Titel presentatie[Naam, organisatienaam]

Working Day - Track: Academic Track Cluster Evaluation

Alwin Gerritsen, Wageningen University & Research Nicola Francesco Dotti, Université Catholique de Louvain

A policy learning and multi-knowledge perspective

Cluster evaluation: a policy learning and multi-knowledge perspectiveAlwin Gerritsen (Wageningen University & Research) & Nicola Francesco Dotti (Université Catholique de Louvain)

10 November 2016, TCI 2016, Eindhoven

Cluster evaluation and policy learning

Current cluster evaluation approaches focus on impacts of cluster initiatives and policies

● Indicators● Human element

To enable learning by cluster managers, policy actors and scientists

How does evaluation lead to policy learning?

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Policy learning The updating of (policy) beliefs and preferences (Dunlop &

Radaelli, 2013)

A deliberate attempt to adjust the goals or techniques of policy in response to past experience and new information” (Hall, 1993)

Wildavsky (1979): speaking truth to power

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Policy & science: a history of frustrations

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Beyond Wildavsky’s “speaking truth to power”

See and organise policy and science interaction as boundary-work (Hoppe, 2010)

Cross system boundaries Inspiration

● Learning evaluation● Reflexive evaluation● Action research

Inclusion of non-scientific knowledge● Significant knowledge

(Crevoisier, 2011)● Capacity to act (Fleck, 1997)

6[Sölvell & Lindqvist, 2013]

IKSEZ Nellore Operationalise and implement the

performative cluster concept of Metropolitan Food Clusters in the development of an SEZ and wider agrifood cluster

Co-design based approach Process monitoring

● Report to stakeholders, to the scientific community and to the team

● Research activities: interviews, observations, desk study

● Organisation of workshops, reflections, suggestions, interventions

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Knowledge governance

‘... is about purposefully organizing the development of knowledge in order to deal with societal problems,

is aimed at creating new insights, and innovative solutions which tempt actors to leave traditional insights and practices,

... and get away from inert interaction patterns, stalemate negotiations, and interest conflicts’ .

[Van Buuren & Eshuis, 2010: 284]

Knowledge governance evaluation principles

1. Transdisciplinarity: real world problems, multiple types of knowledge, joint learning process

2. Focus on social learning in a self-organised and facilitated learning community

3. Focus on potential policy change and feedback loops4. Manage the boundaries with stakeholders: communication,

boundary workers, agreements5. Also anchor ‘unfamiliar knowledge’ from other clusters or

countries[Based on Gerritsen et al, 2013; Gerritsen & Dotti, in prep]

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KG Indicators: S3 Helsinki Metropolitan Area S3 approach struggled to integrate

with existing corporatistic traditions, hindering entrepreneurial discovery processes

● Boundary arrangements● Reflexivity● Transdisciplinarity● Anchoring of unfamiliar knowledge

Therefore hard to integrate entrepreneurial discovery in S3 process

[Gerritsen & Dotti, in prep; Nissinen, in prep]10

Many thanks for your attention!

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alwin.gerritsen@wur.nl