Mid-term evaluation of ADEME’s ‘Investissements d’avenir Programme’ grants

Launched in 2010, the Programme d’investissements d’avenir (PIA) aims to stimulate research, development and innovation in targeted, growth-driven sectors as diverse as higher education and research, the digital economy, healthcare and sustainable development. Nearly 50 billion euros in funding has been committed to the first two phases of the PIA, which were renewed for a third time in June 2016 and allocated an additional 10 billion euros. The PIA has thus become a key instrument of France’s innovation support policy, alongside the research tax credit (CIR). As with any public support policy for firms, the question arises as to the impact of such aid on firms’ behaviour and performance. Indeed, in order to assess the relevance and effectiveness of such a business support policy, it is crucial to determine i) whether this support is in addition to firms’ R&D expenditure whilst encouraging them to invest more, or whether, on the contrary, it replaces such expenditure; and ii) whether such support improves the performance of recipient firms and to what extent it affects the performance of non-recipient firms. By focusing on the PIA programme managed by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), which specialises in environmental issues such as the energy transition and ‘Green growth’, the aim of this study is to conduct an ex post evaluation of the effects of the aid granted by ADEME on the beneficiary firms.