RATIONALE AND LESSONS (TO BE) LEARNED FROM THE AUSTRIAN PRESIDENCY CONFERENCE ON ‘IMPACT OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION POLICY AT THE CROSSROADS OF POLICY DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION’

DEAR READERS! Most impact evaluations of R&I policy interventions focus either on scientific-technical effects or on economic effects. For this purpose, suitable indicators, data bases and methods have been created and continuously developed in recent decades. However, the comprehensibility and assessment of social and societal effects of R&I policy interventions has only recently gained new attention. One reason for this is the orientation of R&I policy towards major societal challenges (‘new mission-oriented R&I policy’). The European Commission’s “Horizon Europe”, the 9 European Research and Innovation Framework Program, explicitly provides within the second pillar of the next Framework Program specific R&D missions still to be selected. For these missions as well as for the global challenges postulated in Horizon Europe as in Horizon 2020 the social impact dimension is highly relevant as it explicitly addresses the goals set by society (for example, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals / SDGs). In order to better track and measure the impact dimensions of Horizon Europe, an expert report was presented immediately after the publication of the European Commission’s proposal for Horizon Europe in July 2018, which distinguishes between the following three impact dimensions: (1) scientific impact, (2) societal impact and (3) economic impact. Already the year before, an ERAC ad-hoc working group submitted a report that also argues for different dimensions of impact, but focuses on measuring the impact of European framework programs at national level. In anticipation of developments at the European level, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology suggested in 2017 to hold an international conference for the measurement of mission-oriented R&I interventions within the framework of the Austrian Council Presidency. The Austrian Platform for Research and Technology Policy Evaluation (fteval) was commissioned with this task and organised the conference in November 2018 together with the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research and the Institut Francilien Recherche, Innovation et Société from Paris. The starting point for the conference was that, first and foremost, not only the European, but also national R&I policies are required to make a contribution to society and to document the corresponding effects, and second, that the new impact agenda has an impact on the whole policy cycle, including policy-making, policy implementation and policy evaluation. Both the presidency event and the expert report of the European Commission have chosen the approach of impact pathways to further discuss the measurement of the three different dimensions of impact in order to emphasize the design and process character of effect creation and effect development. In particular, the impact pathways for measuring societal effects are challenging. These are confronted with basic definitional problems. While “social impact” in the EU context is understood as a generic term (e.g. in the case of the Better Regulation Toolbox of the European Commission), which implies effects on society, politics,