REID has been on a journey from Dublin in the west to Bratislava in the east to examine how Governments’ can make life easier for those with the ‘entrepreneurial bug’ and help them innovate, scale and go international. Working as part of a team for the OECD’s Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities, REID reviewed SME and entrepreneurship programmes focusing on financing, innovation and internationalisation, entrepreneurship education and workforce skills development as well as innovative use of public procurement to support emerging high-potential firms.

REID proposed a series of recommendations (for instance, in the Irish case adapting the R&D tax credit instrument to encourage innovation collaborations by SMEs inspired by Norwegian practice) to improve the effectiveness of government support that were taken up in subsequent government action plans.