Revision: V11 A survey on Innovation Vouchers Graz, 24 th January 2011 Vincent Morfouace

2 Vouchers in KIS-PIMS projects Variants per country AustriaFinlandFrance Voucher types 1 technical voucher (FFG) 1 business Styrian voucher (LEV) 1 single voucher covering both technical and business expertise (TEKES) 1 voucher for business expertise (OSEO) Voucher values FFG: € LEV: € max TEKES: € maxOSEO: € max Funding rates 100% of the external expertise 75% of the external expertise 50% of the total expenses (external + internal) Revision: V2

EU voucher survey among EEN 21 programs Start date: 1990 (1) – 2006 (3) – many around ‘09 Amounts: 500 EUR (BE) – EUR 9/21 schemes are 100% funded Own funding: 0% - 50% Eligible services: only 3 schemes are limited to technological development

Management consulting & business process engineering: 50% of all programmes Usually excluded: o Skill development  o Market studies o IT consulting Service providers o Usually national public centres o Some accept national private service providers o Few accept foreign private commercial providers

Speed & complexity of application o 1 page – 1 day – EUR (Flanders) o Average: 5 pages – 18 days o Beyond:  Control & monitoring o Tight control at all phases (South) o Only sporadic ex-post audits (NL)

Experts o Usually: Free choice among all public centres o Rarely: Designation of expert by agency o Private: SME choses expert from pool. Pool of registered consultants with quality control, ex- ante criteria and ex-post control. Punishment: exclusion from pool o Private: SME choses expert freely Quality control of expert is more an issue for innovation consultants than for technical experts o “The expertise is as good as the expert” (OOES)

Impact? Little assessments so far – young programs NL & Limburg have assessments o Positive: will continue vouchers o Hard to compare with our objectives, since “comparing apples and oranges”

“Vouchers are all over the place” Voucher schemes are mushrooming Implementation with national and Structural and Cohesion Funds National and regional A new generation of service vouchers is following, inside and outside of Europe INNOVA.

What is working well at present? Traditional “access to research” vouchers Fully automated – low management costs Hands-off management of agencies 25% own cost (own personnel costs) Amounts: – EUR (not too much!)