FI4INN tackles the limited and old-fashioned types of funding schemes available to support marketdriven innovation in central Europe due to a general low capability of managing complex financial vehicles. This weakness in innovation ecosystems is common in the involved CE regions Friuli Venezia Giulia, Piedmont, Carinthia, Silesia. It matters at national level in Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic as well. It affects both regional and national authorities responsible for S3 implementation, sectoral agencies and business support organizations acting as funds’ intermediaries and finally SMEs and startups. FI4INN will help public and private finance providers and policy makers to adopt a new mind-set when designing financial instruments for supporting R&I led by SMEs and startups: a more inclusive, consultative approach based on co-creation and stakeholders’ engagement, emphasizing impact measurement as well. Thanks to that, decision makers and financial organizations will strengthen their capability to adopt and deploy new finance support schemes that can increase innovation policies’ impact. Transnational cooperation is crucial as far as such improvement can be achieved only by a structured peer learning on experiences and real cases. Besides end users’ involvement and setting up a better evaluation framework, FI4INN will develop a knowledge centre to showcase and promote innovative and less utilized financial instruments in the panorama of public resources, taking into consideration and learning from initiatives adopted in the private sector (funds, banks), but also looking at fintech platforms, hybrid instruments and tools used in the social economy. New Financial Instruments aiming at economic, environmental and social impact are expected to be piloted in seven CE regions. In three years of cooperation, we expect that more diversified and integrated FIs portfolios will be available to financially support R&I in SMEs or startups in early stages.