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In recent years, the Netherlands has been experimenting extensively with new forms of innovation policy. A key characteristic is the decreasing subsidies for individual companies. Instead, the government aims to encourage collaboration between companies and knowledge institutions to strengthen their innovation systems. The goal is for joint efforts to build knowledge and infrastructures that create opportunities for 'collective transformations': innovation pathways where individual innovations build on each other, resulting in highly innovative breakthroughs and/or solutions to urgent societal challenges.
In two recent articles in ESB magazine, Dialogic researcher Matthijs Janssen explains what this development means for determining policy impact. The May issue of ESB is entirely dedicated to 'Modern Industrial Policy' and begins with a reflection on what the Top Sector approach has provided us (and could provide in the future). The contribution to the June issue delves deeper into reasons why conventional econometric methods are only partially suitable for evaluating modern innovation policy. Drawing on experiences from Dialogic's evaluation of the SBIR scheme (including the NWO Valorisation Grant), we offer some suggestions for evaluation methods that are more appropriate.
If you would like more information about the articles, or wish to respond to them, you can contact Matthijs Janssen.
ESB May 2018 - Impact and potential of the top sector approach
ESB June 2018 - Challenges in measuring the effect of transformative innovation policy
Project - Dialogic (2017): Does the Top Sector approach work? Commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Project - Dialogic (2017): Evaluation of SBIR Commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.