Research in Interaction

The emerging transformative innovation policy (TIP) framework requires policy practitioners to rethink their traditional tools and find new methods to determine the impact of TIP initiatives. While some frameworks have been developed to assess the transformative potential and outcomes of existing and emerging policy instruments, these are often not directly applicable in practice. This project aims to operationalise and gather experience with different frameworks together with policy practitioners.

Overview

The project consists of two main interrelated parts:

“Assessing the transformative potential of policy instruments” aims to operationalise and test a framework for assessing the potential of different types of innovation policy instruments to contribute to system transformation.

“Exploring emerging approaches for monitoring and evaluation of TIP” aims to operationalise existing frameworks for capturing system-level outcomes and effects and translate them into more actionable versions that can be used for reflexive monitoring and formative evaluation.

These objectives will be pursued through literature and policy practice reviews, interactive focus groups, and workshops involving both policy practitioners and researchers. The project is expected to result in further refined frameworks for assessment, monitoring, and evaluation, and joint learning about how different frameworks can be applied in practice.

The journey so far

To date, efforts have been focused on selecting and developing relevant theoretical frameworks and exploring potential data sources for the assessment part. The first workshop on monitoring and evaluation has been conducted, discussing system transformation perspectives, theories of change, and evaluation of TIP initiatives with policy practitioners.

Stakeholder involvement

Key partners and contributors include:

• Civil servants managing TIP programs at Vinnova, Swedish Energy Agency (and other government agencies)

• Program and project coordinators connected to Viable Cities and the “System demonstrators for climate neutral cities”.

• Policy analysts at Swedish agencies and the OECD.

• Broader national and international participants in open workshop sessions.

Expected outcomes

The project aims to develop an interactive and reflexive research approach and operationalise key TIP-related concepts and characteristics for the purpose of assessment, monitoring, and evaluation. Expected outcomes include:

• An empirically validated framework for assessing the transformative potential of innovation policy instruments and policy mixes.

• A preliminary framework for evaluating transformative innovation policies, complete with draft indicators and assessment strategies for implementation.

Project lead

Anna Bergek, Chalmers University of Technology