Contributing to added growth for companies
Companies that receive support from Innovation Norway grow more in terms of sales revenue, value creation, productivity, and number of employees than similar companies that have not received such support.
In total, Innovation Norway contributed NOK 7.1 billion to the transition and development of Norwegian industry and commerce in 2022, with NOK 3.3 billion in grants, NOK 3.1 billion in loans, and NOK 610 million in guarantees. According to our own analyses, this helped to trigger additional capital from other funding sources, resulting in business development investments totalling NOK 24.2 billion.
In addition to triggering funding and capital, it is important for Innovation Norway to measure the impact and results of the supported activities. This is done through specific impact analyses. Indicators such as sales revenue, value creation, productivity, and the number of full-time equivalents are analysed each year in a survey of companies that have received support from Innovation Norway conducted by Economics Norway. These analyses compare these indicators against a control group of comparable companies that have not received support from Innovation Norway.
Impact measurements of Innovation Norway’s efforts confirm that Innovation Norway contributes to added growth for its customers. The analysis for 2022 shows that Innovation Norway’s customers see an annual average increase in sales revenue of 10.3 percentage points compared with comparable companies without such support. The corresponding figures for value creation and productivity are 8.6 percentage points and 3.6 percentage points, respectively. Companies that receive support from Innovation Norway also see an annual increase of 4.2 percentage points in the number of full-time equivalents.
Economics Norway writes that its findings indicate that it is mainly in the first three years after receiving support that Innovation Norway’s customers see statistically and financially significant added growth.
In addition to the overall impact, corresponding impacts are measured for the three sub-goals that have been set for the organisation: to contribute to more successful entrepreneurs, more companies with growth potential, and more innovative business clusters. The impacts for the three sub-goals are described in their respective chapters.
Innovation Norway is also interested in measuring additionality, i.e. the extent to which companies feel that Innovation Norway’s contribution has played a decisive role in the execution of their project. The customer impact survey – preliminary survey for 2022 included companies that received financial support or advice in 2022 and was conducted by Oslo Economics AS. The survey shows that nine out of ten respondents state that Innovation Norway’s contribution was crucial.