Scottish Enterprise’s £55M investments will generate £640M says report

09 Dec 2009 | News
An independent evaluation of Scottish Enterprise’s investments over the past five years has also concluded that SE has created 1,300 R&D jobs.


An independent evaluation of Scottish Enterprise’s (SE) publicly-funded R&D investments of £55 million in 55 projects over the past five years has concluded the money helped to generate a further £350 million of private sector investment, and created 1,300 R&D jobs with the potential to support 28,500 additional jobs in associated activities by 2019.

Crawford Gillies, Chairman of SE, said, “More than two thirds of the private sector investment generated through the programme has come directly from companies headquartered outside Scotland, highlighting our world class capabilities and growing international reputation as a first class location for developing new ideas and technology.”

SE's R&D programme was established to help address historically low levels of private sector investment in research and development, together with other government support mechanisms such as the availability of R&D tax credits.

The report also highlights that almost 60 per cent of the projects would not have happened in Scotland without SE’s support, and a further 20 per cent would have gone ahead on a much smaller scale.  

More significantly, for those projects that have been completed, over two-thirds of the companies have created new intellectual property as a result of the support, improving their chances of securing additional R&D projects in the future.

At the time of the evaluation, 20 projects had been completed, with a further 35 currently in various stages of implementation.

Gillies added, “These projects would simply not have happened in Scotland without our support, but with our support they are now embedded within our economy, creating much needed jobs and investment.”

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