Circular innovation strategies: which direction for Italian firms?

Eco-innovation is a topic of growing importance in developing countries. In spite of the emerging number of studies contributing to a better understanding of the perceived effects and directionality of factors enabling or hampering eco-innovation, little attention has been paid to the topic of public R&D incentives as barriers to eco-innovation - particularly in the form of industrial R&D grants. This study analyses two programmes providing public financing for R&D projects conducted by SMEs in collaboration with universities and research centres. The PEI and FIT programmes are administered by the Mexican Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT). A database of over 6,500 technical files of projects funded under these schemes in the period 2002-2018 was analysed. The main objective of the analysis was the identification of green R&D projects, and to evaluate the perceived effect among SMEs of these programmes as barriers or enablers of eco-innovation. The findings of the study indicate that less than 6% of the total number of R&D grants correspond to eco-innovation projects. The very low presence of eco-innovation projects can be considered to be more of a barrier, revealing important avenues of further research.