Innovation Norway – a statutory corporation with clear goals
We are a statutory company established under the Innovation Norway Act and owned by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries and the county authorities. Our owners have established a common framework of objectives for all our commissioning bodies.
- Purpose: We are the government’s and county authorities’ instrument for driving value-creating business development throughout Norway.
- Main objective: We will drive commercially and socio-economically profitable business development and unlock business opportunities across the regions.
- Three sub-goals: More successful entrepreneurs, more high-growth companies and more innovative business environments
Annual allocations from the national budget
With each national budget, we receive public funding and assignments to drive innovation and value creation in Norwegian business and industry.
In 2026, we receive funding from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries (NFD), the Ministry of Agriculture and Food (LMD), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (UD), the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development (KDD), the Ministry of Transport (SD), the Ministry of Defence (FD), the Ministry of Health and Care Services (HOD), and the county authorities.
Our task is to make the full allocation available to businesses by providing funding, advisory, networks, promotion and competence building.
Our goal is to provide these funds in a way that
- stimulate increased investment in innovation and internationalisation
- encourages businesses to take risks and invest additional capital
- makes more happen than would otherwise have been possible
- creates greater value
We do not have traditional commercial objectives, but we are expected to maintain sound financial management and cost-effective operations. Our lending activities must generate a profit over time, while our other activities must break even. Our main source of income is public funding.
The General Meeting approves the annual financial statements, and we prepare reports for our commissioning bodies. We also publish a digital annual report that provides insight into our overall activities and results.
We are measured by the impact we create for our customers, how well we deliver on our commissioning bodies' priorities, and our ability to reduce risk and support Norwegian businesses.
Ongoing performance and impact measurement
We report on our progress towards the targets, using a range of analyses.
The impact assessment analyses the additional growth achieved by customers who have received funding, both for each of our main assignments and across all assignments. We also analyse the impact on different subgroups, specific funding instruments and recipients of certain types of advisory services. Together, these analyses provide a basis for assessing whether we are achieving our objectives.
Statistics Norway (SSB) developed the framework for the impact assessment, which was first carried out in 2015. Samfunnsøkonomisk Analyse took over responsibility for calculating the impacts in 2019, followed by Oslo Economics in 2023.
The work carried out by Oslo Economics has two parts. The first estimates the impact of our activities by examining whether companies that have received one of our services develop differently during the first three years after receiving support, compared with similar companies that have not received a service. The second involves further developing the methodology used in the impact assessment.