Effects of SME support 2016-2017

Purpose and goal

Despite the fact that public R & D support often is motivated by ambitions to generate systemic effects, this has rarely been the focus of previous studies. The project aims at a deeper understanding of the involvement and impact of VINNOVA support for a selection of SMEs with broad VINNOVA participation. Against this background, the study included analysis of three types of impacts and effects: Direct effects (the projects’ impact on the company) Spill-over effects (the project’s and company’s impact on other partners) Effects on the functioning of the system

Expected results and effects

The results show that there is a small percentage of companies that account for a large part of the value creation. A handful of companies show strong growth as a direct result of project funding. However, in the majority of the cases, the SMEs´ collaboration with other players resulted in economic spill-over effects for their partners. It is also clear in the analysis that these SMEs have a frequent and extensive influence on the system´s functions. This is especially clear for the system´s knowledge development, direction of search, and entrepreneurial experimentation.

Planned approach and implementation

The project included both quantitative and qualitative studies. Vinnova was responsible for overall mapping of the 1341 companies supported through Vinnova´s SME program (2001 - 2015). In a second step, a smaller population was selected for a cross-sectional analysis (88 SMEs), where these quantitative data were combined with qualitative information via telephone interviews with directly involved SMEs. In a third step, a small number of SMEs were selected for personal interviews. This resulted in twelve case studies, with effects on both business, collaborative and system level.