The NDI project, which brings together seven partners, will develop support tools in order to facilitate innovation and development amongst SMEs and micro-businesses.In order to understand innovation mechanisms in small businesses, it will draw up a status report and a comparative study of 550 businesses.An innovators kit including a set of practical and methodological tools will be put together and tested with about one hundred French and British businesses, to enable businesses to test approaches to innovation.NDI is the first project approved by the programme in the field of innovation for small businesses. Achievements: Innovation is the key to business growth. But the process can be difficult for businesses with less than 25 employees. Nearly 500 small businesses were keen to answer the online survey created by the NDI (New Deal for Innovation) project partnership and to explain their barriers and their needs when it comes to innovating. The toolkit for innovation will include information and advice about how to innovate and will also provide good practice from France and England. As an example, a network can be a potential source of innovative ideas: however, only 10% of French small businesses are members of a network, against 54% in England. This ready-to-use tool is expected by the end of 2013 as a bilingual website. It will save very small businesses time and money by enabling them to learn about existing innovation support structures, and even to raise their profile, once they have experience of starting innovation processes.