Incubation Support Programme Handbook

Lack of understanding the business incubation concept is one of the main reasons that applicants fail to meet the criteria of the Department of Trade and Industry’s Incubator Support Programme (ISP). Therefore, DTI presented the South Africa Business Incubator Establishment Handbook. The handbook is a the result of a partnership between the department and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and was launched in a bid to assist applicants to create business incubators in their communities. It aims to provide applicants with an overview of what needs to be understood when applying for the Incubator Support Programme (ISP).

Since inception, 225 applications have been received of which 134 were non-eligible and 32 were rejected by the adjudication committee, the minister said. Many of the applications received were not in alignment with the incubation programme. The discovery was that applicants did not understand what incubation was about and many were rejected because the applicant did not understand the criteria needed to qualify for the ISP.

Other reasons for not meeting the programme’s criteria were failure to team up with an industry partner and applications not being aligned with the programme. In addition to this, 14 of the 48 approved applications worth R222 million have been cancelled.

The handbook is a resource for anyone interested in establishing an incubator and is structured around four key questions which are what are incubators, how to choose the right incubation strategy, how to execute an incubation strategy and what support is available in South Africa and how can this be utilised.

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