The transformative turn in research and innovation (R&I) policy calls for new approaches to monitoring and evaluation, yet most evaluands are still rooted in previous policy paradigms. For evaluators tasked with conducting ex-post evaluations, this situation creates multiple challenges that have received little attention to date. In this…

The work of professionals practicing in the community provides a pathway for knowledge advances to reach practice. Yet outside of medicine, little attention has been paid to this phenomenon. Similarly, professions are defined by bodies of knowledge yet studies of professions do not attend to the dynamic relationship between professionals and the…

Innovation agencies, that is organizations with the primary focus of funding applied research and technological development, evaluate project proposals to select the most promising proposals for funding. At the moment, there is only little verified knowledge available on project evaluation and selection processes of innovation agencies. We want to…

Responding to the lack of in-depth research into the effects of R&D grants for scale-ups, this article examines how they impact upon firms' employment, firm economic and innovative performance, and firm innovative activities. Drawing on both policy evaluations and empirical literature relating to R&D programmes and firms' outputs, it…

Assessing societal impacts of research is more difficult than assessing advances in knowledge. Methods to evaluate research impact on policy processes and outcomes are especially underdeveloped, and are needed to optimize the influence of research on policy for addressing complex issues such as chronic diseases. Contribution analysis (CA), a…

Over the last decade, societal pressure has increased on public research agencies to provide evidence that their research contributes to achieve development goals. To address this challenge, the French Agricultural Research Center for International Development (Cirad), developed an ex-post impact assessment method based on the impact pathway…