1. www.regionvarmland.se Do public interventions for innovation hit their targets? Evaluating cluster organisations in Northern Central Sweden Directorate General for DG Regional Policy New methods for Cohesion Policy Evaluation: Promoting Accountability and Learning Warsaw 30 November & 1 December 2009 RV NÄRARB 080923 Berlin

2. www.regionvarmland.se Evaluation of cluster organisations in Northern Central Sweden NUTS 2 Northern Central Sweden embraces three regions with about 1 million inhabitants EU Structural fund makes a contribution with 170 million Euros 2007-2013 Comprehensive aim is servicedriven growth; 6 000 new jobs and 3 000 new companies Focus of evaluation on 14 cluster organisations with 600 companies and 60 000 employees Used effects measurement method is triangulation - A mixed method design

3. www.regionvarmland.se Care of Measuring Cluster Effects - Registered Trademark -The used effect measurement method is triangulation combination three different approaches: -A) Shadow controls meaning that companies are asked to estimate effects -B) Process tracing meaning that the social processes between intervention and results are followed to ascertian causual linkages -C) Generic controls: time series scores for cluster companies are compared to average scores in some equivalent larger population

4. www.regionvarmland.se Effects of The Paper Province and The Competence Area The Paper Province 90 comp.- 9 000 employees, Compare 100 comp. 3 000 employees Process tracing - Compare Testlab, The Packaging Greenhouse Shadow controls - Willingness to grow Compare 78 %, The Paper Province 68 % Generic controls – Compare 2 297 new jobs more growth than the average in Sweden Generic controls – The Paper Province 783 new jobs while rest of Sweden has cut down

5. www.regionvarmland.se Results 2008 Cooperation R&D Expanded cooperation, universities47 % Expanded R&D-cooperation, companies 15 % Innovation New products and services65 % Optimized products and services 70 % Growth Expanding business34 % Expanding employees20 %

6. www.regionvarmland.se Constraints regarding evaluation Cluster organisations need to show good results otherwise risk of less public funding Universities do not want to be interfluenced by political aspects For electoral reasons, regional politicians do not want to show poor results from their decisions

7. www.regionvarmland.se Pros and cons of The Care of Measuring Cluster Effects Strength; Triangulation provides more validity to the findings Strength; Focus on the users of public funding – The companies Strength; A holistic perspective Weakness; Demands resources probably best used in larger programmes Weakness; Only used fours years and in one country – Sweden Challenge: Further refinement of the method Challenge; Adjusting the method to other parts and users in the European Union

8. www.regionvarmland.se Final comments The need of discernment of actors who can support the innovation flow Cluster development and cooperation with academia is a way to a knowledge based economy Challenge 1) Connection between EU regional development and EU research programmes Challenge 2) Increased cross border cooperation in Europe Challenge 3) Extended project periods from 3 years to 5-8 years Challenge 4) Sustainability, gender and integration as growth factors in projects

9. www.regionvarmland.se Contact data for evaluation and measuring of cluster effects Region Värmland homepage: www.regionvarmland.sewww.regionvarmland.se E-mail: staffan.bjurulf@regionvarmland.sestaffan.bjurulf@regionvarmland.se Tel: + 46 54 701 10 32, + 46 70 618 77 51