Mission incomplete: Layered practices of monitoring and evaluation in Swedish transformative innovation policy

Abstract

Research and innovation policies (IPs) across Europe, particularly in Sweden, are increasingly framed by an orientation towards societal challenges, missions, and transformative change. Innovation-funding agencies are adapting to these new approaches but struggle with a host of new questions and challenges on how to re-structure public policy interventions and develop new structures for monitoring, learning, and evaluation. In this article, we investigate how this IP paradigm shift is dealt with in the IP discourse and practice in Sweden and how an incomplete shift creates mismatches and tensions with existing structures for programme evaluation and monitoring. Despite the new paradigm, the implementation of evaluation strategies mostly follows a traditional 'summative' framing. The ongoing discussions in Swedish IP demonstrate that a paradigm shift towards transformative innovation cannot unfold its potential unless it is also followed by a shift in the practices of programme implementation and evaluation.