The Compendium of Evidence on the Effectiveness of Innovation Policy


 

This was the official website for The Compendium of Evidence on the Effectiveness of Innovation Policy. The project was funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) - an independent body with the mission to make the UK more innovative.
Content is from the site's 2011 archived pages. No sub reports are available in this iteration of the website.



 

About the project

Governments have implemented a wide range of policies to encourage innovation with a view to stimulating economic growth. These range from local interventions (such as the establishment of science parks designed to build local innovative clusters) to system-wide policies (such as R&D; tax credits, public venture capital investment or innovation procurement programmes). Evidence for their impact, however, is often limited, widely dispersed and exists in many different forms – from academic research to internally-commissioned programme evaluations.

The amount of evidence varies according to the types of interventions. Some have received considerable attention from academics, with the lessons already summarised in comprehensive literature reviews. Other interventions have been studied in various settings, but the findings have yet to be summarised in a systematic way. For furtherh interventions the evidence is still very scarce.

This project involves reviewing, analysing and summarising existing published work, drawing on empirical studies and government evaluation reports in addition to a wide range of academic literature. Thus the first task of the project was to define the topics, i.e. the fields of innovation policy, for which evidence will be reviewed. The project involves a rigorous process of defining the topics to be included in the analysis including a new, tailored synthesis of the major existing international typologies of innovation policy measures and an analysis of the portfolio of measures as compiled at EU level and in various countries.

The project will result in around 20 sub-reports reflecting the selected intervention topics and one synthetic, overall concluding report which will provide a comparative reflection on the major findings. The first batch of five topic reports is available in the Compendium section. For each topic, the compendium includes an extensive list of references that present evidence for the effectiveness of that particular innovation policy. Some of these references are designated as key sources and short summaries are provided for these.

The project is funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) - an independent body with the mission to make the UK more innovative, this project will run until September 2012. Major UK policy makers also form the Project Steering Committee. More information can be found in the Sponsor & Partners section.

The project is led by the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR), University of Manchester. In addition to researchers from MIoIR, external experts make major contributions to the topic reports. An introduction to the project team can be found in the Project Team section.

The tentative list of the topics that will be covered in this project is presented below:

Reports already completed and presented in January 2012 Workshop:

  • Fiscal Incentives for R&D
  • The Impact of Regulation on Innovation
  • Support Measures for Exploiting Intellectual Property
  • Training and Skills to Improve Innovation Capabilities in Firms
  •  

Future Reports (subject to modification, topics might be merged and new topics added):

  • Schemes for R&D; collaboration
  • Clusters policies and innovation impact
  • Innovation networks (sectoral, technologies, geographically spread)
  • Employment of Skilled People. Influencing the Supply, Security and Mobility of Skilled Workers
  • Direct Measures (grants, including investment grants, loans, etc.)
  • Access to capital
  • Entrepreneurship schemes
  • Support for innovation management / advisory service
  • Technology Platforms
  • Public Procurement (Deliberate innovation procurement schemes, support etc.)
  • Private awareness and readiness to buy innovation
  • Lead market and market transformation schemes
  • Technology assessment and anticipation of innovation pathways (Technology assessment, road mapping; technology foresight; constructive technology assessment; real-time technology assessment)
  • Standardisation and innovation
  • Policy Mix
  • Synthesis – innovation policy; what works!


 

The Project

This project developed a compendium of evidence on the effectiveness of innovation policy. Sponsored by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) - an independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative - the compendium provides easy access to expert reviews of policy evidence across a wide range of innovation policy topics.

Governments have implemented a wide range of policies to encourage innovation with a view to stimulating economic growth. These range from local interventions (such as the establishment of science parks designed to build local innovative clusters) to system-wide policies (such as R&D; tax credits, public venture capital investment or innovation procurement programmes). Evidence for their impact, however, is often limited, widely dispersed and exists in many different forms – from academic research to internally-commissioned programme evaluations.

The amount of evidence varies according to the types of interventions. Some have received considerable attention from academics, with the lessons already summarised in comprehensive literature reviews. Other interventions have been studied in various settings, but the findings have yet to be summarised in a systematic way. For further interventions the evidence is still very scarce.

This project involved reviewing, analysing and summarising existing published work, drawing on empirical studies and government evaluation reports in addition to a wide range of academic literature. Thus the first task of the project was to define the topics, i.e. the fields of innovation policy, for which evidence will be reviewed. The project involved a rigorous process of defining the topics to be included in the analysis including a new, tailored synthesis of the major existing international typologies of innovation policy measures and an analysis of the portfolio of measures as compiled at EU level and in various countries.

The project resulted in around 20 sub-reports reflecting the selected intervention topics and one synthetic, overall concluding report which provides a comparative reflection on the major findings. Reports are available in the Compendium section. For each topic, the compendium includes an extensive list of references that present evidence for the effectiveness of that particular innovation policy. Some of these references are designated as key sources and short summaries are provided for these.

The project was funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) - an independent body with the mission to make the UK more innovative. The project ran between September 2011 and October 2013. Major UK policy makers also form the Project Steering Committee. More information can be found in the Sponsor & Partners section.

The project was led by the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR), University of Manchester. In addition to researchers from MIoIR, external experts made major contributions to the topic reports. An introduction to the project team can be found in the Project Team section.

 

 



 

Project Team

The project was led by the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR). In addition to MIoIR researchers, a number of external scholars also contribute to the compendium.

MIOIR

    Prof Jakob Edler (Lead)
    Dr Paul Cunningham
    Dr Abdullah Gök
    Dr John Rigby
    Professor Philip Shapira
    Dr Barbara Jones
    Professor Philippe Larédo
    Dr Ronnie Ramlogan
    Dr Elvira Uyarra

External Experts

    Professor Knut Blind
    Dr Sungchul Chung
    Professor Damian Grimshaw
    Dr Christian Rammer

Professor Jakob Edler (Lead)

Professor Jakob Edler is Executive Director of MIoIR (Manchester Institute of Innovation Research) at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK and Professor of Innovation Policy and Strategy. His field of activity and publication comprise: Evaluation and conceptual development of RTDI policies, demand based innovation policy and public procurement, European Innovation Policy and Modes of Governance; Comparative Research on Internationalisation Strategies in Science and Technology Policy; Internationalisation of Industrial R&D and Public Research, Knowledge Supply and Technology Transfer; Industrial Knowledge Management and Patent Strategies. Jakob has advised the EU, OECD and a range of governments and published intensively on these issues, both in studies and in numerous expert groups. As for evaluation, he has worked academically on concepts of Meta-Evaluation and Evaluation Synthesis and has suggested a scientific approach to using existing evaluation insights for secondary analysis that has been used in a previous large scale study and which will be utilised for this study. He has also conducted numerous projects for various European and regional governments and the European Commission.

He has been member of several evaluation expert groups at EU level, analysing the impact of the Framework Programme as well as individual instruments. He recently also has advised DG Regio on evaluation practices and lessons to be learned for innovation policy. Jakob has also advised an international network of policy makers to understand evaluations and thus to learn about policy effectiveness more effectively.

Further, with colleagues from Manchester and Berlin he has developed an evaluation concept on the European Lead Market Initiative and also worked on the framework conditions for innovation for NESTA. Before joining Manchester University in 2007, he was Head of the Department Innovation Systems and Policy at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), Germany. Since October 2010 he has been a board member of the new association of leading European institutes for studies of policies for research and innovation policies (EU SPRI FORUM).

Professor Piddley Twige

An expert in the newly recognized field of data science, Piddley Twige is one a very small number of the best certified data science consultants overseeing big data projects and developing data streamlining solutions employing innovative technologies such as DevOps to shorten delivery times and improve code integrity in the cloud.

 



 

The Compendium of Evidence on the Effectiveness of Innovation Policy

The compendium is organised around 20 topics of innovation policy categorised primarily according to their policy objectives. A comprehensive review of evidence and key sources on each topic is provided. The topic reports, key sources and other sources are all searchable.

This project develops a compendium of evidence on the effectiveness of innovation policy. To present the evidence, we have built a typology of innovation policy measures, based not only on the previous typologies of innovation policy (INNO-Policy Trendchart, Cunningham et al. (2008), Edler et al (2010) and Edler and Georghiou (2007)) but also on the availability of evidence. For each type of innovation policy, we present the evidence base in a report reinforced by summaries of key sources. To access a report, please click on the type of the relevant innovation policy in the below table. Please note that as the project is still on-going some of the topic reports may not be available at this time.



 

News

Invitation to an Expert Seminar: Innovation Policies: What works?

Governments around the world have implemented a wide range of policies to encourage innovation and stimulate economic growth. Yet the hard evidence about what works (and where and why), is often limited and always widely dispersed. In partnership with the Nesta, the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR) is creating a compendium of existing evidence on the effectiveness of a range of innovation policy tools, based on comprehensive literature reviews.

The third in the compendium seminar series, this event will focus on the evidence for effectiveness relating to four types of policy interventions intended to drive innovation:

  • Direct financial support for innovation
  • Improving access to capital for innovation
  • Entrepreneurship schemes
  • Innovation management
  • support and advisory services

review of the literature in each area will be presented for discussion and debate.

Reports to be presented will be uploaded about a week before the seminar. This event is aimed at academics and policymakers at all levels who wish to ensure that future policies to support innovation are based on a broad evidence base. There is no charge to participate. Previous reports are available in the project website.

Date: Tuesday 28th September
Time: 11:00 - 13:00 (registration will open at 10:30)
Venue: 10.08, Harold Hankins Building, Manchester Institute of Innovation Research,Manchester Business School, University of Manchester


ESF / STOA conference on "Science of Innovation"

Prof. Jakob Edler introduces the Compendium of Evidence on Innovation Policy Project in a speech on Evidence-based innovation policy? Merits, limits and challenges of policy analysis" to be given to the ESF / STOA conference on "Science of Innovation", February 28 2011.


The Compendium of Evidence on the Effectiveness of Innovation Policy Intervention is launched at a workshop organised in London on 30th of January, 2012.

The Compendium of Evidence on the Effectiveness of Innovation Policy Intervention is launched at an expert seminar organised on 30th of January, 2012 at NESTA's London Office. Stakeholders including policy makers from across the UK government, innovation policy scholars and representatives from non-governmental organisations attended the expert seminar titled "Innovation policy: What works?" More information can be found at the NESTA website.

Workshop documents/presentations:

  • List of participants
  • Presentation: A General Overview of the Project
  • Presentation: The Impact of Regulation on Innovation
  • Presentation: Fiscal Incentives for R&D

First batch of 4 reports are available to download and browse.

The compendium is organised around 20 topics of innovation policy categorised primarily according to their policy objectives. Currently the following reports are available:

  • Fiscal Incentives for R&D
  • The Impact of Regulation on Innovation
  • Support Measures for Exploiting Intellectual Property
  • Training and Skills to Improve Innovation Capabilities in Firms

To download or browse these reports, please go to the compendium section.

 



Sponsors & Partners

The sponsor

NESTA

The project is funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) - an independent body with the mission to make the UK more innovative.

In recent years, NESTA has focused on supporting and promoting talent, innovation and creativity by developing models of innovation for the wider public benefit. It achieves its objects by running practical experiments and commissioning policy and research work for wider dissemination and adoption by policy makers. NESTA’s portfolio of projects changes from year to year as NESTA experiments and adapts to changing societal and economic challenges. NESTA’s current strategy is focused on the role of innovation in three main areas:

  • delivering more effective public services
  • the creative economy; and
  • improving economic growth in the UK.

NESTA also provides access to early stage capital through NESTA Investments to help innovative and creative businesses turn their ideas into commercial success.

Project Steering Committee Members

Major UK policy makers also act as members of the Project Steering Committee.

Mr Fergus Harradence

Fergus Harradence is the Deputy Director for Innovation Policy in the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. He is responsible for developing policy on, and overseeing the delivery of, support for innovation and technology development in business in the UK. This includes supporting R&D; and technology transfer, fiscal policy and measures such as regulation and public procurement that can generate demand for innovation.

Mr Mark Glover

Mark Glover is Head of the SBRI (Small Business Research Initiative) Programme at the UK Government’s Technology Strategy Board (TSB). SBRI has a key role in UK Government attempts to develop approaches to encourage UK government departments and other agencies to ensure that they invest in innovative companies and that the departments are procuring innovative solutions.

Professor Luke Georghiou

Prof. Luke Georghiou is Vice President (Research and Innovation) of the University of Manchester and Professor of Science and Technology Policy and Management in the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at Manchester Business School. He has been on the staff of its precursor institute, PREST, since 1977and was its Executive Director from 1990-2004. His public activities include chairing the Strategic Review of the EUREKA Initiative in 1999 and then returning to chair its Annual Impact Report Panel in 2005/6. During 1996 he chaired the evaluation of the European Union's Framework Biotechnology Programmes. He previously chaired committees on the effectiveness of Direct measures for R&D; support on behalf of the European Commission, and the Evaluation of Futur – the German Foresight programme and TEP – the Hungarian Foresight Programme. He was rapporteur of the influential Aho Group report to European leaders Creating an Innovative Europe and in 2007/8 chaired the EC’s Expert Group on ERA Rationales, presented to the European Competitiveness Council in July 2008. He was a panellist and chair of the expert sub-group of the Glover Committee Accelerating the SME Economic Engine, published with the UK Government’s Pre-Budget Report. In 2009 he chaired a Panel for the European Commission on gearing European research towards sustainability. He is on the editorial board of eight journals.

Professor Stefan Kuhlmann

Professor Dr. Stefan Kuhlmann is a full professor Foundations of Science, Technology and Society and Chair of the Department of Science, Technology, & Policy Studies (STəPS) in the School of Management and Governance of the University of Twente, The Netherlands. For around 30 years, he has been involved in studies of research and technological innovation as social and political processes, with a main focus on the analysis of science, research & innovation systems and policies, focusing on the dynamics of governance. Until 2006 he was acting director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems Innovation Research (ISI), Germany. Stefan Kuhlmann has published widely in the field of research and innovation policy studies. He is a co-editor of Research Policy, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy (IJFIP), on the Editorial Advisory Board of Science and Public Policy, and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Evaluation, The International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice.

Dr Michael Keenan

Michael Keenan (BSc. MA PhD) is an analyst in the OECD’s Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry. He has worked in the innovation policy field for more than fifteen years, most of which was spent at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, where he maintains an honorary position. During his time at Manchester, Michael worked mostly on technology foresight, publishing books and papers, teaching graduate and executive training courses, and consulting governments and international organisations on their foresight activities. He is on the editorial boards of several international journals and has participated as a member of various international advisory groups. His current work centres on national innovation policies and he presently works on the OECD’s country reviews of innovation policy. Over the last few years, he has participated in reviews of Korea, Mexico, Hungary, Greece, Russia, Sweden and SE Asia. He also leads the OECD’s work on the development of its Innovation Policy Platform, a flagship project to establish a web-based knowledge management tool in support of innovation policy-making.

 

 

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