Mobilising private investment to address societal challenges

4. Mobilising the private sector in the implementation of the missions

Dedicated funding for missions

In setting any form of directional policy (whether that is industrial policy or missions), the government’s policy mix and budget need to be commensurate and targeted if it is going to succeed. This topic is top of mind for policymakers, as the number one strength under crowding in on the mission survey is having dedicated investment or venture funds (representing 22% of the responses for strengths under crowding-in), and tied for the number one weakness is inadequate funding (representing 27% of the responses for weaknesses under crowding-in).

Dedicated multi-year funding provides companies with certainty on the government’s commitment to missions and can sometimes be used more flexibly for activities across programmes and across traditional ministerial divisions. This approach reflects how missions, and transformative innovation policy at large, use novel combinations of technologies and sectors to succeed (OECD, 2024[19]). The Austrian Transformative Missions utilise a centralised budget structure for its mission-oriented innovation policies where funds are allocated to support each respective mission within its frameworks. This approach allows for targeted funding and clear accountability for each mission in line with the strategic guidelines in the impact pathways. France's Acceleration Strategies is funded by extra-budgetary resources, which are in great part directly allocated to funding agencies, without influence by their supervisory ministries. This approach also provides more centralised steering (since the investment decisions are taken by the SGPI under authority of the Prime Minister) and more flexibility in funding allocation and management (as they are not subject to normal state budget regulations). This allows the missions to support a wide range of activities from research and innovation to, for instance, training and market legitimacy (OECD, 2025[22]).

A lot of the needs are thematic-specific and thus the instruments have to be different. – Conference breakout room

Formalising the role of businesses in governing mission implementation

Businesses can take more formal roles for monitoring the implementation of the strategy, and sometimes making decisions on implementing missions. Most MOIPs have advisory boards for the initiative or each mission, representing the various stakeholders. For instance, Japan’s Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Programme (SIP) includes industry representatives on its governing board, and then each individual programme is led by a programme director who comes from industry. At the project level, many of the applications are led by public-private consortia. Circular Flanders has a roadmap towards 2050 for the circular economy. This roadmap is being implemented by six thematic agendas, which each have their own workplans, and targets. The work is governed by a steering committee, which consists of representatives from the penta-helix – government, industry, research, civil society, and the financial sector.

Denmark has devolved decision making authority for the funding process for its missions to the Innomission partnerships – academic-industry consortia. The government conducts a state aid check on the selected projects, but the consortia are otherwise independently running calls for proposals and selecting projects based on their roadmaps. The Innomissions have a large reach across Danish industry, with their boards including some of Denmark's largest companies​. Each of Sweden’s SIPs is hosted by an established organization (i.e., industry association, research institute, university, R&I-intermediary organization) and overseen by a board of directors or programme board, which is comprised of select members of the community. The SIPs develop a mission agenda, support calls for proposals and help develop a pipeline of project applications. The applicants submit project proposals, which the innovation agency ranks for business and technical merit. In some of the calls, the Partnerships select the projects to fund that rank above a certain threshold according to which ones best align with their broader objectives.

The changes required to meet mission goals are often quite systemic, and require whole sectors or supply chains to embrace the new solutions that are developed, rather than individual organisations in silos. This involves finding influential individuals to lead on this engagement, connecting into existing industry associations or chambers of commerce, or creating new organisations when these bodies do not exist. For instance, as part of the United Kingdom’s UKRI Challenge Fund, the government funded the establishment of the Construction Innovation Hub, which is helping to address the sector’s performance and productivity challenges, in support of a mission, by leading on several streams of work. This has created a new avenue for the government to reach out to businesses, but also for industry interests to plug into government decision making. For instance, the Construction Innovation Hub and ~50 businesses developed standardised construction kits and parts to will enable modular building. In the Netherlands and Denmark, they each had established cluster programmes before the missions were created. These existing organisations have been useful focal points for missions to communicate about their goals to a broad range of businesses. In Denmark, there is now more formal integration between the cluster programme and the missions (see Box 4.2). These well-established organisations lend more credibility to the missions when they are involved. One of the AgriFoodTure Innomission’s board members is Arla Foods – a farmer cooperative representing 12,000 dairy famers across Europe – which gives the Innomission access to a wide network of individuals across the agriculture value chain.

We use ambassadors – leaders in key companies who can tell a concrete story of what the industry can gain and provide to the mission. But this approach is still largely unproven. – ​ Conference breakout room 

Advocates and multipliers play a crucial role in ecosystem building, especially by linking with incubators, accelerators and angel investors to stimulate engagement. Incentivising the participation of advocates and multipliers is seen as essential for the success of the mission. – ​ Conference breakout room 

Engaging SMEs is often challenging due to resource constraints and defensive positioning, with associations and chambers acting as intermediaries. – ​ Conference breakout room 

Use the existing industry structuring elements, do not start from scratch. There are already in most ecosystems industry organisations, strategies and plans. This can be used as elements to start with, and try to make them more ambitious. – ​ Conference breakout room

Box 4.1. Denmark’s Innomissions

For Denmark’s Innomissions programme, the government held a competition where consortia developed mission-driven roadmaps on how they would address four missions. The winning consortia were initially responsible for developing a pipeline of projects to address the missions. The government has since delegated more authority to these Innomission partnerships to select proposals that best align with the roadmaps.

While the Innomissions have a broad set of members – representing industry of all sizes and academia – the projects have originated predominantly from academia. To bring in a broader industry focus, the Danish government is integrating its cluster programme with the Innomission partnerships. For instance, the Food and Bio Cluster, and its ~500 members, is being combined with the AgriFoodTure Innomission. This new organisation will benefit from the direction of the Innomission roadmap (which will be updated to reflect a broader constituency), and the new pipeline of projects from businesses involved in the cluster. In addition, programming associated with the cluster will help bring innovations to market (e.g., vouchers for applied research), as the clusters are more focused on commercialisation. A larger network of companies will also help share insights amongst more members and hopefully help them better address the mission goals.

In addition to coordinating their resources, some countries formalise the membership of partners to contribute to missions. Publicly committing to transformative goals can help spread the norms and practices associated with these transformative goals, and create social tipping points, where other companies are encouraged to follow suit (Booth et al., 2024[7]). In the Dutch Top Sectors, Knowledge and Innovation Covenants (KIC) outline collaborative agreements among companies, knowledge institutions, and government ministries. KICs are signed by the chairs of the Top Sectors and the relevant government ministers, outlining financial commitments but also provisions for skills development. Sweden’s Impact Innovation Programme have nominal fees where members pay to take part in the consortia. This gives them opportunities to inform decisions regarding the direction of the missions. Korea’s Alchemist programme allows companies to buy a membership to benefit from learnings and new insights developed through the research. These companies do not need to participate in the R&D projects but can monitor their progress for free through the first two stages, and then pay a fee at the third and final stage to gain priority access to the IP. The membership system encourages competitors to be involved in projects, and all benefit (OECD, 2025[17]).

The businesses with more formal responsibilities in the delivery of missions are also generally more committed to the mission goals, and their companies often participate in the projects. Regardless of the responsibilities, having a diversity of businesses involved (e.g., SMEs and large firms) helps guard against vested interests dominating the conversations within these organisations. At the same time, some companies – particularly smaller ones – have found taking part in these governing boards can be too bureaucratically burdensome – with some even stepping down. Other companies found the scope of the mission too broad based on their narrower areas of focus and also lost interest. Larger organisations have the resources that they can dedicate more easily to having someone sit on these types of boards and larger mandates that make it easier for them to justify these sorts of activities.

Despite including industry in the governance of missions, many policymakers still find they are speaking a different language so this engagement remains limited. Conflicts of interest can often be a challenge, where governments want to bring top industry partners into the governance, but also expect these groups to submit project proposals. Governments must use methods of good governance, avoid catering too much to incumbents’ interests, and ensure that these companies are not making decisions that directly impact their companies – although this is still a difficult balance if companies are making decisions on their competitors’ proposals.

We have the board with experts, but even they do not know what they need to do. – ​ Conference breakout room 

Conflict of interests are a challenge – finding people that can advice in addition to getting funding. – Conference breakout room

Challenges exist in achieving legitimate engagement, particularly in private sector-led advisory boards, and civil society engagement remains low. – ​ Conference breakout room 

Building ongoing awareness

Building interest around missions amongst the private sector is a continuous process and does not end when the missions are launched. There is sometimes a gap between program recipients and their understanding of the big picture. One of the interviewees for this project did not know that the funding received was part of a mission-oriented program or know about the broader goals. Ongoing engagement with industry is necessary to build momentum, ensure there is a steady pipeline of projects to achieve the mission goals, and to disseminate knowledge regarding successful projects. Maintaining interest after framing the missions is difficult, as businesses are often more engaged in these consultations, and then can lose interest when it comes to committing their own resources (OECD, 2024[2]). Ongoing engagement can help important actors stay involved along the life cycle of missions but resources for this engagement are often more constrained when governments move to the implementation stage. This calls for public authorities to engage in mobilisation and persuasion. A major part of some missions is hosting annual events that bring together key stakeholders to showcase the work under the missions, major achievements, and ongoing challenges. Stakeholder engagement was the fifth most common strength mission managers identified in crowding-in private sector resources on the mission survey (representing 10% of the responses for strengths under crowding-in). Norway’s National Missions will hold annual conferences for each mission with participation from industry, research, government leaders and other relevant actors. In connection with the conference, a senior management meeting will also be arranged with the participation of political leadership and relevant actors. Box 3.1 explains how the United States’ Energy Earthshots builds this awareness through a variety of approaches.

It is important to combat preconceived ideas for businesses that these missions are ‘not for them’, because they are too complex and cumbersome. – Conference breakout room 

Crowding in happens progressively as trust grows between industry and the mission. Take good care of the first companies and they will bring others. – Conference breakout room 

Box 4.2. DOE Energy Earthshots^TM: ongoing awareness building activities

The United States’ DOE Energy Earthshots, take a series of different approaches for encouraging ongoing engagement and awareness building with relevant stakeholders. Firstly, annual summits provide accountability on their progress. These summits bring together relevant stakeholders to exchange ideas, share updates, and discuss advancements across the Energy Earthshots. They facilitate cross-pollination of insights and offer opportunities for stakeholders to provide feedback, offer suggestions, and collaboratively chart the course ahead.

What is more, within each Energy Earthshot, in-depth technical workshops provide a platform for stakeholders to delve into specific challenges, technologies, and research areas. These workshops encourage collaborative problem-solving, knowledge sharing, and the exploration of potential breakthroughs. Participants engage in discussions, present research findings, and collectively brainstorm strategies to overcome technical barriers.

The programme also issues Requests for Information (RFIs) as needed, which encourages stakeholders to share their perspectives, innovative solutions, and expertise related to the program's focus areas. This two-way communication ensures that the initiative benefits from a broad spectrum of insights and novel ideas based on the Energy Earthshots priorities. For instance, the Hydrogen Shot released an RFI on hydrogen demonstrations, including specific locations, that can help lower the cost of hydrogen, reduce carbon emissions and local air pollution, create good-paying jobs, and provide benefits to disadvantaged communities.

Source: OECD (2025[22]).

Governments use many ways of building awareness of the missions amongst industry stakeholders: involving them in the governance, writing articles, releasing podcasts, hosting events/conferences, organising bilateral meetings with specific important companies, speaking at existing events, and hiring industry ambassadors. Branding the individual missions also helps cut across all of these activities, so that the reputation can grow over time with the relevant actors.

The ongoing drum beat of engagement with the sector is an important element to achieve the mission goals. – Private sector interviewee

Mission teams can provide more confidence in the mission goals by providing evidence on the expected impacts of their goals. Some MOIPs publish their own research and use strategic intelligence (e.g., economic forecasts or foresight) to paint a picture of the economic or other benefits of the mission (see Box 4.1).

You need a stable environment for innovation. Businesses think a lot with their wallets. – Private sector interviewee

Box 4.3. Demonstrating the value of taking part in the mission

As part of the United Kingdom’s UKRI Challenge Fund, the Construction Innovation Hub published a report on the value of the mass implementation of Product Platforms in construction. These platforms provide an integrated approach to commonality and variability across multiple projects (e.g., standardised components and repeatable processes). This report quantified three scenarios:

1. Scenario 1 “Siloed progression”, assuming systems and elements are specified by each department. Up to 15% savings for adoption of platform approaches at an individual department;

2. Scenarios 2 and 3: Cross-departmental requirements, spaces and clusters. Up to 10-20% for the harmonisation, digitisation and rationalisation of technical requirements (via output specifications) and of rooms and clusters across departments; and

3. Scenario 4: Cross-departmental systems and elements. Up to 18-31% if platforms were to be applied across the social infrastructure pipeline of construction.

These estimates translate to a potential saving to Government of £1.8bn a year across social infrastructure. At a project level, this equates to reducing the price of a £22m secondary school by up to £7m, a £475m hospital by up to £147m and a £400m prison by up to £124m. Quantifying this additionality to society, the economy and the environment helped show industry the benefit of taking part in projects under this mission. It also showed the government the benefit of using the products and processes agreed upon through the Construction Innovation Hub.

Source: Mott MacDonald and Construction Innovation Hub (2023[23]).

In addition, the work related to missions does not exist at one point in time. Mission managers need to be looking both forward (e.g., as new companies emerge) and backwards (e.g., revisiting past projects). Some missions have mechanisms in place to scan the ecosystem and actively introduce new businesses to the mission. In addition, several mission policies begin with some sort of systems mapping exercise to understand what research is underway already in their domain. Denmark’s Innomissions for instance developed catalogues of stakeholders and ongoing activities inside and outside the mission partnerships. The Netherlands and Norway are using AI to review past projects that may be related to their missions and then approaching relevant stakeholders. These exercises are helpful in identifying relevant stakeholders who could potentially take part in projects later in the process and understanding what avenues other projects have already explored.

Engagement should be ongoing after the missions are launched, and not just involve ‘how to deliver on a mission’ but also ‘why missions are important’ to build longer-term buy-in and attract new partners. – Private sector interviewee

Missions haven’t been good at keeping track of what has been tried and then understanding ‘now what’? What has faded away and is it now time for it to come back to it? – Private sector interviewee

Building a pipeline of project applications

Active mission management is important to ensure projects continue to emerge that can tackle the missions. This involves mission managers directly approaching companies that are relevant to their goals – particularly when there are aspects of the mission that have received less interest in previous calls for proposals. Policymakers recognise the importance of building a pipeline of project applications based on what is missing in reaching their mission goals, but the degree of portfolio management varies across initiatives. The Austrian Transformative Missions regularly review what projects they have supported and compare this to what areas of their impact and evaluation plans have remaining gaps. They may issue targeted calls on a topic to help address these specific areas. Sweden’s Impact Innovation Programme takes a very similar approach, where the programmes use their theories of change to help target calls. Norway’s Pilot-E takes a hands-on role during the application phase, where funding agencies work closely with applicants and provide tailored guidance to ensure projects are aligned with the vision for the call.

As with industrial policy at large, missions may be complementary, neutral or in conflict with competition policy. Some missions require just a small number of actors to change their behaviours, so achieving the missions will have to be balanced with possibly distorting competitiveness. The mission success though may be determined by actively recruiting these few companies to take on the mission goals. This also has implications on the types of instruments missions use and how they are designed (e.g., open or closed calls). At the same time, policymakers should carefully assess the impacts of these policies on how they could create market distortions, and encourage the entry of new firms when possible (OECD, 2024[24]). Some policymakers are also concerned about conflict of interest and state aid regulations while playing such a hands-on role with the private sector. Ensuring the processes remain transparent and that funding decision makers are separate to those involved in engagement can help mitigate some of these concerns. In some cases, achieving missions may require deeper changes of established institutions and even exemptions to state aid. In addition, bridging organisations who understand the ecosystem may be best place to perform this role. In the European context, non-research activities are allowed to be funded under Article 27 of the RDI state aid rules regarding clusters. This Article allows for governments to subsidise activities that facilitate collaboration, information sharing, business support services, marketing of the cluster, training programmes, and workshops and conferences (European Commission, 2014[25]). As a result, some governments fund these bridging organisations to take on some of this work on behalf of the missions. At the same time, if governments expect these bridging organisations to play this role, they need to ensure they provide sufficient multi-year funding.

There can be call for expression and call for proposals and see what’s coming (fishing). There can also be more direct contacts with companies which engagement is needed (hunting). – Conference breakout room

Have to get out of traditional government mindset of just saying here is the money come apply for it. – Conference breakout room

We’re thinking of a having a service desk for industry players to turn to understand and be guided in the offerings for support. – Conference breakout room

Creating a critical mass of interesting actors builds momentum and makes it easier to recruit more members to the cause. In Denmark, the Innomissions are some of the largest fora for their focus areas in the country, so companies pay to join the partnership to gain access to the network in the hopes they will find new customers – even if they do not take part in the official projects. This is why engagement is so important. A wider ecosystem of stakeholders (e.g., academia, suppliers, and large-scale manufacturers) has been show to legitimise the mission goals, and also helps to scale the innovation activities (Nylén, Johanson and Vakkuri, 2023[26]).

Lots of innovation programmes fail to maximize their impact because they focus just on the development of innovations. You need three things to affect change: a solution to meet a need; someone to buy it; and the right enabling environment of policies and regulations to allow new innovations to thrive. Missions need to work on all three things at the same time. – Private sector interviewee

Many missions focus their support programmes on consortia instead of individual projects. As a result, matchmaking – either through deliberate introductions by mission managers or events of interested parties – is important to facilitate companies meeting each other and academic experts to then take part in joint mission projects. Some MOIPs host specific thematic events to bring together the relevant niche actors around a small part of the overall mission. This type of matchmaking can support interactions from across value chains and traditional sectoral boundaries. This is particularly helpful for smaller companies who usually want to collaborate with larger anchor companies on R&D projects and have the potential to become their customers. Sometimes SMEs require capacity building in this regard. The Top Sectors for instance have Top Consortia for Knowledge and Innovation (TKIs), which provide a matchmaking role within their sectors and help develop consortia of partners to apply for funding opportunities that tackle aspects of the mission. The government still makes the funding decisions. The TKIs also help disseminate the results of these projects within their sectors.

If there’s a policy with many small companies bubbling up, that’s fine but they really need the bigger companies involved. Bigger companies get smaller ones involves. – Private sector interviewee

Furthermore, mission teams sometimes need to help translate from academia to industry because the two groups often find they are not using the same language or that they are focused on different time horizons. Some missions have relied too much on university researchers instigating projects and then the research lacks an audience and pathway to market. To address some of these differences, formally co-creating research projects helps formulate ideas that have more mutual benefit for both academics and companies. Universities and professors are also more responsive to working with industry if they see the potential of follow-on funding from the industry partner. When companies establish relationships with professors, then these partnerships become much more straightforward for follow-on projects.

For each of the mission projects, we’re looking for a big brother or sister who is a big player in a market, so that we already have a partner to collaborate with to get the technology to market or potentially acquire it from us. – Private sector interviewee

For the most part, academics’ ideas are really cool but they're twenty years ahead of what the actual technology can deliver on. Their research is important but productizing professor only ideas is really hard. – Private sector interviewee

Companies and research institutions have some non-aligned mutual goals. The finding of the grant is more important sometimes than the group success. – Private sector interviewee

Projects should be shorter to align with business needs but universities want them to be longer. – Private sector interviewee

Offering a systemic policy mix of both demand- and supply-side support

Missions require a combination of different approaches to incentivise action towards their goals and pursue a variety of solutions. This way of working involves a more systemic policy mix, identifying leverage points and a variety of corresponding policy instruments. The diversity of incentives across sectors and different innovation stages is the fourth biggest strength for mission policymakers in crowding-in private sector resources on the mission survey (representing 12% of the responses for strengths under crowding-in). Many mission-oriented innovation policies are delivered by innovation agencies or a series of innovation agencies. As a result, support often includes grants, contracts, conditional contributions and loans. Some of these calls for proposals are quite open, while others are more targeted on specific activities – again, if there are sub-objectives under the mission that require more attention.

The types of support governments provide at large differs broadly based on the type of industrial sectors they target, or the type of transformative change they seek to realise ( (OECD, 2023[27]) and (OECD, 2024[19])). To aid policymakers in their decision making, the OECD Secretariat has mapped different types of policy instruments against six policy orientations that can accelerate transformative change (see Figure 6.1). One reason why missions have promise in supporting transitions is that their cross-government governance model ideally adds more coordination and opens up access to a more integrated set of instruments. However, many missions fall into a ‘STI trap’, failing to enlist the interest of many actors outside of STI ministries or agencies, and, therefore, their policy instruments (OECD, 2024[2]). Proponents for a more transformative approach have advocated for a variety of more directional instruments, such as government development banks (which provide a range of instruments themselves such as equity investments, loans, and grants) (Mazzucato and Penna, 2016[28]), green credit (Liu et al., 2023[29]), public procurement (Mazzucato and Wainwright, 2024[30]), challenge prizes (Mazzucato and Macfarlane, 2024[31]), and the use of insurance (World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2024[32]). Macro policy instruments are also expected to play an increasingly important role in financing the green transition, including green bonds and monetary policy, to scale up and deploy new technologies ( (Braga and Ernst, 2023[33]) and (Pessoa, Feil and Feijó, 2024[13])). If missions are to succeed, they must engage more with the whole suite of instruments governments have available, including direct funding for STI activities and promoting collaboration, but also regulatory changes, indirect financial measures and these broader macro policy instruments (OECD, 2024[19]). To identify these different leverage points, missions can conduct more systems mapping of available instruments, and identify ways to integrate the complementary instruments into the policy mix in ways that benefit the mission goals – although this must be an ongoing process as missions evolve (European Commission, 2018[34]).

Most other funds are “project funds” (funding for specific projects) that are difficult to leverage for the mission partnerships. – Mission survey response

Figure 4.1. Leveraging different types of policy instruments in implementing the policy orientations

Source: OECD (2024[19]).

Despite these challenges, some organisations delivering on missions are able to offer a variety of instruments themselves, while others use the missions, and the governance around them, as a basis for engaging with other organisations in the system that can support the mission goals. For Circular Flanders, it offers supports across seven reinforcing levers for all of its mission-oriented thematic agendas: (1) policies (e.g., regulations, product standards and incentives for recycling); (2) circular procurement; (3) communication; (4) innovation & entrepreneurship through open calls; (5) funding (i.e., encouraging investment from within Belgium, and make linkages to European incentives); (6) jobs & skills; and (7) conducting research led by the Circular Economy Support Centre. It can also tap into the Flemish government’s Programme for Innovation Procurement programme, and an existing suite of programmes led by VLAIO, its innovation agency, which provides financial support for investing in innovation, knowledge dissemination, and scaling up​.

Some missions emphasise the importance of skills programming to support the missions. For instance, with the Dutch Top Sector focused on Energy, the “Work for Energy Justice” programme is helping businesses shift from carbon-intensive processes to sustainable models by embedding them in ecosystem-based re-skilling efforts. This support for skills is part of broader ecosystem support that goes beyond funding. By linking funding instruments directly to learning communities, it not only supports research and innovation but also builds the skills and collaborative capacity needed for adoption.

Norway has several schemes where the government issues challenges and then multiple funding bodies collaborate on what aspects of the proposals they will support. Pilot-E is one of these programmes, which brings together the Research Council of Norway, Innovation Norway, Enova, Gassnova and Siva – organisations that support different part of the innovation chain for clean technologies. This approach provides support for different stages of technological development to help stimulate commercialisation of technologies that address the challenges.

Several mission programmes either require large and small companies to collaborate, or industry and academia. Finland’s Leading Companies Scheme is one example, where large businesses must bring together members of their supply chain to address challenges collaboratively. Lithuania’s Mission-based Science and Innovation Programme is another example, which brought together consortia universities, business partners and other associations (e.g., hospitals, science parks and clusters) to tackle the missions. It had at least four new consortia come together for this programme.

Demand-side R&D, and other non-R&D measures can also be important drivers for supporting mission goals. Policymakers can draw from lessons learned on the interplay of demand- and supply-side innovation support in this regard, as firms that benefit from both interventions have a considerably higher input additionality (Cunningham et al., 2013[35]). Government procurement is especially important in acting as a strong signal that can help attract follow-on investment (Howell, 2017[36]). At the same time, the role of government procurement depends on the mission, as not all technologies or missions are as relevant to government actors. In many missions, this lack of a first-buyer is a major challenge for businesses, and an area for government can support more – regardless if they are the ones procuring products. One interviewee suggested putting conditions in requests for proposals for certain procurement contracts, which would require large companies to adhere to new standards or adopt certain technologies that are relevant to the mission (e.g., if the government is going to buy a bridge, it could give incentives or targets to supply materials at a lower CO2 footprint, even if this is more expensive). To support the Circular Flanders missions, the Flemish government has a central purchasing body dedicated to circular procurement to help other public authorities become more circular. It has established resources to bundle information for other organisations interested in circular procurement, including procurement manuals, standards on sustainable procurement, guidance on specific circular products, and past examples. This is coupled by a community of practice on circular procurement and central points of contact.

Several countries try to link procurement for innovation programmes to missions (e.g., the United States Small Business Innovation Research programme is used to support its Energy Earthshots). Scottish Enterprise works with large anchor companies to develop challenges and plays a matchmaking role to find smaller companies or consortia of smalling companies who can address these challenges. Scottish Enterprise funds the R&D with the hopes it will result in a procurement contract from the company. It also works with industry associations to identify structural issues for the sector, and launches R&D challenges to address them. Other countries are experimenting with other approaches to procure technologies that can address their missions, such as Korea’s ‘Innovative Product Scouter’ Programme. This programme helps innovative products enter the government procurement market by discovering products that are struggling to enter the procurement market or are outside the existing procurement market, and then providing them with targeted support. This is a regular innovation programme, supporting technologies that received previous government funding and those that did not, which is being mobilised to support its missions.

Develop a more diverse policy mix that includes demand-side instruments (e.g., public procurement for innovation) and regulatory tools to create stronger market incentives for private sector participation and investment. – Mission survey response

Providing certainty towards markets covered by public procurement rules can be challenging. – Mission survey response

It would be good to have more alignment with the other departments. The mission owner should do more to have government embrace the technology – adopt, procure, and test, or push it to the ecosystem. Government should be putting its thumb on the scale to influence the adoption of certain technologies that support missions. – Private sector interviewee

The government has a procurement programme for innovations, but it takes forever and there’s no bridge between the research under the mission programmes to these procurement contracts. – Private sector interviewee

Government can be a pipe cleaner. In creating use cases, departments give regulators confidence on the application of new technologies. Procurement also helps companies move to commercialisation and raise capital easier. – Private sector interviewee

Regulatory changes (both nationally and internationally, such as with the European Union) are another important instrument that governments can use to help achieve their mission goals, and are increasingly important as technologies get closer to market. Some businesses and industry associations have been actively involved with government in shaping new regulations – in some circumstances even helping draft new regulations for government policies or new legislation. The United Kingdom’s Construction Innovation Hub for instance worked with the government to establish a construction playbook for government procurement that was aligned with its mission. The INNO-CCUS Innomission in Denmark is benefiting from being part of a more systemic effort by the Danish government to support the sector – including passing a law that has a policy framework to enable the transport of carbon. In the Dutch Top-Sectors Policy, the private sector works with regulators to facilitate regulatory changes in favour of the missions, and then to phase out old technologies. For example, as part of the work under the built environment mission, it helped establish regulations to prohibit new buildings from being connected to the natural gas grid to create a demand for alternative heating solutions. Governments could also use more experimental spaces (e.g., regulatory sandboxes) so that innovators can develop innovations outside of traditional regulatory boundaries. In this regard, the Austrian Transformative Missions are running regulatory sandboxes to test circular innovations and solutions. Temporary exemptions from legal or regulatory provisions that act as innovation barriers allow governments to assess the feasibility, effectiveness, and potential challenges of different technological options before they are implemented on a larger scale, potentially leading to regulatory adaptations. In Korea’s CP3, some municipalities operate Pre-Sandbox Programs that support research on regulations before applying for a regulatory sandbox. Common challenges with sandboxes at large are the resources required to participate and govern them, insufficient ex-post evaluation of the testing, and insufficient planning for the exit ramp and translation into real world results or regulatory change (OECD, 2025[37]). Smaller companies may need funding in order to participate in regulatory experimentation, especially when the work is regulator-driven (top down), as opposed to originating from business demand. In general, however, as with silos between funding agencies, businesses perceive silos between funders and regulators, which slows down the mission.

Many other countries recognise the importance of using innovation procurement and regulations to support their missions but struggle to access these instruments. Several major procurement and regulatory areas (e.g., health, or transport) may not be within the purview of the national government, and so national authorities sometimes try to facilitate adoption with local authorities. Japan’s SIP programme for instance works with local authorities to deploy autonomous driving technologies developed through the national mission. In Europe, many mission areas perceive to be constrained by EU-wide regulations, which mission teams find it difficult to influence.

Genuine mission-oriented decision-making is prevented by legal limitations. – Mission survey response

Incentives and regulations are important because the market cannot regulate itself. – Private sector interviewee

Regulations have a strong role to help or kill innovation. – Private sector interviewee

There is a lot of emotion. SMEs are particularly vulnerable to regulatory barriers. Obstructing or delaying their processes means layoffs. – Private sector interviewee

If businesses see regulatory barriers, it’s hard for them to invest in an innovation. Missions need to work on both sides, giving businesses trust that they should go along with them and helping regulators see the opportunities from the innovation side. – Private sector interviewee

For companies that are pre-revenue and spent a lot on R&D, they end up burning cash on regulatory delays and paperwork, which makes them panic and uncertain about staying in the country. – Private sector interviewee

As soon as you go from the regulators being a partner to a gatekeeper, there is a big difference in terms of timelines, and this slows things down going to market. The successful programmes align these things early on. If there is a bit of uncertainty, then it makes businesses less willing to invest. – Private sector interviewee

Companies require different incentives to take part in missions as they grow. Smaller companies seek programmes that are easy to access, and very practical to apply to – which makes taking part in missions sometimes difficult as they may have more burdensome and stringent applications. In addition to funding, small companies often need more guidance and technical advice from mission managers, as well as access to external experts from universities because they have less in-house expertise. SMEs benefit from access to infrastructure to test new technologies – whether that is in universities, government labs or other research organisations. For example, the United Kingdom’s Catapult Programme provides access to research infrastructure, and it is used by participants taking in the UKRI Challenge Programme to support its missions. Larger companies benefit more from export finance, which is useful at these later stages.

At the same time, countries worry that their mission is too complex, which is the third most common weakness for crowding in on the mission survey (12%). Policymakers in the survey identified several different reasons for this complexity, including the large number of instruments and regulations that companies have to navigate, the lack of coordinated processes between funding bodies creating more administrative burden, and regulations on the funding process itself (i.e., state aid restrictions).

Designing and delivering funding programmes to support the missions

Support for missions should embed the overarching objectives in how programmes are designed and delivered. MOIPs cannot rely just on technology- or sector-neutral supports, as they are found to not be neutral in practice, instead favouring status-quo pursuits and incumbent technologies (Pless and Srivastav, 2025[38]). The design of instruments (i.e., the scale and time horizons of funding, as well as conditions on funding) and their delivery (i.e., the process for which funding decisions are made) can have important influences on how successful they are in reaching their objectives ( (Rogge and Reichardt, 2016[39]) and (McIvor, forthcoming[9])). To support these more directional goals, several countries have outlined how they provide preferential treatment to missions through their policy mix. For instance, Korea’s National Strategic Technology (NST) Policy offers a wide variety of instruments to encourage corporate investment and participation. Beyond traditional R&D support, Korea offers preferential R&D tax credits for technologies related to its NST missions, and it has a 'NST Certification System' for companies with superior technologies, which allows them to list on the KOSDAQ (the Korean stock exchange for emerging companies like the NASDAQ), even if they have no sales. In addition to the special listing, the government will provide specialised support for these certified companies (e.g., exempting top talent from military service for working at these companies). Korea also seeks to make accessing government support less complicated for companies, so it reduces the R&D matching ratio, and removes other conditions that are present in its traditional R&D programmes (e.g., technology fees – royalties it receives on from industrial R&D it supports) (OECD, 2025[17]).

On the other hand, because some of the solutions for mission-oriented policies will have ‘public good’, characteristics, some innovations cannot be appropriated by the private sector or, at the very least, the public sector will require access to them at a reasonable price (European Commission, 2024[40]). In this regard, there are calls for governments to place conditions on funding to ensure they benefit from their investments (Mazzucato and Rodrik, 2023[41]). Mission-oriented approaches consist of a portfolio of projects – many of which are experimental and risky investments. As a result, countries may consider taking equity investments or placing other conditions on these investments to ensure the resulting innovations can maximize public value. For instance, when Crown Bodies purchase products based on intellectual property developed through support from the United Kingdom’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), recipients are obliged to treat the UK as a ‘most favoured nation’ – and in some cases provide discounts.

The design of funding programmes can also encourage a mission-oriented way of thinking in the private sector. For instance, the Dutch Mission Driven Top-Sector Policy includes information on the missions in its calls for proposals, and requires companies to outline how they will contribute to the mission objectives in their applications. This approach also helps make the individual organisations aware of how their individual project fit into the bigger picture. In the United Kingdom’s UKRI Challenge Fund, calls for proposals have key performance indicators (KPIs) related to aspects of its missions, which applicants must show they are addressing. The calls for proposals are highly competitive, so applicants need to demonstrate a real commitment towards these goals. UKRI then meets with project leads multiple times throughout their life cycle to ensure they are on track to meet the KPIs. Research Ireland’s Challenge Programmes require each team to include a Societal Impact Champion, who comes from a non-academic sector and provides non-technical leadership to ensure relevant end-users and other stakeholders inform the non-technical aspects of the project. The teams are required to spend up to six months to do stakeholder engagement, understand market needs, and develop their impact pathways. Norway’s Green Platforms require companies identify whether or not regulations are in place to inhibit their ambition as part of their applications for R&D funding, which helps policymakers provide more systemic support but also avoid surprises. Canada’s National Research Council aims to increase inclusion by requiring projects take into account the needs of communities, especially Indigenous groups, and allows for more inclusive participation through adapted eligibility criteria and regional scientific reviews.

Businesses did caution about making the application process too burdensome and complex, and found some applications for mission-oriented funding long and that they asked duplicative questions. In some cases, it makes sense to base some of these additional reporting requirements on the size of the projects.

Every time companies consider applying for a subsidy, it comes down to the convenience of use. Governments have big plans for subsidies, but a lot of businesses are just interested in what brings them a step further from what they are doing today. – Private sector interviewee

We are not just doing research for research’s sake. – Private sector interviewee

Governments need to think about measuring impacts in a different way at a programme level, taking into account environmental and social impacts. – Private sector interviewee

Some missions only support consortia, or embed collaborations into their programme selection criteria. For instance, the Future Flight UKRI Challenge’s calls for proposals explicitly ask for large companies to submit proposals that involve their suppliers, SMEs and academia. Similar criteria are also used in the Dutch Top-Sectors, some of which are moving away from supporting individual projects and focusing on developing new supply chains more holistically. These approaches force companies to look at how they can support the bigger picture and result in new collaborations that likely would not have come together otherwise. Applicants already receive bonus points in the project evaluation if the end user is involved in the consortia. Another requirement from Norway’s Pilot-E is that in each project, the first customer has to be part of the consortia.

Smaller companies can go faster but then they need big companies working with them to go further. – Private sector interviewee

Project peer reviewers may also be disconnected from the mission goals, and not prioritise projects under the missions under the calls for proposals. To help address this disconnect, some of Sweden’s SIPs created videos, which were shared with both reviewers and applicants so that they understood the broader goals. In Czechia's Research and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation (RIS3) 2021-2027, proposals for standard R&D calls that fall under the missions can be awarded bonuses in the assessment process of proposals. With higher points received, the probability of getting grant financing is higher.

There is a matching fund, but it is controversial because of the paperwork burden. – Conference breakout room

The research evaluation system is heavily weighted towards successful outcomes, hindering the establishment of a supportive framework for high-risk, high-reward research endeavors.​ ​– Mission survey response

Missions require flexibility regarding the eligibility of beneficiaries – allowing solutions to come from a variety of stakeholders. Mission programmes are often more flexible in this regard, in contrast to more traditional innovation programmes that often have more stringent boundaries on eligible recipients (e.g., for profit companies or non-profit, company size, company revenue, etc.).

In addition, most mission-oriented programmes require a degree of matched funding or in-kind contributions from applicants – particularly from the private sector to algin with EU State Aid requirements. These co-funding requirements of public and private stakeholders was the second most common strength for crowding-in private sector resources on the mission survey (representing 17% of the responses for strengths under this key issue). To attract more SMEs to take part in its projects, the Dutch Top-Sectors have more attractive terms for SMEs (subsidising ~ 66% of a project), while only covering up to 50% of the costs for large companies. These state aid requirements are also a source of frustration for some missions because businesses are more hesitant to invest in early-stage risky areas.

Missions must balance these design and delivery changes with the complexity they create. As with the framing of the missions, businesses must be able to see themselves in the design of the calls. Smaller companies again are sometimes more focused, and have less capacity to engage in theoretical exercises on the big picture when this type of work is required in funding applications. The reporting demands from some governments are the same regardless of the size of project. As a result, the amount of time for the reporting is not always commensurate with the size of the project, and this can discourage particularly small companies, or small projects, from taking part. One interviewee who had had taken part in programmes from the United States, as well as mission-oriented initiatives in other countries, suggested it had a more flexible approach to funding but more hands-on monitoring that other programmes could learn from. SBIR has staff who talk to participants every few weeks, and maybe even visit the researchers. DARPA's programme managers run their programme with outcome deadline, and as long as the participant meets the milestones, they receive the agreed upon funding – regardless of the costs that went into achieving it. If participants do not meet the milestone, they are let go. The same interviewee suggested other missions could learn from being more cutthroat in this regard.

The bureaucracy kills a lot of interest from companies. – Private sector interviewee

Startups just want access to knowledge, people and money, and to get answers quickly. – Private sector interviewee

Moving from development to deployment and dissemination

To reach their mission goals, missions need to scale up their activities from smaller experiments to deployment at scale. While the policy mix will depend on the mission areas, it is important for policymakers to consider the sequencing of their interventions and how policy mixes evolve over time as the pathways towards their mission goals become more certain. For instance, this sequencing has been found to positively influence the adoption of green technologies (Tchorzewska et al., 2025[42]). Both missions and businesses are involved in processes of experimentation – exploring new pathways for what is feasible to reach the overarching goals, as well as evidence for what may be profitable (Loorbach and Wijsman, 2013[43]). Once this evidence is established, moving from a prototype to scale requires a different level of support – particularly for hardware-based solutions, which are capital-intensive. If companies cannot find government funding, or favourable terms from the private sector, there is a risk they will fail or move elsewhere in the world where it easier to get to market. Waiting until technologies are ready to scale up before thinking about investing in infrastructure or creating larger pots of funding can kill momentum, present uncertainty and delay deploying the technologies required to achieve the mission targets. For instance, missions related to energy technologies may require large infrastructure investments, which take years of planning and large amounts of funding, but these aspects are often not captured by the missions’ portfolio of activities or domains of control. More government leadership earlier in the mission process is often needed to plan ahead for these types of eventualities.

One of the gaps in the government ecosystem is that the programmes are good but once the funding finishes, they struggle to move it into something more real. You get a prototype and then things fall into a valley of death. – Private sector interviewee

If it’s a mission and it’s important, then two-year tactical funding doesn’t align when the mission takes ten years to achieve. Longer term collaborations and funding makes the mission real and helps people buy in more. Getting a technology from TRL three to eight is going to take more years. There could be an escalating commitment with check ins along the way, making it easier to fund the same project and get technologies to market. – Private sector interviewee

At the same time, many of the mission programmes are based in STI ministries or agencies with limited access to these larger funding opportunities (OECD, 2024[2]). One example of where this support for deployment does exist is the United States’ Energy Earthshots. In addition to a range of support for R&D the Earthshots provide, companies can access funding for deployment through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, which have scale up funding for all but one of the eight Earthshots. If a new technology is developed through the Hydrogen Shot for instance, it can then access the Hydrogen Electrolysis R&D and Manufacturing funding to begin developing the technologies. In addition, it is using the more coordinated governance model of the Earthshots to bring together different departments to address issues such as deployment and leasing of specific technologies. With the Floating Offshore Wind Shot, it is working alongside the Department of Transportation, which invested in US$400 Million in a deepwater port and marine terminal in Humboldt Bay (the type of infrastructure needed to deploy these technologies), and the Department of the Interior, which is fast tracking permitting approvals for technologies developed through the programme. Some missions also fund testing facilities or provide access to research infrastructure (e.g., in DOE government labs) to help bridge the gap from the lab to market. For missions at large, these types of facilities are more important for certain sectors or technologies (e.g., quantum technologies).

Some missions use joint calls with R&D instruments and investment ones to help technologies at each technology readiness level. Austria’s Initiative for the Transformation of Industry combines funding from two agencies, one responsible for investment and another for STI, to support projects related to the Austrian Transformative Missions. The agencies then issue one call, covering both investment and STI activities. Norway’s Pilot-E, Pilot-T, the joint action plan for the bioeconomy and Green Platforms all use a similar approach of issuing joint challenges with agencies that support different stages along the innovation chain, and then they work together to support aspects of projects depending on which organisation is best suited (McIvor, forthcoming[9]).

When these other instruments are not involved in the mission governance, some mission teams have advisory supports to help companies find other sources of funding. Companies find this advice useful, but they would prefer more direct and expedited access to follow on funds for their projects. Businesses see the silos governments operate in and would like missions to help break down some of these barriers. Governments can show more leadership in this regard, potentially using legislation to ensure civil servants prioritise the goals.

There are so many funds – it is quite chaotic. We are not looking for new money but about getting more out of the existing pots to support the missions. – Private sector interviewee

We don’t always see the cross-cutting work on missions between departments. It shouldn’t just be herding cats but encouraging the deployment and adoption with those departments. – Private sector interviewee

Some researchers, and even some companies, are not interested in taking the new solutions they develop to market. This is particularly an issue when projects are predominantly proposed and run by academics with limited engagement from industry – even when industry is a co-funder. In some instances, mission managers can help facilitate licencing new patents so that these inventions can still be deployed to tackle the mission goals. The Top Sectors for instance have networks with contacts and advisors to facilitate this licencing. Ongoing check-ins between mission managers and project members can also help keep them engaged.

Companies are often excited to get funding for a project but then hand the reigns over to the professors and don’t engage for a year because they have their own responsibilities. These interactions then become frivolous. University professors create their own world without an understanding of customers or products people need, and after a three-year project is finished, they may have met the deliverables and put the right language in the reporting, but this research almost never gets to be a product. – Private sector interviewee

The government pumps R&D into universities to get things done, but then it falls off the cliff and doesn’t get commercialised. Governments need to think more about what happens afterwards if they want these inventions to tackle the mission goals. – Private sector interviewee

Public finance alone will not be sufficient in meeting transition needs at large, including when it comes to missions. However, policymakers have had limited success crowding in investment from the financial sector to date. To accelerate the translation of its research into real impact, some governments have formalised partnerships with non-government support. The United Kingdom’s ARIA has Activation Partners, where it had a global call and selected an initial cohort of nine partners (innovators, research labs, philanthropies focused on research translation, and deep-tech focused VC funds) to provide teams with entrepreneurial training, and capital. This cohort of partners has been contracted to run for three years.

To crowd in more interest from the financial sector in missions, investors need evidence to understand whether the area will be profitable because some of the technologies are at too early and risky for them to invest in. The public sector can play a more prominent role in this regard, engaging with private foundations, banks and venture capitalists to support these novel technologies. This may include sharing information on risks around the status quo, communicating their mission objectives, and applying regulatory instruments encouraging investment towards societal objectives and discouraging the financing of innovations counter to these goals ( (OECD, 2023[15]) and (Noailly and Smeets, 2022[44])). These institutions often are focused on specific investment themes, which can be used by governments to target the private investors (e.g., if they focus on green technologies or health). For example, Scottish Enterprise conducts targeted outreach to investors that focus on tidal and wind energy, as well as sovereign wealth funds, insurance trusts, and pension funds that can invest with the Scottish Investment Bank in larger scale infrastructure projects. Some banks have embedded a strong environmental, social and governance considerations into their investing practices, and may also be prime partners. The availability of this private capital may also need to be considered in the mission framing, because some sectors have less funding available to them.

Furthermore, some countries leverage state development banks to provide loans, grants, guarantees, and equity financing to crowd in private sector investment towards government priorities. These types of institutions have a long history of supporting industry and providing more directionality for economic development. They are also being used to support MOIPs around the world (Mazzucato, 2023[45]). For instance, the Flemish Participation Company (PMV) is a public investment company that, among other areas, invests in promising circular growth companies that support the Circular Flanders missions. PMV provides equity investments of up to 3 million euros and 49% of an investment round. This approach helps crowd in private investors. In Korea, it mobilises the Social Venture Impact Guarantee Support System and the Social Value-based Impact Investment Fund to support technologies developed under the Comprehensive Plan to Solve Social Problems Based on Science and Technology. The Social Venture Impact Guarantee Support System provides preferential guarantees of up to 200 million won for social venture companies that create both social and economic value through innovative technologies or business models.

Philanthropy could also be involved, as well as significant asset holders like insurance or real estate. We haven’t been successful in reaching these actors though so far. – Conference breakout room

Some sectors have a more mature investing ecosystem, while investors for other sectors have smaller pockets. Governments could use this to help shape the mission objectives and pick objectives where the funding is there. – Private sector interviewee

Phasing the readiness of private markets and regulatory support at the right time is a delicate orchestration. If you go too fast on innovation, and regulators are 15 years behind, you fail. If you don’t have continuity of investment support, you will burn cash for five years and fail. – Private sector interviewee