In 2019, EKOS were commissioned to undertake a qualitative review of Scottish Enterprise’s large grant programmes (2009-10 to 2017-18), covering around 1,300 individual companies that had received almost £512 million, through 1,700 grants. The review covered the following grant programmes: Regional Selective Assistance (RSA), SMART, R&D, Training Plus, High Growth Spinout Programme (HGSP), Proof of Concept (PoC), Environmental Aid and Young Innovative Enterprise (YIE).

The key aims were to assess the rationale for providing grants and the impact of grants on company performance.

The review also considered administrative issues such as the application and appraisal process, grant management, linkages with other support, marketing/promotion, and performance metrics.

The report has been published by SE here: http://www.evaluationsonline.org.uk/evaluations/Search.do?ui=basic&action=showPromoted&id=706