• Agence nationale de la recherche

France’s National Research Agency (ANR) was created in 2005. It provides funding for research and optimisation projects through competitive calls for projects. In 2008, the Agency provided some EUR 650.2 million to consortia of public laboratories and businesses working in six areas: humanities and social sciences, ecosys- tems and sustainable development, sustainable energy and the environment, biology-health, engineering, processes and security of infor- mation and communication sciences and technologies. Some 240 SMEs participated in these programmes.
The Agency also runs the Carnot Institutes programme and contributes to collaborative research projects by competitiveness clusters.
www.agence-nationale-recherche.fr

• OSEO

OSEO is a public establishment that supports SMEs in France with the aim of ensuring continuity in financing through all phases of their life-cycle (start-up, buyout-trans- fer, growth, international development) and in their R&D and innovation projects. OSEO facilitates access to bank loans by provi- ding guarantees. It directly co-finances growth and innovation investment by SMEs and tech- nological partnerships and provides direct support for innovation in the form of subsidies or advances (totalling EUR 560 million in 2009). The Strategic Industrial Innovation Support Programme (ISI) grants up to EUR 10 million in funding for collaborative strategic projects involving companies with up to 5,000 employees and research establishments. Furthermore, soft green loans finance up to 40% of total investment in tangible and intangible assets that integrate environmental protec- tion issues. These loans are available to SMEs and ETI (entreprises de taille intermédiaire) companies that are more than three years old.
http://www.oseo.fr

(December 2010)