This work is a part of an ongoing research focusing on the social impact of R&D projects and support programmes from the perspectives of the public and private sectors. The research project is based on
interviews conducted as part of a case study
methodology involving a marine-sector private
company and the Technological Center in Vigo. The results indicate that the criteria chosen as being the most important for the evaluation of social return of R&D were the number of jobs created at the company, the
environmental impact and the working conditions. Also included in the analysis were the criteria used in the process of evaluating applications for funding. From the analysis it becomes notorious that social return is
not a priority in this evaluation process, with assigned weights for the related criteria ranging between 0 and -22%. The only exception was the Transnational Program of cooperation Atlantic Space where the
weights of the variable related to the social character of the project sum about 50 %. The mostly used criteria are the environmental impact, the incorporation of new PhD´s and the presence of women investigator's in the
project. Only in the Transnational Program of
cooperation Atlantic Space include criteria like the transference of knowledge, diffusion of knowledge and platform growth
