Improving Innovation
Support to SMEs

The Synthesis Report from INNO-Partnering Forum

This report was prepared by: Kjell-Håkan Närfelt

Contact details:
VINNOVA, 101 58 Stockholm
Phone: +4684733047
e-mail: Kjellhakan.narfelt@vinnova.se

Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this report are those of the author and the Peer Review Team.
They do not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of the European Commission and
in no way commit the involved organisations.

Contents

1 Executive Summary 4

2 Introduction 6

2.1 Purpose of Synthesis report 6

2.2 Structure of this report 6

3 Context 7

3.1 Background 7

3.2 What has been the purpose of the IPF project? 8

3.3 Common Framework 9

3.4 How has the IPF project been organised? 11

4 Summary of the findings from IPF 12

4.1 Learning platform 12

4.2 Tool set 12

4.3 Recommendations on innovation support to SMEs 14

4.4 Proposed Future 18

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

The INNO-Partnering Forum (IPF) is the outcome
of a call from DG Enterprise and Industry within
the PRO INNO Europe® initiative. The purpose
of the call was to bring public actors responsible
for innovation support together in order to
foster transnational cooperation in the area of
innovation support for SMEs as well as to establish
an operational platform for mutual learning and
collaboration.

The winning bid1 was from a consortium
of six leading European innovation agencies:
Enterprise Ireland (IE), FFG (AU), NL Agency
(NL), Tekes (FI), Technology Strategy Board (UK)
and VINNOVA (SE). These agencies have had a
strong interest in improving policy measures for
innovative SMEs through collaborative efforts
to develop, identify, assess and transfer good
practices.

The objectives of the INNO-Partnering Forum
(IPF) programme have been:
1. To identify, develop and exploit synergies

between funding agencies in Europe, and to
provide recommendations for these actions,
including the establishment of a mutual
learning platform.

2. Propose and test new approaches to innovation
support. This objective has been linked to
activities focused on assessing, identifying,
transferring and exchanging good practices

3. Develop and explore new ways of service
delivery by peer-reviewing and international
benchlearning activities.

4. Accelerate the adoption of innovation policy
mixes with proven efficiency and impact. This
has been addressed by thematic network events,
peer-reviews and twinning. An example of this
is the pre-commercial procurement that in
many countries is a new approach on demand
side support which is very important for driving
innovation led growth in a country.

IPF has had a number of important challenges as
a starting point. Both European and member state
innovation policies face similar challenges and to
seek measures to act upon them. The challenges
that the project has been focusing on, include the
need to improve innovation support measures
to SMEs and the need to improve the efficiency
and effectiveness in providing public innovation
support.

IPF has been working with identification and
assessment of, and learning from, good practices.
To facilitate the process, IPF has developed a

common framework that has served three main
purposes; firstly, as a conceptual model that
provides a cognitive framework and a basis for a
common language and analysis. Secondly, as an
ideal process – the methodological approach -
of how good practises of innovation support to
SMEs is assessed, analysed and transferred to a
new policy context. Thirdly, the framework has
been guidance to the different work packages
and structuring the relation between the work
packages.

The IPF has been organised in six work
packages, each headed by one of the consortium
members. VINNOVA has coordinated and
managed the project. Five of these work packages
have focused on identifying and developing better
practices to support SMEs (the WP2, WP3 and
WP5), or to identify and develop better practices
that will improve the effectiveness of designing,
implementing and assessing/evaluating public
activities (WP4 and WP6). In WP2 and WP3,
this also included the development of new tools
(peer-review and twinning tools respectively).
WP1 comprised tools, processes, methods and
common tasks where the main results have
been the common framework, the segmentation
method, the meeting formats and synthesis of
work package results.

From a synthesis perspective, IPF can be viewed
as delivering three things:
• A learning platform that facilitates collaboration

and learning among innovation support
organisations based on good practices

• A tool-set supporting identification, assessment
and transfer of good practices between
innovation support organisations and policy
contexts

• Recommendations on how innovation support
to SMEs can be improved

The learning platform developed by IPF has
been based on the assumption that learning
requires a common language with which good
practices can be discussed and exchanged among
participants and it needs a methodology that
guides users on how to analyse and transfer
good practices between different policy contexts.
Furthermore, the learning platform needs users
(”a community”) that apply the language and the
process. IPF has therefore invested in developing
and applying different meeting formats that
maximise exchange of ideas between participants
and utilises group dynamics in an effective way,

1 Executive Summary

1) The proposal submitted by the consortium is denoted INNO-Partnering Forum, or in short IPF in the Synthesis Report

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

such as the creation of a council. Some of the
more important conclusions are that “learning-by-
doing” as a principle has been much appreciated
and is strongly preferred to reading reports. The
creation of a network is beneficial both for formal
and informal connections, a challenge though is
to keep interaction and learning processes active
in between physical meetings. One observation is
that IT tools not have been able to alleviate these
problems.

IPF has developed a number of tools: the
peer-review method has been used to identify,
analyse and assess good practices used in policy
measures or instruments. During the project,
eleven innovation support programmes have
been peer-reviewed using the IPF Peer-Review
Method. A twinning method to redesign good
practices from one policy context to another policy
context has been used. The tool has been used to
”transfer” SBIR as pre-commercial procurement.
An organisational development framework, the
EFQM Excellence Model, has been adapted to
identify and assess good operational practices at
innovation agencies. Guidelines for the design
of service delivery systems, the Conceptual
Framework and the Segmentation method have
been initiated. The general experience of the tools
is that they all serve their purposes and are useful
for agencies for the learning and the transfer of
practises. However, the tools have been best for
identifying and analysing good practises, whereas
the tools supporting the actual transfer and
redevelopment of good practices into new policy
contexts need further development. Examples of
areas to improve include: analysis of contextual
aspects that need complete redesign, guidelines
for design of the service delivery system and better
linkages to good practices in operational practices
identified using e.g. EFQM.

IPF has explored measures for innovation
support to SMEs in three major themes, i) how to
support growth in SMEs through public initiatives,
ii) how to stimulate demand of innovation,
especially using procurement as a catalyst for
innovation support and iii) how to improve the
agencies’ and governments’ delivery of innovation
support to SMEs.

This report presents a synthesis of the IPF
experiences for these three themes. The theme
of how to support growth in SMEs through public
initiatives has shown that governments should
not try to replace market actors, but rather foster
better market players and market conditions. It

was also found that agencies should use systemic
approaches and not focus on isolated measures
or innovation support services. This report shows
that agencies should not focus on only providing
money in early stages, but that business coaching,
training, recruitment support etc. is equally
important. Moreover, agencies should evaluate
companies’ entire business prospects rather than
individual projects, and direct support flexibly to
enhance the growth of the company. . Growth
within international niches is also important
in supporting company growth. Many of these
lessons/practices were identified for example in
the in peer-reviewing of the Irish programme
for High-Potential Start-ups and the Finnish
programmes for young innovative enterprises
(VIGO-programme in connection with NIY-
programme).

For the stimulation of demand of innovation
- public organisations can play an important
role as visionary risk-taking and demanding
reference customers. By taking these roles, these
organisations can stimulate innovation through
innovative demand side measures, such as public
procurement. An approach that has received
much attention is the US SBIR programme and
its successors in Europe and Asia. In IPF it has
been observed that there needs to be a balance
between EU, national and regional initiatives.
Stimulation of demand is not only provided
through public organisations. Demand from
private organisations can also be stimulated
through different governmental initiatives such as
subsidies, tax redemption schemes and regulatory
changes. Another important remark is that if SMEs
are prioritised as a target group for innovation
procurement schemes, then specific SME-friendly
design solutions have to be included.

To improve the delivery of innovation support
to SMEs – much focus lies on providing more
specific and tailored support that is provided in
a more timely fashion at lower costs and with
lower administrative burden. For this agencies
need to find a balance between small, simple
and general measures addressing all potentially
innovative SMEs (e.g innovation vouchers) on
one hand, and highly specialised and individual
measures addressing hi-growth SME (e.g the
finnish programme Young Innovative Enterprises)
on the other. Through an increased use of ICT-
systems, governments can address both high
volumes and individual SMEs more efficiently.
By using ICT there are also increased possibilities

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

for monitoring, governance, assessments, control
of projects (examples can be found in the USA, as
described in section 5.6). Another finding is that
innovation support has to take the heterogeneity
of SMEs, in terms of characteristic, abilities and
needs, into consideration . IPF has addressed this
by developing a method for segmentation of the
SME clients of an innovation agency.

The future IPF needs a central body that
facilitates the process and that can align activities
with the central purposes of the IPF. Furthermore,
some of the activities, such as the EFQM, also
need professional facilitation. One of the lessons
learned from the project so far is that the IPF
needs to improve its communication, something
which could also be facilitated by a central body.
However to what degree some of the services are
carried out by a secretariat or if some services are
carried out by partners, remains to be decided.

In addition, a decision for how such a secretariat
should be set-up is also required.

A future IPF would benefit from a deeper
involvement of more actors from different
governance levels. An extension of IPF should
focus on involving a wider representation of
agencies from across Europe. These could include
both regional and national actors. At the same
time, with an increasingly regionalised and
systemic view of innovation support, there is a
growing overlap between for instance DG agendas
and the need for a forum where national and
regional agencies can meet with the different
DGs to exchange knowledge and discuss possible
benefits from collaboration and aligning of
activities. Therefore, a future IPF could also cater
to not only DG Enterprise and Industry, but also
DG Research and DG Regio.

2.1 Purpose of Synthesis report
The purpose of this report is to present the results
of the project and to provide recommendations for
future work. It presents:
- IPF as a learning platform that facilitates

collaboration and learning among organisations
providing innovation support services to SMEs.

- IPF as a provider of tools that facilitates on the
one hand the identification, assessment and
transfer of good practices between different
policy contexts, and guides innovation agencies
to improve effectiveness and efficiency on the
other.

- IPF as a provider of recommendations that
improves the quality and effectiveness of
innovation support services to SMEs. IPF has
focused on three themes: stimulate growth,
stimulate demand of innovations and improve
effectiveness and efficiency of innovation
support service delivery.

2.2 Structure of this report
The report is structured in the following way: it
begins with a chapter that provides the context of
the project, presenting the background, purpose,

the common framework of the project and the
organisation of the work.

This is followed by presenting the main lessons
learned from the network/learning platform, the
tools that have been used and from the analysis
of the central policy themes. Thereafter follows
the IPF recommendations with regard to how
IPF could be organised in the future including
proposed future activities.

In the appendices (only available in the web
version – please look at www.vinnova.se) there is
a presentation of the methodological approach
that has governed the work processes. It presents
the definitions of the model and the key processes
involved in learning and transferring good
practises of innovation agencies in supporting
SMEs. It connects the different tools explored
in this project to the different phases of a
transfer process. There are also more in-depth
presentations of the outcomes of the different
work packages, with a description of experiences
from the processes and recommendations, both
with regard to the tools in themselves and with
regard to what has been identified as strengths in
the good practises analysed.

2 Introduction

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

3.1 Background
The IPF is the outcome of a call from DG
Enterprise and Industry within the PRO INNO
Europe® initiative. PRO INNO aims at innovation
policy analysis and cooperation in Europe, with a
view to learning from the best and contributing
to the development of new and better innovation
policies in Europe.

The purpose of the call was to bring together
public actors responsible for innovation support
in order to foster transnational cooperation on
support for innovation in SMEs. The idea of the
call was to establish an operational platform for
mutual learning and exchange of experiences, with
the objective to improve the overall quality and
efficiency of public innovation support services in
Europe. Furthermore, the call had the following
intentions: identify the scope for better synergies
between funding agencies; offer a platform
where funding agencies can jointly develop new
approaches to innovation support; facilitate
the “twinning” between innovation agencies
and innovation service providers from different
participating countries (with the intention to
accelerate the take-up of the most advanced
innovation support mechanisms). Mutual learning
should also include reflections on how to remove
existing barriers for the use of “better practise”
and how to adapt financial and budgetary rules to
provide innovation support in a more tailored and
customised manner, thus better addressing the
needs of innovative SMEs across Europe.

The call’s ability to mobilise a sufficient number
of innovation agencies and innovation service
providers willing to share experience and to
cooperate was foreseen as a key factor of success.
To obtain the necessary engagement among
innovation service providers, the response to the
call had to offer clear added value to the potential
participants. Therefore, it was decided that the
platform was to be user-driven and committed
to deliver tangible results. In order to obtain this
result, DG Enterprise and Industry launched a
call to mobilise those innovation agencies and
innovation service providers that are strongest
committed to work together.

The activities in the call were:

1. Set-up and coordinate a reflection group
(mandatory). The lead beneficiary should
establish a “reflection group”, bringing
together about 30 high level representatives
representing public authorities responsible

for the development and management of
innovation support services and/or cluster
programmes at national and regional level with
a focus on support to innovative SMEs. The
group should stimulate mutual learning and
cooperation between public innovation support
service providers across Europe and prepare
recommendations on how to provide innovation
support services more efficiently.

2. Carry out peer reviews (mandatory) to search
for better practices in providing innovation
support services. The main objective of this task
was to organise peer reviews through visiting
programmes aimed at assessing current support
mechanisms and searching for better practices
in providing innovation support services to
innovative SMEs.

3. Set-up a good practice exchange scheme
between public innovation funding agencies
based on a twinning concept (mandatory),
by mobilising additional expertise assisting
agencies to identify the transferability of good
practice elements and the need to adapt the
existing regulatory and framework conditions.
It was proposed to initiate the twinning concept
through an open call for expression of interest
addressed to public innovation funding agencies
indicating the specific scheme they wish to
transfer.

4. Foster mutual learning by facilitating staff
exchanges (optional) between public innovation
funding agencies from different countries.
Innovation support organisations with the
intention to share new ideas, approaches and
tools to improve the management of their
activities were to be identified and invited to
participate in staff exchange programmes. This
activity was however never carried out during
the IPF.

5. Contribute to the development of new and/
or better quality management instruments
(mandatory) supporting public innovation
funding agencies to raise the quality and
effectiveness of their services. These
instruments did not only focus on service
quality, but also on the means to achieve it.
As it showed, the task could be implemented
in a number of different ways. One was
the identification of existing “best” quality
management practices and instruments used in
support of public innovation funding agencies
another the development of new and/or better
methods for quality improvement based on the

3 Context

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

EFQM Excellence Model, with a possibility to
establish a European quality standard for public
innovation funding agencies with respect to
their management and operations as well as the
provision of services provided to SMEs.

3.2 What has been the purpose
of the IPF project?
The winning bid for the call on the INNO-
Partnering Forum (IPF) was from a consortium
of six leading European innovation agencies:
Enterprise Ireland (IE), FFG (AU), NL Agency
(NL), Tekes (FI), Technology Strategy Board
(UK) and VINNOVA (SE). These agencies have
a profound experience base and track record in
designing and delivering innovation policies, both
from a national and an international perspective.
Moreover, these agencies have a strong interest
in identifying and developing new practises to
improve support to innovative SMEs.

The rationale for innovation policy intervention
has been moving away from market failures
towards argument of systemic failures and a
shift from linear models towards more systemic
innovation policies. With this shift an increased
emphasis on learning from trial and error has
emerged. This is shift has occurred due to the
complexity and the difficulty in modelling
innovation systems.

In addition, the design of innovation support
needs an international dimension. National
innovation agencies, operating within the
boundaries of national or regional policy settings,
provide schemes with a national or regional
scope, often neglecting the fact that innovation
processes are now both local and global. Due to
globalisation, SMEs and agencies are increasingly
intertwined with other global actors and it is
necessary for all actors to take an international
perspective to stay competitive.

Therefore there has been a keen interest from
the innovation agencies to participate in the IPF,
as a result of the need to learn from other agencies
and to collaborate internationally.

The IPF was initiated with the objective to
improve policy measures for innovative SMEs
through collaborative efforts to identify, assess
and transfer good practices into better practices.
Another objective was to identify the implications
from the implementation of practises and policies
for multilevel governance and the potential
implications for what could benefit from being
addressed at the EU-level.

IPF’s approach has been that of a policy
incubator in the implementation of the European
Innovation Plan – both in terms of challenges
addressed and in the way implementation has
been carried out.

The objectives of INNO Partnering Forum have
been to:
1. Identify, develop and exploit synergies between

funding agencies in Europe, and to provide
recommendations for this, including the
establishment of a mutual learning platform.

2. Propose and test new approaches to innovation
support. This objective has been linked to
activities focus on assessing, identifying,
transferring and exchanging good practices.

3. Develop and explore new ways of service
delivery by peer-reviewing and international
benchlearning activities.

4. Accelerate the adoption of innovation policy
mixes with proven efficiency and impact. This
has been addressed by thematic network events,
peer-reviews and twinning. An example of this
is the pre-commercial procurement that is a
new approach on demand side support in many
countries. The pre-commercial procurement
is very important for driving innovation-led
growth in a country.

IPF is based on the identification of a number of
important challenges that European innovation
policy faces at different levels of governance and to
provide policy recommendations to those actors
that are able to act upon them. At the agency level,
these were foremost challenges for (A) the support
measures targeting innovative SMEs and for (B),
the effectiveness in the design, implementation
and delivery of the policy mixes to innovative
SMEs. The challenges that the project focused on
included:
• The need to improve measures to support

innovation in SMEs in order to:
– stimulate growth (SUP1)
– foster internationalisation (SUP2)
– make SMEs more attractive for private capital

markets (SUP3)
– make innovation processes of SMEs more

effective (SUP4)

• The need to improve the efficiency and
effectiveness in providing public innovation
support in order to:
– improve inter- and intra-organisational

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

learning platforms for multilevel governance
and policy support across Europe (EFF1)

– increase the leverage of public support
with smarter, more efficient and effective
innovation support (EFF2)

– improve the access to public support schemes
for SMEs (EFF3)

– increase policy initiatives that stimulate the
demand of innovation (EFF4)

3.3 Common Framework
IPF has focused on identifying and learning
from good practices as well as developing new
ones. In order to do this, IPF has started with the
concept of a common framework. The Common
Framework serves three main purposes; firstly, it
is a conceptual model that provides a cognitive
framework and a basis for a common language
and analysis. Secondly, it illustrates an ideal
process – the methodological approach - of how
good practises of innovation support to SMEs is
assessed, analysed and transferred to a new policy
context. It also suggests which tools that can be
appropriate in different parts of a transfer process.
Thirdly, the framework has served as guidance
to the different work packages, structuring the
relation between them. These relations are
illustrated in figure 1.

The conceptual model
The conceptual model facilitates analysis and
common understanding of how innovation
support measures are carried out in different
contexts, and can give guidance on how to
redesign them in other settings. It has provided
a common cognitive framework and terminology
that can be used to overcome differences in
national institutional set-ups. The model is based
on a view that the institutional set-up of countries
differs, but that there are a number of functions
of the systems that are common. However, one
needs to analyse the differences in institutional
contexts, to assess whether it is possible and how
the transfer of good practise could be facilitated
and implemented.

The conceptual model suggests that an analysis
of a policy measure that provides innovation
support to SMEs should cover four major areas of
analysis:
• Policy Objectives – what has been the rationale

of the policy measure and what are the intended
outcomes

• The Policy Mix – consists of the selection of

policy actions, rules, framework conditions
etc. that is turned into assignments for actors
in the Policy Delivery System (PDS) or the
establishment of new organisations and other
structural changes in the Policy Delivery
System.

• The Policy Delivery System (PDS) is the system
put in place for the purpose of implementing
a policy mix targeting a particular policy
objective. The PDS consists of all institutions,
processes, programmes, rules, etc. set up to
deliver the policy mix targeting a specific
objective. The PDS can be said to provide a top-
down or a policy maker’s view of the system put
in place for policy implementation.

• The Service Delivery System (SDS) describes
how an SME perceive the system that delivers
the services to them from a bottom-up
perspective. It includes the set of services
(including funding) provided by organisations
together with a set of rules that an SME has to
adhere to in order to access and make use of
those services.

The idea behind the model is that in order to
transfer policy measures or practices one has to be
able to analyse those parts of a PDS and/or SDS
that are regarded as good practices and be able to
de-contextualise them from the original PDS and
SDS so that they can be redesigned in another
policy context (country or region). The concept
of a good practice is central and has been given
a pragmatic and quite a broad definition – “... an
integrated set of one or more functions, processes
and design aspects that together constitutes a
critical success factor for a given PDS or an SDS”.
Hence, good practices can cover a broad set of
practices from “small” innovative properties in an
SDS to broad implementation decisions/aspects
of a PDS or an SDS. By this use of the concept
of good practices, IPF found a pragmatic ground
for learning and transfer of practices between
cooperating agencies in Europe

The methodological approach
The IPF has developed an integrated approach
and process model for learning and transferring of
good practises based on the common framework.
The model describes how good practises of
innovation support to SMEs are assessed, analysed
and transferred to a new policy context. The model
also suggests which tools that can be appropriate
for which parts of a transfer process, see Figure 1.

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

The methodological approach consists of five
steps, i) Process Initiation, how is the process of
learning and transferring initiated, e.g. through
an analysis of internal needs, an assignment from
a ministry, etc.; ii) Identification and Analysis of
Good Practises, in order to understand its context
in terms of the PDS and SDS and to understand
its characteristics and implementation; iii)
Scheme Transferability Study - to analyse and
separate the non-contextual and contextual
issues regarding the design and implementation
of the good practice; it also involves analysis of
the success factors of the good practice and their
implementation. The Scheme Transferability

Study structures the findings into a comprehensive
synthesis that lists a number of options for how to
design, modify and adapt the good practice into
a new policy context; iv) Service Delivery System
Design - involves a practical design exercise to
“move” the good practice into a new context, that
is, designing and implementing the practise in a
new PDS and SDS; and v) Design Evaluation and
Improvement, is the final step where the process
is refined, through the support of a Peer Review or
EFQM. Finally, the common framework has been
a way to structure the relation between the work
packages of the IPF and the organisation of the
work.

Figure 1: Scheme for Methodological Approach

Process of policy
learning &

development

Tools

Peer Review

WP 2

Twinning

WP 3

EFQM

WP 4

SDS guidelines/
Segmentation

WP 5

WP 6

Work packages

Identification and

analysis of good
practises of policy

initiatives

Service Delivery
System Design

Scheme
Transferability

study

Design evaluation
and improvement

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

3.4 How has the IPF project been organised?
The IPF has been organised in six work packages,
each headed by one of the consortium members.
VINNOVA has coordinated and managed the
project.

The implementation of IPF has been based on
intensive co-operation among participants, where
openness and inclusiveness have been crucial
for the successful implementation. The work has
been conducted with an approach to facilitate
and maximise networking and exchange of
experiences, encouraging all participants to reflect
and contribute to the work and to incorporate
positive group dynamics in to the processes.

All groups have worked with the challenges
listed in section 3.2 and addressed these in
different ways, both with differences in the use
of tools and with different focus with regard to
the learning and transfer process, as illustrated in
Figure 1.

Five of these work packages have focused
on the identification and development of better
practices to support SMEs (the WP2, WP3 and
WP5), or to identify and develop better practices
with the intention to improve the effectiveness of
designing, implementing and assessing/evaluating
public activities (WP4 and WP6). In WP2 and
WP3, this has also included the development
of new tools (peer-review and twinning tools
respectively). WP1 has comprised tools, processes,
methods and common tasks where the main
results have been the common framework, the
segmentation method, the meeting formats and
the synthesis of the results of the work package.
The common framework and the segmentation
method are presented in the Appendices (chapters
5.1 and 5.7). The results of each of the other
work packages with regards to the tool and their
findings about good practices are presented in the
chapters 5.2-5.6.

1. Work package 1 has allocated responsibilities
with regard to the management of the INNO
Partnering Forum Council and included the
synthesis of the project results.

2. Work package 2 included peer reviews of
European agencies and programmes in order
to identify and to analyse good practises
of measures with the purpose to support
innovation in SMEs.

3. Work package 3 included twinning, i.e. working
with transferring good practices from one
policy context to another policy context (e.g.
comprising analysis of transferability and
recommendations for design options of good
practises).

4. Work package 4 included evaluating, testing
and elaborating new quality management
systems that have the purpose to improve
efficiency and effectiveness of innovation
agencies and programmes.

5. Work package 5 included peer reviews of good
practices at innovation agencies outside of
Europe.

6. Work package 6 included improving delivery of
innovation support services to SMEs.

The consortium has held regular meetings,
working actively in different work packages and
also used IT-tools such as LinkedIn (www.linkedin.
com) and Projectplace (www.projectplace.com) in
order to facilitate collaboration.

The European Commission has been an
active partner of the consortium and has had a
strong interest to establish a platform to improve
the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of SME
innovation support in Europe through mutual
learning between agencies. The Commission has
also been interested in establishing a forum for a
better dialogue with national and regional SME
support organisations.

The project has established a council, a network
of 23 high-level persons from regional and
national innovation agencies, highly experienced
in providing R&D&I support to SMEs (for
members, see Chapter 5.8). This group has acted
as a sounding board, reflection group and as a part
of the learning platform. The IPF has arranged
two council meetings per year where the group has
exchanged experiences, presented and discussed
new developments.

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

The focus of IPF has been to identify, analyse and
transfer good practises. By doing this, the three
other objectives have also been addressed (i.e.
accelerate take up, test new ways of service delivery
and test new approaches to innovation support).
The key components for this approach have been
the common framework, the network (council and
consortium), the different tools of the tool box and
the IT-platform.

The findings of the IPF are here summarised in
three sections, the first on the learning platform
as such, the second on the tool set used to support
transfer of good practises and, third on the
recommendations on how innovation support
services can be improved in Europe within the
three themes selected.

4.1 Learning platform
The learning platform developed by IPF has been
based on the following approach:
• Learning requires a common language by which

identification, assessment and transfer of good
practices can be discussed and exchanged
among participants. Hence, a common
conceptual model adapted to the task of IPF
was developed, introduced and used by all
participants of the IPF.

• A learning platform also needs a methodology
or work processes that guides users on how the
language should be applied when analysing
and transferring good practices between
different policy contexts. Hence, the common
conceptual model (“the common language”) was
complemented by a process which guides the
analysis of transferability and the design of good
practices in new policy contexts. The process
uses the conceptual model as a framework for
its structure and activities.

• A learning platform needs users (”a
community”) that applies the language and
process. Thus, IPF extended the consortium
with an open Council of practitioners that
formed a community interested in applying the
common framework (the conceptual model
and the process described above). IPF has also
invited experts from European innovation
support agencies to participate in peer-review
panels and as hosts for peer-reviews. This has
extended the community of users beyond the
consortium and the Council.

• Learning happens in the interaction and
meeting between people. IPF has therefore

invested in developing and applying different
meeting formats that maximise exchange
of ideas between participants and utilises
group dynamics in an optimal way. IPF has
also tried to utilise IT-tools (Project Place and
LinkedIn) in order to extend meeting formats
and facilitate communication and networking
beyond physical meetings.

Some of the more important conclusions and
lessons learned using this approach have been the
following:
• The learning platform has used “learning-by-

doing” as a principle which has been preferred
to reading reports. This approach is different to
that of many other projects where reports are
used to a greater extent.

• The learning platform has raised the awareness
and knowledge of how transferability can be
supported and the challenges and limitations
surrounding this topic.

• The work processes have also been positive in
generating new networks and broadened the
existing ones between the leading agencies,
both formally and informally.

• The main obstacles of the platform have been
associated with keeping the interaction and
learning processes alive in between the physical
meetings. The IT tools have not alleviated
these problems: The lesson learned is that IT
tools need active promotion and support at
participants’ sites, at least as long they are not
an integrated part of the normal operations of
participants.

• IPF used open calls in order to establish the
Council and to attract reviewers/experts. The
open calls were also used to get support schemes
submitted. Support schemes that were subject
to be analysed and potentially transferred to
other support organisations. Other forms of
attraction should perhaps be considered in
the future in order to improve both reach in
terms of candidates and adequacy of submitted
applications.

• A learning platform like the one used in in
the IPF needs maintenance and management
through a “secretariat” or organisational body
that arranges and chairs meetings. Such a
“secretariat” would also conduct reviews,
task forces and facilitate social networks etc.
Without this “champion” organisation, any
effort will not be sustainable.

4 Summary of the findings from IPF

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

4.2 Tool set
In order to support the methodology and process
adopted by IPF, a set of tools have been developed
and adapted. These include:
• A peer-review method used to identify, analyse

and assess good practices used in policy
measures or instruments. This has mainly been
used in Work package 2 focused on reviewing
policy instruments, but also in Work package 5
and 6.

• A twinning method used to redesign good
practices from one policy context to another
policy context. This tool has mainly been used
in Work package 3, focused on transfer of good
practices between policy contexts.

• EFQM has been adopted to identify and assess
good operational practices at innovation
agencies, mainly used in Work package 4
on efficiency and effectiveness in agency
operations.

• Guidelines for design of service delivery
systems, mainly done in Work package 6 on
service delivery systems.

• The Conceptual Framework and the
Segmentation method developed in Work
package 1 can also be regarded as part of the
IPFtool set.

With regards to the tools, the general experience
is that all of them are appropriate and useful for
agencies (for more extensive descriptions of the
tools can be found in the Appendices (in the
electronic verison) of this report) for learning and
transferring of practises.

The key processes identifying, analysing and
disseminating good practice schemes have been
successful, where the best results have been
obtained in the work with identification and
analysis of good practises. However, assessment
and description of transferability need further
development. The main lessons learned regarding
the use of the IPF tool set are:

Peer-review
• In summary the peer review is a format and

template driven process that works well. The
questionnaires, templates and other documents
that supports the peer review have been very
useful, both before (preparing for the meeting
and enabled the team members to streamline
some of the questions) and after the review
(supporting the editing process of the review
report).

• Peer reviews have been beneficial for
identifying good practises and it seems like
it has been easier for the group to engage in
identification and analysis than in transfer and
implementation.

• Peer review processes have been positive both
for the ones observing others and their good
practises, as well for the ones being reviewed.
The work package has established a model for
the conduct of peer reviews.

• However, there are areas for improvement,
such as how to elaborate on transferability and
there is a need for a more systemic interview
technique (e.g. using the EFQM RADAR-
approach).

• Peer reviews outside of Europe are more
challenging due to language issues, incentives
and shorter time frames for reviews. It has
been found to be advantageous to use formal
channels like an embassy to communicate with
host agencies, when arranging with these types
of peer reviews.

Twinning
• Twinning has been successful and three out of

four of the countries that were actively involved
in the twinning process have implemented some
version of pre-commercial procurement.

• One of the advantages with the twinning
approach is that it can transfer tacit knowledge
of host agencies, as they are being involved in
the process.

• Peer-reviews cannot completely analyse
transferability and hand over design
recommendations; instead, the design
recommendations have to be developed as a
co-creation process at the beginning of the
twinning exercise between those implementing
the good practices and those providing the good
practices. Hence, there is a need of matching
competence between participants so that those
“importing” the good practices can understand
and contribute to the co-creation process – a
pure “student-teacher”-relationship is not
recommended since copycat-strategies do not
work when transferring good practices.

• In the future one should perhaps work more
with Twinning advanced, involving learning
between experienced actors. Twinning advanced
can also involve a less advanced actor that
participates in the process and learn from
the exchange between the more advanced
participants.

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

• One important deliverable of the twinning
process is the Design options paper. It
acknowledges that re-design of good practices
is not a copy-exercise – it involves design
choices that reflect differences in institutional
settings, in policy objectives, in implementation
preferences etc. The design options paper
collects and illustrates these options based on
current practices and experiences.

EFQM
The objective for using EFQM was twofold :
(i) to promote the use of the model in order to
improve agency operations (ii) to use EFQM as an
assessment tool for identifying and assessing good
operational practices at organisations providing
innovation support services. The use of EFQM has
however been limited, especially as an assessment
tool. Nevertheless, IPF has had the following
experiences using EFQM:
• EFQM seems to be a very effective tool and

method to introduce operational learning
among agencies and as a tool to constantly
improve operations.

• The pilot exercise used to identify good
operational practices also seems promising.

• The biggest hurdle in adopting EFQM is that
the start-up cost in terms of time, competence
and resource needs and cost. One has to
introduce “light-versions” or stepwise use of the
model in order to overcome that.

• The EFQM model can be used for individual
agencies, or a group of agencies, forming a
learning platform or user group. With the
EFQM model, organisations may exchange
data on performance or improve their internal
processes. It may however be easier to
implement the model for a programme or a sub-
set of an agency’s operations.

• The work package has developed tools and
guidelines so that other agencies can start
implementing the EFQM model by themselves.
At the same time the experience of the work
package is that it is beneficial to work with other
agencies in the process and that it would be
very beneficial with a more professional hosting
organisation, that it is knowledgeable about the
tool and that can assist an agency or a group of
agencies in utilising the tool.

Guidelines for design of service
delivery systems
The Conceptual Framework

• There is a need for a “common language and
methodology” for projects or operations like IPF.
The conceptual model provided by IPF seems to
comprise the concepts needed to describe and
analyse innovation support measures. However,
it has not been tested as a design tool and it is
unclear if it fulfils the requirements of a design
tool.

• There are some areas that remain to be further
developed. One such area is how to analyse
the Policy Delivery systems, where the concept
is still underdeveloped and there can be
great differences between countries and their
institutional contexts.

• The common framework has been positive for
creating a common language and for facilitating
understanding, but there is a need to make the
common framework more accessible.

• Training activities would be needed if the
framework is to be spread and become used
outside the inner circle of users.

4.3 Recommendations on
innovation support to SMEs
The IPF has focused its activities on three major
themes, i) how to support growth in SMEs through
public initiatives, ii) how to stimulate demand
of innovation, especially using procurement as
an vehicle for innovation support and iii) how to
improve the agencies and governments delivery of
innovation support to SMEs.

The initial idea was to provide policy
recommendations based on lessons learned.
Some policy papers have been published but the
main needs and outcome of IPF have been related
to practical guidelines for better innovation
support measures at the agency level. A set of such
recommendations is presented below for each of
the three themes:

How to support growth in SMEs
through public initiatives
One of the challenges identified in the IPF
proposal was the fact that too few of the European
innovative SMEs grow into large companies. Access
to capital, costly patenting, market fragmentation,
outdated regulations and procedures, slow
standard-setting and the failure to use public
procurement strategically are all weaknesses that
prevent good ideas from successfully reaching
the market. Moreover, fragmentation can also be
found in governmental support – EU, national
and regional support systems are not aligned in a

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

satisfactory manner, something which results in
overlaps and/or duplicated measures.
Growth support is usually addressed by specific
and isolated policy measures; however, IPF
believes that growth in SMEs requires a coherent
policy mix that simultaneously addresses a series
of issues:
• Framework conditions to remove fragmentation

and investment barriers across Europe and to
support the business driven management and
utilisation of intellectual property rights in
companies easier and less costly.

• Framework conditions to stimulate experienced
entrepreneurs to invest not only money but
also their skills and time in the operations of
SMEs. Incentives to attract relevant business
competence to new and early stage ventures are
often a prerequisite to mobilise sufficient private
growth capital to the company.

• SME adapted innovation contexts. SMEs need
better linkages to innovation enabling contexts:
- Access to research institutions: We need

better linkages between business and
research, not only through R&D cooperation
but also through initiatives to stimulate
entrepreneurs and business people to become
inspired by R&D results (to contrast the
view that R&D results are the basis for new
innovations and should be “transferred” to
industry).

- Access to innovation clusters and networks:
By being linked to business -and innovation
networks and clusters SMEs can develop
their own businesses in collaboration and
competition with other firms in the cluster/
network.

• Improved performance of seed and early stage
investments. To improve performance of seed
and early-stage investment industry, we need to
simultaneously address:
– Investment readiness in potential innovative

and growth SMEs. This is an area where
government initiatives are needed since
Europe does not have the capital structure of
the US where private money is much larger
than the Venture Capital industry. This is also
linked with the framework conditions and
initiatives attracting serial entrepreneurs and
relevant business competences to invest their
time and skills in early stage SMEs.

– Stimulate the availability of excellent fund
managers in early stages of company growth.
Knowledge and technology intensive

companies need investors with a deep
understanding of both the business and
technology opportunities and obstacles. This
understanding may be acquired through
entrepreneurial and early stage investment
experience and needs its own policy
measures.

– Stimulate and create conditions for larger
seed funds. Seed funds make money
on follow-up investments, not on entry
investment. This requires a solid capital
foundation to work from and such funds
must be able to commit themselves to
companies with a high growth potential.

• Improved access to growth capital. Stimulate
and create conditions for different kind
of growth capital, not only equity based
investment but also loans, guarantees etc.
adapted to companies having predominantly
intangible assets.

• Demand driven support measures to stimulate
the use and demand for innovations. In
many cases, measures driving the markets for
innovation are, even more important for the
growth of the economy than stimulation of
the production of innovations. This covers e.g.
procurement initiatives to bring innovation
into use, tax incentives framework conditions to
stimulate deployment and usage of innovations,
etc.

• Embrace a broader concept of innovation that
also addresses non-technological innovation
opportunities that create new business and
customer value for companies.

Moreover, IPF has through its peer-review
exercises concluded on the following guidelines for
growth support to SMEs. Besides the experiences
reported by the members of the Consortium
and Council, the main sources have been the
peer-reviews of the Irish initiative for High-
Potential Startups, the Scottish Proof of Concept
programme, the Finnish VIGO- and Young
Innovative Enterprise-programme and the French
Venture Capital Guarantee programme:
• Do not replace market actors, but try to foster

better market players and market conditions.
• Do not only focus on providing money in early

stages of company or innovation development
– soft support in terms of business coaching,
training, recruitment support etc. is often more
important

• Evaluate companies, their management

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

and market context first – i.e. their business
prospects – then their request for project
funding.

• Apply milestone based funding – i.e. fund in
stages based on business performance.

• Focus EU funding on topping-up or co-funding
national SME innovation support mechanisms
which provide an added European value.

• Apply systemic approaches – do not focus on
isolated measures or support services.

• Growth means internationalisation, both in
market reach and competitive strength. Hence,
internationalisation must be integrated in all
aspects of innovation support that addresses
growth.

• Adequate supply of capital and competences are
crucial for growth in SMEs. Measures addressing
information symmetries and risk assessment
tools and systems are examples of government
initiatives that can stimulate private initiatives.

• If certification schemes are implemented, it
should be aware of and not prevent newcomers
from entering markets.

• Innovation management is an area that is
identified as important. There is a need for
SMEs to work with innovation management and
not only in R&D and product development. This
involves broadening the innovation concept to
e.g. partnership innovations, business models,
marketing and sales innovations etc.; improving
the ability to run innovation processes in new
ways e.g. through open innovation methods
and foster a new leadership, culture and
management that supports excellence in
innovation performance.

How to stimulate demand of innovation
Public organisations can play an important role
as visionary risk-taking and demanding reference
customers and stimulate innovation through
innovative demand side measures, such as public
procurement.

There are some general lessons learned from
studying SBIR-like efforts in Europe, the USA and
Asia. From these experiences it has been identified
that countries should review procurements rules.
Innovation procurement is not based on product
or service specifications, it is a co-creation process
between supplier and customer. This creates in
many cases problems with current procurement
cultures and rules. Furthermore, procurers should
be encouraged to express need-driven challenges,
rather than products or services which they are

currently used to and guided to, as this allows for
new and more innovative solutions, as well as new
providers of services entering the market.
There should be a balance between the EU,
national and regional initiatives. Procurement
is driven by the buyer – hence it is local and EU
or national innovation procurement initiatives
should be focused on the following:

• Facilitate and stimulate innovation procurement
through both funding and non-funding support
that reduces risks and improves innovation
management skills.

• Complement procurement processes with
funding support that accelerates the scaling and
take up of the innovation procured to additional
customers and markets.

Experiences from Asia and US show that in
order to stimulate demand of innovation in
public organisations, governments can require
public agencies and organisations to identify
potential innovation procurement opportunities
and demands, and allocate budgets for their
procurement. Another approach is the “US
Challenge.gov”, which stimulates public
organisations to post their challenges on to
a website that facilitates crowd sourcing of
solutions. “Challenge.gov” encourages people
to come with innovative solutions for societal
challenges. This site gathers and brings forward
challenges that different government agencies have
in one place. Through this site it has been possible
to reach a broader audience as compared to their
normal speaking partners. This has resulted in
new ideas and actors coming in touch with the
government.

To stimulate demand on innovation is broader
than public procurement and can through
different means also influence demand from
private organisations, e.g. public agencies can
facilitate innovation procurement in private
organisations by e.g. gathering buyer organisations
to commit to buy certain offering if they can meet
certain performance criteria (“catalytic innovation
procurement). Sweden has used this successfully
in the energy sector. Another approach is to
introduce regulatory changes that drive innovation
and the use of new technologies, like the Swedish
regulatory changes that allowed employers to
provide their employees with cheap PCs which in
turn drove demand of broadband and Internet
services. Another approach has been developed in

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

South Korea where subsidies for large companies
to buy new innovative products/services from
SMEs are provided.

Another important remark is that SMEs
should be addressed specifically in innovation
procurement. Procurement processes should be
simplified to become SME-friendly e.g. contracts
are non-negotiable, phases are initially short with
small budgets etc. that fit SMEs rather than large
companies used to manage and negotiate large
contracts.

How to improve the delivery of
innovation support to SMEs
SMEs act in a highly competitive context and
in order to be able to benefit from government
support this context needs to recognised and met
by the government support. Therefore, support
should be provided with low administrative
burden, efficient handling of tenders and
applications and satisfying terms of payment.

Agencies need to find a proper balance between
small, simple and general measures addressing
basically all potentially innovative SMEs including
measures such as e.g. innovation vouchers,
individual measures addressing high-growth SMEs
with specific and timely services. Governments
can more efficiently address both high volumes
and individual SMEs and they can manage the
interplay between EU, national and regional
levels more efficiently by an increased use of
ICT-systems for management of applications and
projects.

Some general guidelines identified by IPF for
service delivery systems are:
• Application procedures should be simple and

fast. Studies of needs of SMEs show that they
need funding without undue delays (e.g. waiting
for a specific competition). They also need
timely and personalised information on funding
opportunities and easy access to advice as well
as tailored support.

• An ideal service delivery mechanism seems to
be a true ‘one stop shop’ where client companies
receive support in one location with one agency,
with minimal cost and effort to the business.
Agencies need to rather find proper trade-
offs between two main ways of achieving best
practice innovation support: i) A real human
advisor mentoring approach, with knowledge
and contacts at an expert advisor’s fingertips,
and ii) a computer or web interface, linking
sites, searches and application forms together.

Mentoring type service delivery and on-line
service delivery systems each have their own
advantages, disadvantages and transferability
criteria (see next bullets).

• Human interfaces are expensive and time-
consuming, as well as connected with a
potential risk (they are vulnerable to loss of
staff and knowledge and quality is often based
on the quality of individual advisers). However,
personal meetings are highly valued by their
clients. It seems that human interfaces may be
the most efficient way of delivering innovation
support in the following circumstances –
when…:
– Programmes offered go beyond simple project

funds.
– Majority of companies are isolated (either

intellectually or geographically).
– Companies are relatively unsophisticated and

require help beyond simple funding.
– Broadband coverage is limited, precluding

the use of data-heavy websites.
– Limited numbers of sectors or limited

number of companies are to be helped.

• Computer or web interfaces on the other hand
are relatively cheap to run but still need staff to
update links and cooperate with other funding
agencies. The codification of human knowledge
into such an intelligent search system automates
human skills and expertise, leading to efficiency
savings and increased consistency but a side
effect is the loss of ability of the human expert
to innovate and to adapt to new circumstances
or to react to feelings and nuances. The effect of
the loss of personal contact should also not be
underestimated. Computer or web interfaces are
suited in the following circumstances – when…:
– Clients are computer and internet savvy.
– Access to broadband services are widespread.
– Clients that are more sophisticated require

funding and limited advice rather than
handholding, in depth reviews and advice on
improving performance.

– Client base consists of a large number of
industry sectors and large numbers of
prospective client companies.

• Another approach is segmentation, which
divides an agency’s client base of SMEs into
groups that have similar characteristics from
an innovation support perspective and hence
better estimate and meet the SMEs’ needs.

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

Segmentation also offers opportunities for
agencies to improve their dialogue with
policy makers and other stakeholders since
it highlights the different innovation support
needs of SMEs in a clearer way than when
treating SMEs as one homogeneous group
characterised only by its size.

There are also increased possibilities for improving
the monitoring, governance, assessment and
control of projects through ICT by e.g.:
• Allowing companies receiving support to

continuously report feedback on progress, on
outcomes and effects, etc.

• Increasing the use of E-submissions to improve
quality and efficiency of handling. The Korean
online R&D management system, which is
used for managing Korean SMEs’ applications,
submissions and payment of project funds, is
one such example.

SMEs are highly heterogeneous; hence individual
needs have to be considered when approaching
SMEs. When providing innovation support,
public agencies should focus on becoming value
adding partners, offering smarter, more efficient
and more effective innovation support. Agencies
should assist the SMEs with their businesses and
strategies rather than on supporting individual
projects. For this purpose the business canvas
could be useful.2

The policy landscape of Europe is becoming
increasingly complex with a growing number
of actors providing support to SMEs. One
of the findings and tools of the IPF has been
segmentation and the need to align efforts geared
towards specific target groups. An interesting
example is the Enterprise One scheme run by
SPRING Singapore that gathers support on a web
and provides some free counselling. SPRING could
be a source of inspiration. Another possible path
is to develop a comprehensive map of European
innovation support, describing what is being
done by public innovation support organisations
at different levels. This could be the basis for
streamlining and aligning schemes.

There is a danger that national and regional
agencies become near sighted and focus on
regional capabilities rather than to develop the
global linkages. These global linkages are of crucial
importance for the whole business community,
for large companies and SMEs as well as for
researchers. EU can support that such global

linkages become truly European or international
hubs.

4.4 Proposed Future
Among the participants of the IPF there is a
common understanding that it has been a very
positive project, as it has provided opportunities
for learning, both in formal and in informal
ways. Findings and lessons learned have had an
impact on the participating innovation agencies.
The adoption of pre-commercial procurement is
one obvious example. Hence, there is a general
agreement that the results of IPF should find a
continuation, however perhaps in other forms
than in IPF. Below, some of these ideas are
presented.

The tools developed in IPF need to be
maintained and improved. Initiating and
performing peer-reviews, twinning´s and EFQM-
assessments do not happen automatically.
Continuation of these activities will probably
need a central body that facilitates the process
and sees to that the needs and interests of the
community of innovations agencies are addressed.
Furthermore, some of the activities like the EFQM
also need professional facilitation. However, to
what degree some of the services are carried out by
a secretariat, or if some services are carried out by
partners or sub suppliers, remains to be decided.

The unique aspect of the IPF is the profile, the
membership and the access to leading experts.
IPF is a platform where meetings take place and
where learning and knowledge exchange can occur
both directly and indirectly. The platform also
fosters informal networks that can be used in their
circumstances. Therefore, it is important to have
the leading innovation agencies on board. At the
same time, an extension of IPF should focus on
obtaining a better representation of agencies from
across Europe. These can include regional and
national actors.

With an increasingly regionalised and systemic
view on innovation support, there is an increasing
overlap between DG agendas and the need for
a forum where national and regional agencies
can meet with the different DGs to exchange
knowledge and discuss possible benefits from
collaboration and aligning activities.

The organisation of activities remains to be
decided, both with regard to which activities to
carry out, and who should participate and in which
ways. There could be a differentiation in inner and
outer circles, e.g. a consortium with central actors

2) See Business Model Generation by Osterwalder & Pigneur (John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-0470-87641-1) for a description of the business model canvas 9(14)

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES

that are involved in all processes and a council
with more broad based membership. Another
option is a task force based approach, where
there is broad based membership, but actors can
pick which work packages to be involved in. In
this approach external experts can be included
when needed. However, the ones that apply for
participating in projects need to be committed to
these processes.

Furthermore, when deciding which themes to
explore this could either be decided by IPF, the
Commission or through calls where applicants
are provided with an initial period of time where
they can decide which themes to explore. A range
of possible future activities for IPF have been
suggested and these include:
• Initiate and coordinate different tasks, projects

and events.

• Function as a think tank that identifies, tests
and prepares new directions within innovation
support.

• Analyse different programmes and areas and
provide policy recommendations.

• Provide education and courses and facilitate
learning from peers.

• Develop and refine tools for learning, like Peer
Reviews, EFQM and Twinning.

• Be a platform that offers the service to assist
agencies in learning through utilising the tools.

• Host and manage a public online forum for
discussions, like LinkedIn group Innovation
Policy Forum.

• Work with capacity building in less developed
countries and regions.

The remaining issues should be discussed and
decided upon at a management group meeting.

The complete report including appendices can be found at www.vinnova.se

IMPROVING INNOVATION SUPPORT TO SMES