Magro, Edurne
English // ISSN: 2254-3767 // Keywords: innovation, policy evaluation, regional policy.
Description
This thesis provides an overview of the evolution of innovation theories, together with the evolution of Science and Technology (S&T) policies and their rationales. It focuses on the different theories that justify policy intervention in an innovation system and uses policy evaluation as an approach to analyse theories in practice, applied to a concrete case study.
Taking into account that regions have become complex policy spaces in which different policies coexist and that regional systems have become central for innovation activities in firms, this research uses a regional case study focused on a specific S&T programme to analyse different policy impacts at firm level. In addition, interactions between different policies in a multi-level approach are analysed, constituting a systemic evaluation. Finally, the coexistence of different rationales in a certain policy and their interactions are explored. The thesis thus provides a complete overview of regional policy complexity in science and technology from both a theoretical and practical perspective, proposing a new approach for evaluating this complexity with a mixed methodology that takes the best from both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
