Kreo tn2 Karlsruhe, Rhône Alpes, Emilia-Romagna and Oxfordshire Thematic Network for the Support of Innovative Companies

5.3Measures and programmes supporting business start up

“The competitiveness is enhanced through channels that narrow the gap between sources of knowledge and Industry. These channels can be physical, such as science parks or regional centres to promote innovation but the gap can also be narrowed through non-physical channels, such as value added service businesses that are knowledge intensive and programmes that encourage researcher and PhD mobility” ¹⁴
All measures and programmes different from innovation support infrastructures and financial tools for spin off enterprises have been considered within this area.

A great variety and diversity of measures and programmes can be found in each region and, according to the information collected so far, comparisons appear to be less significant than in other cases. On the contrary, it seems to be more interesting to select and take into consideration the different elements existing in each region and defining a sort of comprehensive package of possible interventions putting together the experiences of the four KREO regions.

To start with, specific national laws on innovation may be considered. Here we find both the French and the Italian cases, which are to some extent similar even if the first one represents more a regulatory framework, while the second one combines regulatory aspects with co-financing of projects of different nature.

The French Loi Allègre in fact, voted in 1999, represents a multi-aspects law aiming at improving the regulatory framework for research mobility and start-up’s taxation and, more in general, at promoting a more spread emerging of the entrepreneurship behaviour in individuals – particular those people belonging to the research systems, thus contributing to the socio-economic development. The law covers two main areas:

1. 
   it encourages the setting up of new companies by researchers, allowing them to maintain their employment as civil servant if they set up a new company, to owe capital shares of the company, even being members of the Board of Directors;
   
2. 
   it encourages the setting up of new services/structures supporting new innovative companies, allowing universities and research organisations to set up support structures and technology transfers by means of new and innovative companies created by researcher, or they can start incubators and start-up funds in order to support and encourage high technology companies.
   

In addition, in France three further legal measures exist regarding:

1. 
   subscription warrants
   
2. 
   tax reductions on research activities
   
3. 
   simplified legal status (SAS – Société par Actions Simplifiée), enabling company capital to be managed more efficiently and new capital to be attracted without loosing the control.
   

In Italy the Law 297, always issued in 1999, reorganises the discipline of supporting measures devoted to scientific and technological research, exploitation of research results, training and researchers mobility. It foresees four specific areas of supporting measures, namely:

1. 
   Actions supporting projects or industrial research programmes
   
2. 
   Actions supporting projects or programmes of industrial research, pre-competitive development, diffusion of technologies, starting phase, with the aim of initiating new economic initiatives with a high technological content
   
3. 
   Actions promoting employment in industrial research, researchers temporary mobility and the related diffusion of technologies
   
4. 
   Actions supporting infrastructures and services for business research
   

As for Oxfordshire, the UK Government provides for Early Growth Funding, Business Incubation Programmes and Regional Venture Capital Funds; these are just some of the programmes that are currently in place to help ensuring that a greater proportion of start-up businesses with high growth potential go on to achieve real growth.

The DTI (Department for Trade and Industry) has four key schemes for UK Businesses:

1. 
   A Grant for ‘Research and Development’. It encourages R&D within small businesses and promotes the development of technologically innovative products. Previously known as the SMART award, this scheme now has four clear categories, including micro project (up to £20k) and can make awards for exceptional projects of up to £500k.
   
2. 
   ‘Investigating an Innovative Idea’ can provide up to £12,000 of funding. The grant pays for a consultant to work on an idea with the company, and pays for 75% of the associated costs.
   
3. 
   Small Firms Loan Guarantee. Helps individuals or a business that may not ordinarily be able to obtain a loan from traditional lenders because of insufficient security. The loan can be between £5,000 and £250,000.
   
4. 
   Knowledge Transfer Partnerships allow a company to access specific expertise from universities, colleges and research organisations. A KTP associate can work with the company for 12 – 36 months.
   

The German region is showing a large variety of interventions, mainly equity capital, credits and guarantees schemes.

As for regional laws and other specific tools, in Emilia-Romagna the new Law 7, issued in 2002, aims at organising and supporting the transfer and diffusion of technological knowledge and favouring the increase of competitiveness of enterprises located on the regional territory. Law 7/2002 supports specific measure, namely, actions:

1. 
   promoting activities of industrial and strategic research aimed at the diffusion of technological knowledge
   
2. 
   aimed at supporting the creation of new hi-tech companies
   
3. 
   aimed at structuring technology transfer
   
4. 
   supporting clustering, matching and networking among universities, public and private research centres and SMEs.
   

Also the Single Programming Document 2000-2006, and particularly Axis 1, foresees specific measures supporting business start up and development.¹⁵

In all regions, a number of service centres, development agencies and other bodies providing services and managing specific programmes which are complementary to the offer made available by incubators, parks, technology transfer structures, etc., and cover different innovation promotion areas and business start up supporting measures, such as:

• 
  interface among research/education/enterprises and networking (ASTER in Emilia-Romagna, KREIM in Karlsruhe, ARN in Grenoble, Association Lyon Technology and others in the Rhone-Alpes area, Enterprise Hubs and LINK in Oxfordshire);
  
• 
  promotion of start-up creation out of research output and competencies (Exist in Karlsruhe and Spinner, Start Cup and Print in Emilia-Romagna);
  
• 
  provision of more traditional services (internationalisation, technological audits).