These include: the ICASS (Innovators’ Counselling and Advisory Service for Scotland) service, which provides free, specialist, confidential advice to innovators, inventors and small innovative companies on issues such as commercial viability, intellectual property protection and product development;the Small Companies Innovation Scheme (SCIS) delivered by Scottish Enterprise and equivalent support offered by Highlands and Islands Enterprise;the Executive’s SMART, SPUR and SPURPLUS industrial research and development (R&D) support schemes; Scottish Enterprise’s R&D Plus scheme for large companies, and the £49 million Proof of Concept Programme to assist universities, research institutes and NHS Trusts to bring ideas from the laboratory into the market place.