PARLAMENTO EUROPEU
2014 - 2019
Comissão do Controlo Orçamental
24.11.2014
DOCUMENTO DE TRABALHO
sobre o Relatório Especial n.º 7/2014 do Tribunal de Contas Europeu
(Quitação 2013) intitulado «O FEDER foi bem-sucedido no apoio ao
desenvolvimento de incubadoras de empresas?»
Comissão do Controlo Orçamental
Relator: Zigmantas Balčytis
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Introduction
The more than 20 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the EU account for
67% of the total employment and more than 50% of gross value added1. They are considered
key drivers for economic growth, innovation and social integration. They have been a
particular important player in the Lisbon strategy, and continue to be later in the Europe 2020
strategy, in promoting successful entrepreneurship and improve the business environment in
the EU.
Business incubators are SMEs designed to support the successful establishment and further
development of young businesses. They often offer access to physical business infrastructure,
individually tailored business support services and networking opportunities. Incubators vary
in many ways, in particular in the scope of the incubation programmes they offer, in their
internal organisation, in the economic sector they specialise in and in the types of clients they
serve. This is most needed at the beginning of a company's life cycle, when it is most at risk
of failure.
It is suggested in published researches that SMEs having received incubation support are
significantly less likely to fail during the first few years after their establishment. The general
3-year survival rate of new companies is around 56%, whereas the rate for companies which
have been assisted by business incubators is around 90%2.
There are three typical phases of incubation activity according to the European Commission's
Smart Guide to Innovation-Based incubators (IBI):
a) Pre-incubation - this stage comprises activities aimed at supporting potential entrepreneurs
in developing business ideas, business models and business plans. The objective is to increase
the chance that the entrepreneurs will be able to create a business effectively, and proceed
successfully to the start-up phase.
b) Incubation - this stage begins when the SME starts up, and ends at the moment when it
becomes self-sustainable and prepared to operate independently on the free market. In this
phase, the incubator offers access to finance, training and coaching for entrepreneurs, as well
as to networks of potential business and technology partners, office space and, in some cases,
access to fully equipped laboratories, workshops and prototyping facilities.
c) Post-incubation - this stage comprises activities carried out when a company has reached
operational and financial independence and is capable of continuing operations without
external support. These will be measures to improve the company performance.
How does the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) support business incubators?
Together with regional convergence and European territorial cooperation, increasing regional
1
Gross value added is the value of products and services produced minus the cost of all inputs and raw materials
that are directly attributable to that production.
2
Eurostat: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Business_demography_statistics and
BIC Observatory 2012 report: http://www.ebn.be/assets/pdf/2012/bic_obs_2012.pdf
http://www.ukbi.co.uk/resources/business-incubation.spx
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competitiveness and employment are the main objectives of the EU's cohesion policy. Thus
the ERDF is, under shared management, together with the structural funds, responsible for the
main source of EU funding for programmes supporting SMEs.
In line with the incubation stages referred above, the business incubator projects co-financed
by the ERDF can be split into two distinct phases:
Phase I: Establishment - it begins when the grant agreement is signed. The project manager
then begins to make plans for the construction of the facility and the purchase of the necessary
equipment. It ends when the incubator is equipped, staffed, and physically ready for
operation, and when the investment has been settled from a legal and a financial point of
view. This phase lasts normally for up to 2 years.
Phase II: Operation - it begins when the incubator's first clients are admitted and the
incubation process starts; it lasts until the end of the sustainability period1. This phase lasts
normally for around 3 years after the end of phase I.
The audit was carried out at the premises of the European Commission and in four Member
States which had allocated the largest amounts of ERDF funding to the establishment of
business incubators - Czech Republic, Spain, Poland and the UK -. Incubators in Italy and
Germany were also visited. The main objective of the audit was to assess whether business
incubator facilities co-financed by the ERDF had successfully supported start-ups with a high
potential for growth. For that purpose, the Court analysed if beneficiaries applied good
practices in establishing and operating incubators, the bodies responsible for managing the
ERDF - e.g. managing authorities and intermediary bodies - put in place effective
mechanisms for selecting appropriate incubators to receive support and ensuring their
successful operation, and if the Commission took appropriate action to maximise the impact
of ERDF support on co-financed incubators.
European Court of Auditors (ECA) conclusions
The Courts consider that the ERDF made a significant financial contribution towards the
creation of business incubator infrastructure, but the provision of incubation services was
rather limited. This was due to financial constraints and low level of incubation activities as
well as lack of expertise concerning incubation practices and by shortcomings in management
systems.
The performance of the audited incubators was lower than that of the benchmarked2
incubators. Although the ERDF had been effective in delivering incubator infrastructure, it
had been less successful in ensuring that they provided effective and efficient support to their
clients, they were more costly to run and required more staff to produce a new start-up than
the benchmarked incubators.
Why is it so? Several possible reasons being the lack of experience just one of them.
Constraints regarding financial sustainability made the incubator's managers to focus attention
1
This means until the moment from which the grant conditions no longer oblige the owner of the project to
maintain project results or to keep assets for the purposes of incubation activity.
2
Incubators that are certified members of the European Business and Innovation Centre Network and that were
awarded with the EC-BIC trademark.
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on generating income rather than providing quality services for high-growth potential startups. This let incubator managers to relax the eligibility criteria for newcomers. As a result,
costly incubator support was offered to low-growth ventures which further increased
inefficiency in the use of public resources invested in business incubators.
Incubators were unable to offer comprehensive, individually tailored assistance to their
clients. Most audited incubators did not offer support to prospective entrepreneurs at the preincubation stage, or not to non-resident clients. The incubation programmes were of a basic
nature and did not take into account the specific individual needs or business development
objectives of their clients. As there was no close cooperation with them, the incubators lacked
detailed knowledge of their level of development and this had an additional adverse effect on
the quality of business support offered.
In addition, the Member State authorities which selected projects for co-funding paid
insufficient attention to the expected outcomes of incubation activity and to the feasibility of
the incubators' business models. As a consequence, it affected the objectives which were
established for individual incubators, and had subsequent implications for the sustainability of
incubations activities. This was particularly upsetting because the length of the sustainability
period does not correctly reflect the nature of ERDF co-financed incubator projects. One
important risk resulting from this is that the systems in place allow a significant part of the
value of public funding to pass to incubator owners after the end of the sustainability period.
At the same time, the Court considers that the Commission did not take sufficient steps to
facilitate the exchange of knowledge and good practices. Its activities in disseminating
relevant knowledge and promoting good practices were too limited to mitigate the risk of
failure for recently established co-financed incubators.
ECA recommendations
The first recommendation goes to the Commission that should require Member States to make
authorisation for the establishment of new incubators using EU co-funding dependent on
some considerations. a) Business incubators should provide a detailed and realistic business
plan; b) incubation activities should be performed by skilled staff that can provide relevant
individual support; c) incubators should proactively seek and acquire new clients outside their
regional origin, with innovative business ideas; d) the incubation process should start with the
preparation of a detailed incubation programme, the implementation should be followed up
and the degree to which the business' objective have been achieved should be assessed; e)
incubator should offer services to non-resident clients in order to enlarge the impact on local
business and to reinforce the networking; f) incubators should set up a monitoring system
based on data from their own activity and data produced by supported clients.
Secondly the Court recommends the Commission to require Member State authorities to
incorporate the following elements into the design of the procedures for selecting and
supervising ERDF co-financed incubator projects: a) put greater emphasis in the expected
results of the projects when setting the project selection criteria; b) during the project
assessment process and when contractual obligations are being defined, reinforce the expert
knowledge of business incubation activities; c) the value of the ERDF payments should be
linked to the results achieved by the incubator; d) the sustainability period should be adjusted
to the actual life cycle of the business incubator assets co-financed by the ERDF.
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Finally the Commission should update its knowledge on the effectiveness and efficiency of
business incubation and it should resume its efforts to support the community of business
incubators, targeting all business incubators which could present their success stories,
exchange knowledge and access peer support at European level.
Recomendações do relator para possível inclusão no relatório de quitação à Comissão
relativo ao exercício de 2013
O Parlamento Europeu:
Saúda o Relatório Especial do Tribunal intitulado «O FEDER foi bem-sucedido no apoio ao
desenvolvimento de incubadoras de empresas?» e apoia as suas recomendações;
Salienta que as incubadoras de empresas apoiam a criação e o posterior desenvolvimento de
jovens empresas que possam pôr as PME no centro do crescimento económico e da criação de
emprego na UE;
Entende que os programas de financiamento da política de coesão aplicados a estas
incubadoras auditadas devem ter um planeamento estruturado, um conjunto de objetivos
claros e uma avaliação eficaz; considera que as incubadoras auditadas apresentaram falhas em
todos estes elementos;
Recorda que o FEDER disponibilizou uma contribuição financeira significativa para a criação
de uma infraestrutura de incubadoras de empresas e que as instalações das incubadoras
auditadas tinham sido devidamente criadas, mas o seu desempenho teve apenas um sucesso
moderado;
Salienta que o número de planos de negócios criados com o apoio de incubadoras, o número
de start-ups sujeitas a incubação e o número de empregos criados foram, em média, muito
inferiores aos números das incubadoras de referência utilizadas como termo de comparação
pelo Tribunal;
Constata que as incubadoras auditadas com o apoio do FEDER ofereceram uma gama de
serviços mais limitada do que as incubadoras de referência e que o leque de competências e
conhecimentos do pessoal das incubadoras apoiadas pelo FEDER era menos abrangente;
Sublinha que, no âmbito do apoio às empresas, uma cadeia de valor devidamente estruturada,
com pessoal qualificado, boas práticas e monitorização regular, é importante para a eficácia
das incubadoras de empresas;
Regista a explicação da Comissão, segundo a qual os Estados-Membros que aderiram à UE
em 2004 e posteriormente não dispõem de experiência, conhecimentos especializados nem
infraestruturas empresariais, não podendo, por isso, obter melhores resultados; lembra,
contudo, que a auditoria foi efetuada a incubadoras em 4+2 Estados-Membros, tendo apenas
dois deles aderido à UE em 2004;
Considera que a Comissão demonstrou, durante os períodos de programação consecutivos de
2000 a 2006 e de 2007 a 2013, uma falta de empenho no apoio a estas empresas; tal é
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confirmado pela lacuna na orientação facultada pela Comissão durante esses períodos de
programação, especialmente entre 2006 e 2010;
Recorda que a criação e partilha de boas práticas, em particular nas empresas recém-criadas,
constitui uma medida importante para melhorar a eficácia; lamenta os resultados
dececionantes das incubadoras auditadas; insta a Comissão a melhorar o aconselhamento às
autoridades de gestão dos Estados-Membros nesta matéria, às quais apela para que apliquem
eficientemente esses princípios fundamentais;
Sublinha que o investimento na formação do pessoal, para garantir um apoio efetivo às
empresas sujeitas a incubação e aos potenciais clientes, é importante para a eficácia da
empresa; deplora que este elemento tenha sido também negligenciado, em geral, nas
incubadoras auditadas.
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