International SME and Entrepreneurship Policy Evaluation Discussion Network (INSPEN)

This workshop presented and discussed the evaluation of a major SME consultancy programme operated by the Small and Medium Business Authority of Israel. This programme offered SMEs subsidised consultancy support with matched consultants. The evaluation assessed the programme impacts on SME survival and growth, examining how the impacts varied based on the intensity of support by dividing the treatment group into SMEs that received more than 50 hours of consultancy support (full treatment) and those that received less than 50 hours support (partial treatment).  

Meeting Documents: 

• Agenda
• Summary Note
• Presentation by Pablo Shah: Key issues and evaluation evidence on SME consultancy programmes  

This hybrid workshop discussed the findings and methodologies of evaluations of SME management development and SME growth support programmes and their lessons for policy and evaluation. It included a presentation and discussion of evaluation findings on the UK’s Help to Grow management training programme, which provides leadership and management training, mentorship and networking to SMEs. It also featured an evaluation of the Company Expansion Supports programme in Ireland, which assisted businesses with ambitious plans to grow employment and exports by supporting investment in areas such as R&D, training and management development.

Meeting Documents:

• Agenda
• Summary Note

This workshop presented the evaluation of the joint supports offered by ICEX Spain Trade and Investment (ICEX) to assist SME exporters in Spain. The two main types of supports considered were i). information services and ii). direct participation in ICEX programmes. The evaluation analysed during the workshop assessed the impact of the two different types of support on SMEs’ exports, sales and employment. Network participants discussed the lessons of the evaluation, including which aspects of its design and delivery worked well and which others did not work well. The webinar also offered an opportunity to share evaluation findings on export support programmes from other countries as well as to network with other policy officials and evaluators who are participating in the International SME and Entrepreneurship Policy Discussion Network. 

Meeting Documents: 

• Agenda
• Summary Note

This workshop explored the policy lessons and evaluation evidence of the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) programme of the United States Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBDC programme delivers individualised advisory services and technical assistance to existing SMEs, as well as pre-venture entrepreneurs. The lead of the national SBDC programme introduced the programme and provide an overview of previous evaluation activities and findings followed by an in-depth presentation of an evaluation study examining the impacts of the SBDC’s advisory services in the state of California.

Meeting Documents:

• Agenda
• Summary Note

This hybrid workshop included two sessions. The first session presented and discussed the evidence of the impact of Finland’s COVID-19 business subsidies. The second session discussed more broadly on how to set up processes to learn from evaluations. Participants discussed the Finland COVID-19 support, which consisted of six direct subsidy lines and two loan programmes. The evaluation by ETLA Economic Research studied the effect of the Business Finland pre-analysis grant and the Business Finland development grant on firms’ employment. Using an innovative judge-IV method the study found that the subsidies were effective in saving 18 500 jobs from the negative effects of the pandemic. One lesson from this study is that policy should target the most affected companies if the objective is to minimize bankruptcies, or weak but still profitable firms if the objective is to protect jobs. Clear and transparent criteria are also important for providing a subsidy. Policy makers also need to set up exit strategies for temporary subsidy programmes. The second part of the workshop highlighted several cases where impact evaluations have driven policy change (e.g. extension of the programme, change in eligibility criteria, enlargement/scale down). However, the impact of programmes could be improved by conditioning budget approval to evaluation evidence.

Meeting documents: 

• Agenda
• Summary Note

The February 2025 INSPEN meeting examined evaluation evidence on the impact of public policy support for business incubators on the development of start-up companies in Canada. It focused on an evaluation study by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, which used the results of a regular nationwide survey of incubators and their clients along with matched data on company performance from official statistics. The key discussion topics were how incubation support impacts the performance and growth trajectory of start-ups and how evaluations of incubation programmes can generate even deeper insights for policy decisions.

Meeting documents: 

• Agenda
• Summary Note

Part 1 of this hybrid workshop examined evaluation evidence from Germany’s Central Innovation Programme for SMEs (Zentrales Innovationsprogramm Mittelstand, or ZIM) – one of the largest and longest running innovation support programmes for SMEs in OECD countries. Discussions centred on how support programmes for SME innovation impact the performance of beneficiaries and how effects vary depending on the type of beneficiary or support received. Part 2 of the meeting was a group discussion session to explore the main considerations for evaluating holistic packages of support measures, such as entrepreneurial ecosystem interventions.

Meeting documents: 

• Agenda
• Summary Note

This workshop examined evaluation evidence on government SME consultancy support programmes. These programmes commonly aim at shifting SME management practices towards best practices and improving SME strategies and operations, leading to productivity, growth and survival benefits. There are many different ways of organising such supports, for example individual or group-based consulting. The workshop presented the evidence from an evaluation of a programme delivered by the Centro Nacional de Productividad (CNP) in Colombia which supported medium-sized auto-parts suppliers with tailored diagnostics, consulting meetings and management training. It found significant improvements in management practices, employment and productivity. Group-based support delivered similar benefits to individual support at lower costs. The experience was compared with other countries, which pointed to the importance of complementary finance, long time horizons, and local or sectoral peer cohorts. 

Meeting documents: 

• Agenda
• Summary Note

This workshop explored how business acceleration programmes affect start-up performance, focusing on an evaluation study on the Start-Up Chile Accelerator. This is a public programme offering participants an equity-free cash infusion and access to shared office space, mentoring and peer learning opportunities. A subset of the programme beneficiaries can join an “entrepreneurship school” comprising further guidance, training and networking opportunities. Start-ups are selected for the school based on performance in a “pitch day” two-months into the acceleration programme. The programme design uniquely facilitated the use of a fuzzy regression discontinuity design method to measure the impacts of the core package of acceleration services with and without participation in the entrepreneurship school. The discussions covered the impacts of different types of accelerator support on the growth and fundraising outcomes of start-ups and scale-ups.  

Randomised control trials (RCTs) are at the top of the OECD’s six-step scale for evaluation methods. By randomly allocating treatment, RCTs are widely deemed the Gold Standard for ensuring observed improvements in firm performance within a programme are legitimately attributable to the programme. However, RCTs remain fairly uncommon in SME and entrepreneurship policy and there are outstanding questions on how best to set them up and respond to common challenges and obstacles that can arise.

This workshop explored the use of RCTs for evaluating the impacts of SME and entrepreneurship policy interventions. Part 1 of the workshop looked at an RCT study on entrepreneurship training programmes for youth in France, including the methods deployed, the RCT findings, and the lessons for policy. Part 2 featured expert presentations and guidance on methods and strategies for conducting RCTs, with an interactive groupwork exercise where participants identified policies from their countries that could be subject to an RCT and defined frameworks for conducting these studies.

Part 1 of this hybrid workshop examined the evidence on the impact of non-financial supports for scale-up development, focusing on a recent evaluation of Bpifrance’s accelerator, which offers advice, mentoring and networking to high potential enterprises. Part 2 of the workshop turned to how success and progress in SME and entrepreneurship policy should be defined and measured. Participants examined which indicators are most appropriate for monitoring the implementation and gauging the success of SME and entrepreneurship policies and strategies, and how the necessary data can be compiled to facilitate this monitoring. 

This INSPEN workshop examined how public financing initiatives can stimulate the scaling of start-ups and SMEs. It focused on the European Investment Fund’s (EIF) impact assessment work to assess how its activities to bolster the European financing landscape – predominantly capital injections into venture capital and low-mid market private equity funds – affect the scaling performance of beneficiary firms. Apart from growth patterns of EIF supported companies, the EIF’s impact assessment research has also looked so far at a variety of other dimensions, for example liquidity events, patenting, and governance evolution in more mature beneficiary firms. Discussions covered the impacts of venture capital and private equity investment on the scaling performance of companies and the role of public institutions in strengthening access to these financing opportunities. 

This workshop examined how publicly supported energy audits for SMEs affect the energy efficiency of beneficiary firms. It focused on evaluations of two programmes – the US Department of Energy’s Industrial Assessment and Training Centers (IATCs), which provide free expert assessments for manufacturing SMEs to generate specific recommendations for energy efficiency investments, and the German Energy Audit Programme, which subsidises either simple energy audits or detailed energy audits for both manufacturing and non-manufacturing SMEs. The evaluation of the US scheme used a difference-in-differences methodology to analyse how manufacturers’ energy expenditures as a proportion of revenues evolve following receipt of an IATC energy audit, relative to industry peers that did not receive an energy audit. The evaluation of the German Energy Audit programme applied coarsened exact matching to estimate how receipt of audits affects adoption of specific energy efficiency investments, such as lighting, insulation or heating measures. Discussions covered how energy audits affect the energy efficiency performance of SMEs, how these effects can be measured reliably, and the implications for public policy. 

Part 1 of this hybrid workshop examined an evaluation of the impacts of publicly-funded incubators on the growth of businesses in the Czech Republic. This was followed by a broader discussion on what makes for success in incubation and acceleration policy. Part 2 involved interactive groupwork with participants examining which objectives to set and which firms to target in scale-up support programmes.