This study is one of a series of lots commissioned by the DG Enterprise of the European Commission under the heading "Innovation Matters. Entitled, "Supporting the monitoring and evaluation of innovation programmes, a step towards European Innopolicy Governance ", it arises in the context of long-term growth in awareness among the policy-making, administration and research communities with respect to the need to enhance the effectiveness and impact of publicly funded innovation support spending.

The ultimate goal will be to lay the groundwork for a European Pilot Initiative. The objective of the initiative will be to design - and provide recommendations for implementation - guiding principles, methods and operational tools for an enhanced evaluation practice of innovation programmes as a step towards a sound governance of innovation.

The focus will be on measurable impacts demonstrating the enhancement of innovation capabilities brought by innovation programs. This also involves attention to the identification and use of appropriate indicators. These will need to focus less on inputs (still required for assessment of value-for-money and efficiency of programmes), and more on impact assessment of innovation performance.

Methodology

This project is proceeding via a mixture of deskwork, telephone interviews, case studies, and high-level meetings, to synthesise good practice in evaluation of innovation programmes.

In particular, the Study Team will :

• identify, collect and analyse evaluation exercises of innovation programmes and agencies in the EU Member States and some associated countries.
  
  
• establish a High Level Working Group which will play a key role in this study. The HLWG comprises 8 experts from the innovation policy-making and support community (agencies, ministries, innovation programmes).
  
  
• carry out 6 case studies which will encompass evaluation and monitoring in all its forms. They will cover a range of three different levels: evaluation of innovation programmes; evaluation of innovation agencies; evaluation of the institutional mix of programmes, agencies and competitive environment measures. The time horizon of the case studies will go from ex-ante evaluation to the implementation of recommendations and feedback loops when the evaluation is over.
  
  
• develop an informed debate with around 100 persons representing a balanced group of European stakeholders, geographically and by nature of activity. This debate should result on a analysis of feelings and attitudes concerning evaluation/monitoring exercises of innovation programmes, in particular about the launch of a EC pilot initiative in this field. Participants to this "Club", the "Forum Group" will be proposed to discuss and comment issues that are emerging through an electronic forum.
  
  
• organise an international workshop which will take place in Brussels late June or early July 2005. This workshop will group together the HLWG members and the Forum Group. It will allow discussing early drafts (draft final report and proposed pilot action). Active involvement and inputs from participants will be foreseen in order to get value and tangible results.
  
  
• produce a final report which will present, among other findings, the "Proposed European Pilot Action".