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Innovation policy mix: mapping and measurement

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Abstract

The “policy mix” concept has gained popularity among science, technology and innovation policy communities over the past two decades in a context of growing policy complexity and need for policy evidence. Pressing societal challenges are also prompting governments to rethink policy making in order to better align public intervention across policy domains and leverage the transformative potential of system innovations. Governments faced multiple obstacles in implementing a policy mix approach in policy making and evaluation. Based on a comparative analysis of international STI policy repositories, a conceptual framework is proposed, as well as structuring principles and operational guidelines for mapping the composition of a policy mix, identifying interactions among components and translating the mapping into measurement. In that view, a range of new policy mix metrics is introduced. Finally, the discussion focuses on the need for moving towards a new data management paradigm and enlarging the measurement mix.

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Fig. 1

Source: A prior version was presented at the Eu-SPRI Forum 2017 (Kergroach 2017)

Fig. 2

Source: Kergroach (2018)

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  • 19 December 2019

    The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake.

Notes

  1. Since the ERAWATCH platform was phased out, the EC RIO-PSF website offers access to various sources of information on research and innovation policy, albeit not in the format of structured inventories. The Research and Innovation Observatory (RIO) monitors and analyses research and innovation developments at country and EU levels. RIO country reports follow up on previous series of ERAWATCH country reports. The Horizon2020 Policy Support Facility (PSF) offers practical support for designing, implementing and evaluating reforms. The PSF also supports peer reviews by government officials from other countries and provides access to independent expertise and analysis.

  2. See https://stip.oecd.org.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Ester Basri, Mario Cervantes and Alessandra Colecchia, former Secretaries of the OECD Working Parties of Research Institutions and Human Resources, Innovation and Technology Policy, and National Experts of Science and Technology Indicators (NESTI) respectively, for their support in the early developments of this work. Thanks to Dominique Guellec and colleagues of the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation, OECD Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development and OECD Environment Directorate as well as colleagues of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation for enlightening discussions in the course of this research. Last but not least, thanks for their pivotal role in supporting the EC/OECD STI Policy Survey and developing its first generation database: Julien Chicot, Sylvain Fraccola, Nils de Jaeger, Naoya Ono, Inmaculada Perianez-Forte, Chiara Petroli, Samuel Pinto-Ribeiro, Jakob Pruess, Blandine Serve, Charlotte van Ooijen and Tomomi Watanabe. Dirk Meissner’s contribution to this article is based on the study funded by the Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) and by the Russian Academic Excellence Project ‘5-100’.

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  1. National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

    Dirk Meissner

  2. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France

    Sandrine Kergroach

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Meissner, D., Kergroach, S. Innovation policy mix: mapping and measurement. J Technol Transf 46, 197–222 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-019-09767-4

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