specified, the Project or key idea (absolutely in the form of legally registered corporation) through signing a settlement and support contract will enter into the Incubator. Every newly established legal corporation must finish its implementation and commercialization during the specified period of time (maximum three years). During this period, the development process of the Project and company are continuously and periodically examined and evaluated by the supervisor and Incubator. Thus the cooperation between the unit and the Center in the future is subject to covering the expectations of the supervisor and Center by the unit.
Financing of the projects
It should be said about the funds or financial supports of the Development that this support will be done in two ways: Research financial credit which contributes to the construction of the sample that is presented to the customer and supporting financial credit which contributes to marketing and finding initial customers. The sum of these two types of supports is up to 25 million tomans. Amounts of these supporting payments as pre-payments are given to the newly established companies after signing the settlement contract and subsequently support contract. Remaining amounts of the research credit are given after reporting the implementation of different phases of the project to the observer and his confirmation. Residual amounts of the support credit will be payable after periodic monitoring and verification of representative of the Center. Every year some amounts of the support credit approved by CEO (chief executive officer) of the company will be taken due to the use of the facilities of the Park and Incubators (including telephone, Internet, office space, laboratories, workshops and other services).
Repayment of the credits:
The total amount of the support credits must be repaid up to one year after the company leaves the Incubator.  But about the research credits, as mentioned in the support contract, the center can get at lease the same or maximum twice the support amount one year after the company leaves the Incubator.  For those companies with financial, economic, scientific (presenting foreign and domestic papers, patents, etc.) developments and extensive cooperation with the Center repayment will be based on a certain encouraging formula.