EMBRAPII — Brazil's Co-Funded Industrial Research Network Linking Companies to Accredited Research Units

EMBRAPII (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa e Inovacao Industrial) was created by the Brazilian federal government in 2013 as a qualified 'social organisation' to close the gap between Brazil's public research institutes and its industrial base.

Co-fund pre-competitive industrial R&D projects between companies and accredited research units, reducing companies' cash exposure while keeping research units demand-driven.

A company brings a pre-competitive innovation problem to an EMBRAPII-accredited research unit (universities, SENAI institutes, and other technical centres), and the resulting project is typically co-funded in thirds by EMBRAPII, the company and the research unit's own resources. The model has also been extended into SME-productivity work through the Brasil Mais Produtivo programme, which uses a Smart Industry Readiness Index assessment.

EMBRAPII contracted 440 projects with 431 companies nationwide in 2023, worth R$677 million, then grew to 610 projects and roughly R$1 billion in financing in 2024 - of which 34% came directly from EMBRAPII, 50% from the contracting companies and 16% from the research units themselves, with a record share of that portfolio going to micro and small enterprises and startups.

A 2023 peer-reviewed study (Guimaraes & Barcelos) describes EMBRAPII as an innovative departure from Brazil's conventional science-and-technology policy instruments, crediting its governance model, but notes that the number of companies actually engaged has been lower than initial ambitions suggested. No large-scale, independent counterfactual impact evaluation was located, so the underlying causal effect on firm-level innovation outcomes remains less firmly established than the funding-volume figures.