A Formative Approach to the Evaluation of Transformative Innovation Policies

A Theoretical Foundations session within TIPC’s Open Learning Series, open to STI funders, analysts, researchers, and policy makers.

Transformative Innovation Policies (TIPs) assert that addressing the key challenges currently facing our societies requires profound changes in current socio-technical systems. To leverage such ‘socio-technical transitions’ calls for a different, broad mix of research and innovation policies, with particular attention being paid to experimentation.

As TIPs diffuse and gain legitimacy, they pose a substantial evaluation challenge, presenting the following questions.

How can we evaluate these policy experiments with a narrow geographical and temporal scope, when the final objective is ambitiously systemic?
How can we know whether a specific set of policy experiments is contributing to systemic transformation?

Drawing on the practical experiences of addressing these challenges within the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC) – and on the concept of Transformative Outcomes – this session presents a formative approach to the evaluation of TIPs that is operational and adaptable to different contexts.

This TIPC session will be led by Alejandra Boni Aristizabal, Deputy Director, and Jordi Mollas Gallart, Director, at INGENIO, the joint research centre of the Spanish National Research Council and Valencia Polytechnic University. Language of delivery is English.

Recommended pre-reading: Part V of TIPC’s online learning materials.