This article aims to analyze the recent experience of the Technology Directorate (DT) of the Carlos Chagas Foundation for Research Support of the State of Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) and discuss the opportunities and challenges for the institution with regard to the development of aninnovation policy based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).The article contributes to the Brazilian literature on innovation policies, by mobilizing the conceptual framework on innovation promotion agencies and on mission-oriented policies to discuss the role of the FAPERJ Technology Directorate in the context ofthe Rio de Janeiro regional innovation system (SRI). Empirically, the article points, based on data from PINTEC and secondary documents, to the main systemic failures of this SRI, which contributed to the failure of the sectorial innovation policy. This analysis serves as a basis for examining the limits ofDT-FAPERJ's performance until 2018, as well as the prospects for a mission-oriented role as proposed in its Strategic Planning for the 2019-2021 triennium. The main conclusions point out that: the State of Rio de Janeiro has possible socioeconomic challenges to support a FAPERJ innovation strategy aimed at solving socio-environmental problems; the fragmentation of the State's institutional scenario presents itself not only as a challenge for the elaboration of mission-oriented innovation policies, but also as an opportunity, which DT-FAPERJ seems well positioned to take advantage of; the complexity of these problems, however, makes it difficult to formulate and implement these policies, as the results ofthe Board's recent performance indicate; and the construction of indicators and metrics to measure the impact of such policies is necessary to enable institutional learning and the implementation of these policies.@en