Civil Engineering Reference
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Universitaire—JEU) and tax reliefs for innovative SMEs. The government also
launched a specific measure to promote the culture of innovation, such as the
school of innovation. The measure led to the awareness of research opportunities,
the understanding of research partnerships, the identification and targeting of
contacts to save time and scientific expertise of project ideas.
The majority of the above-mentioned programs and measures are open to all
SMEs and applicable in the competitiveness cluster. They cover the entire value
chain steps of research, development and innovation projects, from basic research,
design, and development to research exploitation and commercialization of
innovation. The French Government also encourages the emergence of new pro-
jects for creating firms and/or developing start-ups and rapidly expanding SMEs.
In competitiveness clusters, this infrastructure spans technology business incuba-
tors and specific frameworks designed to boost growth in SMEs. According to
second evaluation report of the competitiveness cluster, in 2011, on average each
cluster has 187 members and 72 % of the members are private enterprises. SMEs
represent almost 60 % of the members. Between 2008 to 2011, €984 million
(€517 million from OSEO, €375 million from FUI, and €87 million from ANR),
which represents 36 % of the public funds, allocated to the competitiveness
clusters were used to support collaborative R&D projects involving SMEs.
The majority of the funds to support SMEs in the competitiveness clusters come
from OSEO (52.54 %). The approved project from the clusters can access two
forms of financial support from OSEO: Innovation Assistance (funds) or the Stra-
tegic Industrial Innovation program. From 2007 to 2010, between 10 and 13 % of
the OSEO Innovation Assistance (funds) were used to support projects in the
competitiveness clusters. The Innovation Assistance (funds) provides financial
assistance for the realization and development of innovation before its industrial
and commercial launching. It concerns the innovative SMEs with less then 2,000
employees. The report of the second evaluation of the French competitiveness
clusters states that, in general, the innovation assistance of the OSEO were given to
individual enterprises (9 out of 10), not to collaborative R&D projects. This practice
is not in line with the policy which is promoted by the competitiveness clusters.
Since 2008, OSEO also allocated financial assistance to the SMEs in the
competitiveness clusters through the Strategic Industrial Innovation program. It
concerns the collaborative R&D projects which involve activities with at least two
private enterprises and one public research institution. Twenty-five clusters ben-
efited from this program from 2008 to 2011.
Others institutions that provide SMEs with financial support in the competi-
tiveness clusters are FUI and ANR. During the period 2008-2011, FUI allocated
€375 million, more then 38 % of its funds, to support collaborative project
involving SMEs. The SMEs represent around one-third of the participants of the
collaborative projects. 45 %of the FUI sponsored collaborative projects were led
by SMEs. The public research institutions are the main recipients of the ANR
funds, 76.8 % of the funds allocated during the period 2008-2011 (€574 million).
The private enterprises benefited from 23.1 %, half of it was used to support SMEs
(€87 million).
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