The article considers theoretical approaches to the identification and systematization of methods and tools of state stimulation of innovation, and provides an overview of foreign practice. In world practice, various methods of stimulating innovation activity are used, both economic and organizational and legal. The current system of stimulating the innovation activity of small enterprises in the Russian Federation is systematized and analyzed. As a result, problems were identified at the level of financial and non-financial methods. In terms of financial methods, there is a bureaucratic procedure for obtaining financing, difficulty in obtaining preferential loans, poorly developed preferential taxation, the venture capital investment market is practically not developed, difficulties in attracting private investment through online platforms, etc. Among non–financial methods there is a lack of information about possible support tools, insufficient use of tools that stimulate cooperation of participants in the innovation process. It is concluded that it is necessary to create an organizational tool – a meeting place for participants in the innovation process to solve the problem of transferring innovation from a research center or university to a corporation.