Abstract
ABSTRACT This study is concerned with how impact from research and innovation (R&I) programmes is accounted for in impact evaluation reports. Establishing causal links between a research funding instrument and different effects, poses well known methodological difficulties. In the light of such challenges, textual accounts about causal links ought to be carefully written. Nevertheless, impact evaluation reports have a tendency towards unwarranted simplification as far as impact inferences are concerned. In this study, we illustrate how such simplifications – versions of the narrative device ellipsis – are accomplished. Using examples from three Swedish impact evaluation reports, we focus on the constituent components of longer impact accounts, that of the impact argument, to analyze the various ways that impact is narratively achieved through simplification. We believe this analysis can contribute to the methodology of impact evaluation, as well as spread light on some the difficulties in the historiography of innovation in general.
Highlights
There is an increasing, albeit longstanding, interest in trying to account for the social and economic impacts of research, and the effects of research funding for a variety of reasons
The agency describes its activities as promoting ‘collaborations between companies, universities, research institutes and the public sector . . . by stimulating a greater use of research, by making long-term investment in strong research and innovation milieus and by developing catalytic meeting places.’ (VINNOVA, 2017). This is commonly carried out by initiating and running research and technology programmes with a cooperative skew, typically involving Triple Helix constellations. These programmes are subsequently subject to impact evaluations, where the common denominator is to establish to what extent the overall agency goal of promoting sustainable growth, as well as specific goals pertaining to the programme, have been achieved
The impact reports included in this study revealed three main types of inferential omissions, or ellipsis, in the causal chain from programme intervention to impact or effects
Summary
There is an increasing, albeit longstanding, interest in trying to account for the social and economic impacts of research, and the effects of research funding for a variety of reasons. It is important to note that the absence of universally accepted ways of translating social goals into operational programme goals (the normative challenge), and stringent or even minimally acceptable measures for capturing the counterfactual (the methodological challenge) force the analyst into a series of informal or intuitive accounts These involve assuming the social and political validity of certain operational programme outcomes/effects, and (spuriously) selecting indicators to represent such goals, as well as basing inferences on ad hoc arguments for how activities can lead to effects. The unit of analysis in this study is impact arguments, as they appear in impact evaluations of research and technology programmes, and how they conform to some of these rhetorical/narrative devices This is the level of policy argumentation that Fischer (2003) refers to as ‘technical-analytical discourse,’ where the informal logic of the argument is addressed to considerations of fact. We will describe the material used and method applied in this study for uncovering such ‘narrative selectivity,’ and illustrate how it operates in impact evaluation reports
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
