International alignment of innovation indicators
results of the Task Force on Benchmarking Impact , Effectiveness and Efficiency published

 

The Taftie Task Force on Benchmarking Impact, Effectiveness and Efficiency (TFBIEE) focuses on an experimental endeavour to produce a benchmark of innovation instruments managed by innovation agencies. After publication of the first results in Spring 2014 (Management Summary 2014 report & Evaluation Reference Model), it was clear that a number of specificities stand in the way of truly comparative figures across agencies. Although some specific factors cannot be altered (e.g. size of the national economy, cultural differences, design of the instruments implemented), the conclusion was drawn that there were still possibilities to increase comparability. As it turned out that innovation agencies use different indicators to measure the same concepts, the recommendation was to look more deeply in the possibilities for international alignment of indicators.

 

That is exactly what the follow-up project, which ran from Autumn 2014 to Spring 2015, aims to accomplish.  At the beginning of March the end results of the project were presented at Taftie’s Executive Working Group.

 

The first report, a reference model on indicator selection, operationalization and sourcing, addresses the difficulties agencies might experience with the identification, operationalization of indicators and sourcing of data. It is meant as practical guide to help monitoring and evaluation experts in the effective use of indicators and can be seen as an addition to the earlier produced reference model on evaluation methodologies in general.

 

The second report, a common indicator framework towards international alignment of innovation indicators, is a common indicator framework meant as basis for agencies to decide upon international alignment of indicators on the financial means, reach, results and impact of innovation instruments. It contains a list of indicators and definitions and proposes to adhere to these indicators and definitions in the monitoring of innovation instruments. The report distinguishes between two levels. One level contains rather self-evident indicators on budget, reach and private contributions at input, throughput and output levels. Another level focuses on wider outcome levels to assess structural impacts. 

 

The TFBIEE consists of thirteen active participants from CDTI (Ascensión Barajas), DASTI (Malene Strømberg Rasmussen; David Grønbæk), EAS (TanelRebane), Enterprise Ireland (Kevin Flynn), FFG (Andreas Wildberger), IWT (Jeroen Fiers; Leo van de Loock), Luxinnovation (Pascal Fabing), PARP (Zuzanna Popis), RCN (Kirsten Voje; Paul IstvanBencze), SIEA (Barbara Líšková), TACR (Miroslav Janecek, PavlinaSlavikova), Tekes(JussiKajala) and RVO.nl (Pieter de Bruijn). Research assistance was provided by Technopolis Group. For enquiries please contact Pieter de Bruijn, Chair of the Task Force (pieter.debruijn[at]rvo.nl; +31 88 602 5170).