The Policy Evaluation Unit at the CBR conducts short-term and long-term contract research in both the public and private sectors. The kinds of projects the Unit undertakes are: a range of evaluations and impact assessments of government initiatives; the evaluation of initiatives designed to provide direct financial support to firms; research on the supply of debt and equity finance for R&D; research on the needs of firms and barriers to R&D; policy development and advice to help shape government initiatives and R&D support; SME Performance and Policy - using appropriate databases to develop and test models of SME performance and its determinants with policy analysis and with methods of complex survey design and analysis necessary to investigate models of business performance.