| dc.description.abstract | Evaluation of government programmes and policies is an issue of increasing interest in OECD countries. It is driven by tight budgets, a greater focus on accountability and transparency in policy, and the desire to minimise distortions arising from government actions while maximising their impact. In the innovation and technology area, policies aim to improve the capacity of firms to innovate and use new technologies, thus contributing to higher productivity and growth, and to the creation of more and better jobs. Given the growing importance of knowledge-based economic activities, it is crucial to be able to identify how the maximum leverage of these policy initiatives can be obtained. Evaluation is thus central to best practice formulation in this area. This report brings together presentations by a range of internacional researchers and policy makers at a recent OECD conference. The contributions have been reorganised form publication in order to better reflect methodological issues as well as very different country experiences. They provide valuable insight into the evaluation of innovation and technology practices in OECD countries, focusing in particular on the quantitative and qualitative tools used and the institutional set-up within which evaluation excercises take place. | |
