The Evaluation of Innovations. How to Evaluate the Transformative Value of the Cohesion Policy for Managing Purposes

Abstract

The Cohesion Policy aims at creating a transformative value to societies in addition to tra- ditional public values. The implementation of Cohesion Policy has been organized by tem- porary organizations, such as projects, to promote innovations, knowledge and learning. The problem is that the performance concept used for managing the policy is founded on traditional technical and economic values, theoretically neglecting the benefits of innova- tion projects, and potentially opening up for profound steering problems. To what extent can the transformative added value of innovation projects be evaluated by the traditional performance concept? And are the traditional and the new transformative performance con- cepts consistent for managing purposes? In this study the performance framework is revised with regard to the benefits of projects as policy tools. The revised concept for assessing performance of projects is then statistically compared to the traditional performance con- cept by operationalizing them on regional development projects in Finland during the Co- hesion Policy program 2007-2013. The study shows that the new performance concept is consistent in evaluating development projects’ performance in a complex administrative system. The new and traditional concepts are, however, inconsistent in providing steering signals. This raises concerns for the effects of performance management of project driven policy implementation.