Evaluation Criteria versus Firm Characteristics as Determinants of Public R&D Funding

This study provides new empirical evidence regarding the relevance of evaluation criteria and firm characteristics for public R&D funding decisions. The database used contains both accepted and rejected R&D project proposals, project evaluation scores, and several firm characteristics. The probit estimations show that proposals with high scores on innovative content, spillover, and knowledge gain are significantly more likely to be approved and that most firm-level characteristics are not significant, except for firm size. For example, good or very good assessments of innovative content raise the acceptance probability by between 18 and 37 percentage points, respectively. Small firms are more likely to receive a grant.