In December 2009, the Government of Finland, Nokia and the World Bank/infoDev launched a major new program on Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy [see attached presentation for an overview, 4MB]. One of the key components of the program in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is the scaling of business incubators and the strengthening of innovation eco-systems. The support for business incubators and the incubator eco-system will include an analysis on the impact of business incubators on entrepreneurship and innovation development. The incubator impact analysis aims to add knowledge to the understanding of the specifics, value and limits of business incubation in the region.

The purpose of the focus group discussion was to identify key questions on incubator and incubation impact from the perspective of policy-makers as well as economic and innovation development planners. Hosted in conjunction with the Knowledge Economy Forum IX, the Focus Group brought together conference participants, especially those with an interest in entrepreneurship and innovation, for a brainstorming on key questions that such impact analysis should address, including the following:

• What are the growth rates of incubated enterprises after they leave the incubator?
• What size have the enterprises reached in terms of sales and employees ?
• How many of them have an innovative product, service or business moel?
• What is the effect of the incubated companies on the overall innovation eco-system and the competitiveness of a particular city, region or sector?
• Is the incubator sustainable? How is the it financed?
• What lessons can be derived?

With the focus group, participants had the opportunity to directly contribute to the design and focus of the analysis. The session was moderated by Stefan Schandera, Regional Facilitator ECA of the infoDev incubator initiative, infoDev/World Bank.