Apur is involved in setting up, on the scale of the Greater Paris -Métropole du Grand Paris-, an observatory of support structures for the creation and maturation of innovative businesses with a follow on accompaniment for businesses that have been supported.
From observation to observatory
In 2015 Apur began, in collaboration with its partners, a process of observing economic innovation in the Metropolis and its territories. This was based upon a two-fold awareness: on the one hand that radical transformations of the economy and society were taking place, which were having a constantly increasing impact on the city and the ways of living in it, (new economies, innovative uses, ways of working, ways of moving around, digital transformation, environmental imperatives…), on the other hand, it was difficult to describe these changes using statistical data and tools currently available in order to measure their impact, and from the angle of assessing public policies.
On this vast subject, Apur’s efforts where mainly focused on structures accompanying innovative businesses. In 2016, a documented atlas was published with places mapped and an analysis of developments in progress. Like the study, the database of places was put on unrestricted access. This work of listing formed a useful basis but did not make it possible to answer legitimate questions like: How many innovative businesses are accompanied each year? What has become of them? What is the profile of accompanied company owners?
2018: Planning the observatory
At the outcome of the survey carried out on 27 business owners and a collective work with a number of business support structures, Apur proposed yearly monitoring indicators for innovative businesses being or having been accompanied by structures. They have to provide information on the rate of survival, the number of jobs created, the profile of company owners and the premises they have occupied. In order to assemble these data on structures, to articulate them with complementary sources and to process them, a “standard file” for collecting data was created. These elements are summarised in the study The trajectory of innovating companies: towards common indicators?
2019 to 2021: a test phase for its implementation
The gradual implementation of the observatory will take place from 2019 to 2021, based on data collected from businesses each year by partner organisations and complementary economic files. The test phase should enable the multiple, practical aspects of the observatory to be work out and set up. It should also serve to enhance the performance of the observatory by increasing the number of contributing organisations throughout Grand Paris. This observatory is intended to be a long term undertaking, because even for innovating businesses, it is often necessary to be able to stand back after a period of years and judge ones development. There are multiple objectives: to build up a “dynamic” panorama of young, innovating businesses that have been accompanied, to have more reliable and up to date data available in order to assess the ecosystem of innovation, to facilitate the work of accompanying organisations with data feedback and shared information and finally to respond better to the needs of businesses. It could also facilitate the identification of businesses in order to carry out studies on targeted themes. In 2019, 29 innovation incubators, nurseries and platforms contributed to setting up the observatory, that is a quarter of all such organisations in the Metropolis. Results confirm elements which were already known, add more detail and contribute more information. They can be consulted in the study Observatory of Young Innovating Companies in Grand Paris: 2019 assessment, first test year.
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