Grants for Innovation in Espírito Santo

Abstract

Innovations are sources of competitive advantage for companies, regions, and countries. At the beginning of this century, the growth of the public sector's participation in financing innovation was observed in Brazil. With the regulation of the Brazilian Innovation Law in 2005, the Governments started to execute grants for innovation, meaning non-reimbursable financial support to companies in order to develop innovative activities, in partnership with the Federal Government. In 2013, the Government of Espírito Santo State, performed the grants in the state, through TECNOVA-ES Program. A total of R$13.5 million has been injected into 38 companies with the aim of developing innovative products and services to expand the competitiveness of these companies. This article evaluates the impacts of TECNOVA-ES with emphasis on the commercialization of products/services. The main results revealed 27 companies participating in the evaluation (71% of the population) have developed 65 products, of which 46 have reached the market, resulting in a commercialization rate of 70%. In terms of turnover, more than 55% of the companies participating in this study had no impact on their turnover due to TECNOVA-ES. However, the program allowed almost 15% of the companies participating in the evaluation to increase their revenues by more than 100%. Future studies are recommended to evaluate the impacts of TECNOVA-ES considering other variables such as cooperation relations, social and environmental impacts.