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Evaluation of research and innovation policy faces radical challenges arising from a new policy emphasis upon demand-side measures and linked to this an understanding of innovation policy as a means to achieve societal goals. This article considers the implications for the practice of evaluation at both micro and meso-levels. It uses the exemplar of an evaluation design for the European Union's Lead Market Initiative to expose the extent to which classical approaches to evaluation are valid and where new issues arise. Some problems highlighted include the difficulty of establishing a relevant baseline, the inability of public statistics constructed in supply-side mode to capture actions, the need to engage with actors who do not necessarily see themselves as part of the initiative being evaluated, long timescales and potential wide geographical scope, measures that span from micro to macro, and blurred boundaries between implementation and impact. It is concluded that there is a key role for evaluators to become involved in co-learning and co-evolution of these policy instruments in a manner analogous to the relationship between evaluation and policy development that characterized the emergence of collaborative R&D support programmes. Copyright The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.

Two propositions are explored: that present R&D evaluation methods risk missing key effects; that there is a tendency to underestimate the effects of public support. Using the example of a recent impact assessment of the EUREKA initiative, the paper seeks to show the limitations of typical questionnaire approaches. As an alternative, it introduces the ‘Iceberg Model’ as a metaphor for hidden effects and, building on work such as the BETA method and measurement of externalities, uses high-impact case studies to illustrate the importance of strategic behavioural effects and the use of technologies developed beyond the goals of the funded project. It is concluded that questionnaires are best used to identify the small proportion of projects that account for most effects and then resources should be focused on deep probes of these projects. The role of government in affecting positive strategic decisions or firms' routines should also be explored. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

This volume casts light on mergers and alliances in higher education by examining developments of this type in different countries. It combines the direct experiences of those at the heart of such transformations, university leaders and senior officials responsible for higher education policy, with expert analysts of the systems concerned.Higher education in Europe faces a series of major challenges. The economic crisis has accelerated expectations of an increased role in addressing economic and societal challenges while at the same time putting pressure on available finances. Broader trends such as shifting student demographics and expectations, globalisation and mobility and new ways of working with business have contributed to these increased pressures. In the light of these trends there have been moves, both from national or regional agencies and from individual institutions to respond by combining resources, either through collaborative arrangements or more fundamentally through mergers between two or more universities.After an introductory chapter by the editors which establishes the context for mergers and alliances, the book falls into two main parts. Part 1 takes a national or regional perspective to give some sense of the historical context, the wider drivers and the importance of these developments in these cases. Included are both systemic accounts (for countries as France, Sweden, Romania, Russia, Wales and England), and specific cross-cutting initiatives including a major facility at Magurele in Romania and a Spanish programme for promoting international campuses of excellence. Part 2 is built from specific cases of universities, either in mergers or alliances, with examples from different countries (such as France, UK, Romania, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland). A concluding chapter by the editors assesses these experiences and indicates the implications and future needs for understanding in this domain.

The foundation of a university often reflects the preoccupations of its age, reaching back to theological roots in medieval times, and later meeting the needs of nineteenth century empires for administrators with a rounded education or those of the emerging professional and industrial classes for a highly trained workforce and for research, particularly in science and engineering. Humanistic ideals and academic freedom were embodied as core elements in most cases. Such institutions, with more than a century behind them, have become part of a much larger population of universities as the expectations of and demands for a graduate education drove a global era of expansion and massification. While the core concept of a university remains recognisable almost anywhere that the term is used, substantial differentiation nonetheless exists. This differentiation may lie in the nature of the student population, the focus of the curriculum, the degree of research intensity, the form of governance, financial viability, scale of activity, the degree of autonomy and the extent to which it is embedded in one or more locations. More recently, as rankings and other forms of assessment have entered the picture, the level of ambition of an institution has also become a distinguishing factor.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to set out the process by which a smart specialisation strategy was developed for a small, peripheral economy in the European Union, the Republic of Malta. It assesses the applicability of the approach in the context of a micro-economy with an industrial structure based on a small number of foreign direct investments and a predominance of micro-enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – The paper follows an action research approach by presenting as a case study the process by which the strategy for Malta was assessed and developed through successive rounds of engagement with business and other actors with the application of scenarios and other prioritisation approaches to facilitate its development. An initial consultation with 20 public sector and representative organisations was followed by a general business workshop and 21 sectoral focus groups. Findings – Lack of critical mass can be mitigated by maximising the generic use of available skills and competences. Given the higher vulnerability to external shock in micro-economies, strategies need to have a high degree of flexibility and adaptability. Greater internationalisation provides the main response to peripherality. Practical implications – The approach can be applied more generally for micro-economies and in some aspects to other countries or regions lacking critical mass in research and innovation assets or facing peripherality. Originality/value – The smart specialisation approach had not been applied in these circumstances and hence the findings allowed the concept to be extended and adapted to deal with the issues raised.

open access article Public procurement is increasingly seen as an important potential instrument of innovation policy. However, policy design has been underpinned largely by anecdotal evidence and without a clear theoretical or empirical basis for understanding how supplying to the public sector actually influences a firm's innovation capabilities and performance and in what ways desirable behaviour and outcomes can be promoted. This paper seeks to address the basis of innovation procurement policy. It establishes a broad taxonomy of procurement policies and instruments that have emerged in OECD countries in response to perceived deficiencies and then compares these with the perceptions of firms using an analysis of a dedicated survey of 800 public sector suppliers in the UK. It is observed that policy measures include the creation of framework conditions, establishing organisational frameworks and developing capabilities, identifying, specifying and signalling needs, and incentivising innovative solutions. The survey findings confirm that the barriers encountered by firms correspond to the deficiencies addressed by policies but do not address them sufficiently. This arises from lack of coverage, lack of ownership by purchasers, failure to address the whole cycle of acquisition and to address risk aversion. The scope of policy measures needs to be extended in time, breadth of reach and depth.

The evolution of the inter-relationship between the European Union’s Framework Programme, the EUREKA initiative and COST is examined. It is concluded that the rationales acquired through their historical origins and development have been overtaken by changing circumstances. In turn this has affected the division of labour and modes of co-existence between the initiatives. Using the conclusions of recent strategic reviews, and in the light of the European research area concept, a framework for European research policy driven by co-ordination is proposed which combines the strengths of the existing schemes but sets them in the context of a broader European innovation policy.

Europe provides large-scale public support for collaborative R&D, notably through the European Union's Framework Programmes and the intergovernmental Eureka Initiative. Experience in evaluating these programmes is reviewed, with particular emphasis on assessment of their socio-economic effects. For the Framework Programmes a panel-based evaluation system has been unable to address these effects adequately. New emphasis on promoting research as a solution to economic and social problems has created additional demands for evaluation. In Eureka, a 'continuous and systematic evaluation' process collects information about project impacts on and after completion. Results show a highly skewed success pattern and new complex benefits arising from knowledge generation and networking. A schema of outputs and effects is presented and the issues of additionality and policy persistence discussed. It is concluded that a broader view of effects is needed if under-valuation is to be avoided.

The European Union's Framework Programmes for research and technological development have been subject to a variety of evaluative activities over the past 10 years. These have included evaluations by panels, studies of impacts upon individual Member States, horizontal or issue-based evaluations and high-level reviews by, or on behalf of the principal stakeholders. This article reviews this experience, covering issues such as the interaction between peer review panels and supporting studies by evaluation specialists, the difficulties of establishing comparability across diverse national R&D systems, and the problems involved in addressing the Programmes' higher-level goals such as enhancing the competitiveness of European industry. The different perspectives taken by the main stakeholders, the Commission, the Member States and the European Parliament, are noted. In the light of recent proposals to develop the evaluation of the Framework Programme, conclusions are drawn on a series of topics. In particular, it is argued that the broader strategies of actors, and of the Union itself should be included within the scope of evaluations. In the final section recommendations are made on ways in which evaluation may be further institutionalized in order to increase the use made of it.

The papers in this issue provide a clear picture of the practice of research evaluation in the European Union. Experiences differ as would be expected given the diversity of systems in which evaluation is carried out. While programme evaluations are becoming more routine, institutional reforms have created a demand for a new kind of evaluation. This includes a strategic orientation which is likely to become a regular feature of more important programme evaluations. Trends towards infrastructural innovation policies will inevitably lead to an increased demand for evaluations of initiatives in this sphere. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Science funding in the European Union needs to be revised to better serve economic, social and environmental goals, Luke Georghiou argues.

The paper assesses the impacts of a foresight exercise carried out in Malta in 2002–2004. An evaluation framework is applied which seeks to account for the dynamic and possibly turbulent environment of an accession country's emergent innovation system and to capture and assess those effects of foresight potentially extending well beyond those initially targeted. Three foresight pilots are described, with an emphasis upon an ICT and Education Pilot, and used to illustrate that in addition to targeted effects, important changes were stimulated in terms of tackling broader challenges related to the socio-cultural context. These included the engagement of a broader range of stakeholders in the innovation system and the generation of sustainable policy learning processes. It is concluded that an evaluation framework for foresight should be sensitive to these unforeseen process benefits which have broader societal impacts, even if the lines of attribution are blurred and not easy to trace.

The case-study material in the previous chapter is indicative of the complexity of factors at work shaping the post-innovation development of a technology. Nonetheless, certain general themes can be identified and the purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief outline of the mechanisms at work, to relate them in a systematic way and to provide a guide through the complexities of the innovation process. It is perforce an outline in which detail is sacrificed for perspective and within its bounds weare concerned with two questions: the mechanisms by which new technology is absorbed into the prevailing economic structure and the effects of absorption upon the trajectory of technical development. We shall present the development of a technological regime and its economic application as interdependent processes in which three mechanisms interact: the diffusion mechanism, the selection mechanism and the inducement mechanism, It is the interaction of these mechanisms which determines the environment for technical development and the position of different firms as institutions for promoting trajectories of technical advance.

Kelvin Hughes won the Queen’s Award to Industry in 1967 for its ‘Photoplot’ radar navigation aid. This device was designed to increase the ease with which information obtained from marine radar could be interpreted. The company was therefore concerned with introducing a novel accessory in an established market for radar systems. Difficulties with reliability, which led to a slower than expected rate of market adoption, focussed Kelvin Hughes’s attention on Photoplot’s technical shortcomings. Following an attempt to minimise these technical problems by improving the design of Photoplot, Kelvin Hughes hit upon a new component which circumvented the difficulties associated with the original system. This post-innovation development led to a new type of radar navigation aid known as Situation Display, which produced increased sales and enabled the company to gain a further Queen’s Award in 1975. The market for this new product however, was eroded in the early 1980s by an International Maritime Organisation (IMO) ruling that ships above a certain size should be obliged to carry the more-recently developed computer-based anti-collision radar systems. These performed a similar function to the Kelvin Hughes product by using a more sophisticated technology.

An ideal inertial navigation system should present an accurate indication of the position and the velocity of a vehicle at every point on its journey. For civil aviation, maritime and land uses this provides a task of enormous technological complexity, but it is in military aircraft and aerospace applications that the demands made on a system reach their peak. Great accuracy, light weight, fast response and the ability to cope with extreme operating conditions (including aircraft manoeuvres) all contribute to this. Two types of components, the accelerometers and the gyroscopes, provide the sensors by which motion is detected. The principle behind their operation is that matter resists changes in its motion — that it has inertia. In its simplest aspect, the accelerometer measures vehicle acceleration, integrating once to give a measure of velocity and twice to give a measure of distance travelled. The direction along which the accelerometer measures must be kept fixed in space or else allowance must be continuously made for its changing direction. This is achieved by the gyroscopes which provide a stable attitude-reference.