FINEP

FINEP (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos) is a publicly owned innovation agency based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that finances scientific research, university graduate courses, and corporate research and development. Operating with a scale of approximately 500 employees, the organization provides targeted grants to non-profit educational entities and direct loans to commercial enterprises while managing the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development. Subordinated to the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, the agency has historically collaborated with the Multilateral Investment Fund to launch the INOVAR project for technology-based small and medium enterprises. Under the past leadership of Sergio Machado Rezende, the institution established the PAPPE program, modeled after initiatives from FAPESP to support business research. FINEP was originally founded on July 24, 1967, by the federal government, with individual founder names remaining unknown.