Proposal of innovation criteria for the selection process of micro, small and medium enterprises projects in the Inovacred Program

Innovation plays a prominent role in development strategies in the world. Developed and emerging countries seek to making innovation policies as the central issue of their economic agenda. In this regard, in Brazil, the Inovacred Program by the Financing Agency for Studies and Projects (FINEP) aimed to support innovation projects at micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). This work proposes innovation criteria to assess the selection process of Inovacred Program projects. Four steps were taken such as from the identification criteria used in the evaluation of entrepreneurial innovation, the characteristics of micro and small companies, and the questionnaires application to collect feedback from experts on the relevance of innovation criteria. As result, were defined two proposals for innovation criteria based on the 29 experts from agencies accredited to Inovacred. Although of differences, both tenders have a significant number of criteria, being considered broad according to the scope of evaluation.