Our aims

To attract direct foreign investment, focussing on research, design and development projects with high knowledge content
To enhance the global expansion capabilities of companies through international strategy development
To create partnership investments between Scottish and foreign companies and organisations to open new channels to markets, investments, technologies and products
To increase trade growth by encouraging the expansion of Scotland's portfolio of first-class exported goods and services to new markets
To help strike licensing deals between Scottish and overseas companies and universities

Performance highlights for the last financial year (2011/12)

We worked with 190 companies on international projects – each with the potential to achieve added international growth of at least £1 million within three years
These projects have a value of £733 million projected sales over the next three years – double what was achieved through the same activity last year
More than 7,000 planned jobs in total were created or recommitted including 1,800 high-value jobs with our support

Other key results:

1382 unique companies benefited from our support
1055 high potential Scottish companies were supported to target new international markets
There have been over 17,800 new registrations for TalentScotland in the past year, following the launch of the TalentScotland.com website, which aims to attract new highly skilled people to work in Scotland
Almost £22 million of Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) support for projects with a planned expenditure of nearly £163 million was offered to over 30 inward investors to locate or grow their operations in Scotland
GlobalScot had its most successful year-to-date generating over 450 requests for assistance from Scottish companies to members of the GlobalScot network
Fifty events were held in Scotland and overseas, with 430 attendees and 140 one-on-one meetings between companies and GlobalScots
65 new members to the GlobalScot network, bringing the total number of members to 778

In May 2010, published findings of an SDI independent evaluation report show that:

SDI has created around 19,000 jobs to date, demonstrating its importance in supporting employment
SDI assistance has led to an additional £58 million average exports per year
An estimated £72 million GVA is likely to be added to the Scottish economy through international trade alone over the next three years, due to SDI activity in this area
Almost 50 percent of all businesses interviewed reported that support from SDI helped them meet customers/partners that they would otherwise not have met
89 percent of businesses that SDI has helped develop international trade considered their engagement with SDI to have been worthwhile
41 percent have achieved sales in new overseas markets and 80 percent expect to achieve overseas sales as a result of the supported international trade activities
Higher wages, higher employment and higher labour productivity exist in SDI-assisted inward investor companies
73 percent of inward investors working with SDI consider us to have been very or fairly important in ensuring the continuing presence of the business in Scotland
SDI-assisted companies have been 19 percent more productive than ‘matched’ cases with no assistance
Most SDI-assisted inward investment companies are employing more people than planned, doing more R&D and have broadened their product range