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Trabajo presentado en Eu-SPRI Annual Conference. Challenging Science and Innovation Policy, celebrada en Utrecht (Países Bajos) del 01 al 03 de junio de 2022., There is a sense of urgency for the evaluation field "to revisit, redesign and reconfigure evaluation theories and practices to support the large scale, transformative changes our societies and ecosystems need" (Ofir and Rugge, 2021). Risks are rapidly multiplying, stemming from severe biodiversity loss, growing inequalities, and the advancing of climate crisis (Ripple et al, 2020). In addition, the COVID-19 global pandemic has provided evidence for the premise that significant system transformations are urgently needed to address the global emergency we are facing (Patton, 2021).

Trabajo presentado en el VII CORE Seminar: Recerca en Salut Mental: Repensant les prioritats?, celebrado en Barcelona (España) el 01 de abril de 2022.

Health is one of the most important areas of human development and, along with quality of life, occupies a prominent place in the academic world, being studied from various theoretical perspectives and from different scientific disciplines. These studies try to explain, from the micro to the macro, what it means and what elements are involved in the health of individuals in particular and of society in general. However, given the diversity of perspectives, there is no consensus on the definition of health. At the beginning, the study of health focused on biomedical research into disease. This approach has shown its limits in understanding health in its most complete dimension, as defined by the World Health Organization as early as 1946 : “ health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity ” ( preamble to the WHO Constitution, 1946 ). This “ positive ” orientation of health is later taken up as a universal human right ( Declaration of Human Rights, art. 25 ), being considered today not only a right, but also a value in itself, an aspiration and a social demand....

There are multiple on-going debates about knowledge distribution or concentration worldwide. Recent work done by Grossetti et al. 2015 shows a ‘deconcentration’ of knowledge production, visible not only at country level (linked to the periodic rise of new countries in the overall scientific production landscape, a long-lasting phenomenon) but also at metropolitan level. For Europe, this raises one central question: does this result that applies to the whole of scientific production also applies to frontier science? We have addressed this question for science and technology productions in the nano field. The attempts to characterise the dynamics of nano S&T are not new (Noyons et al., 2003). We have developed a fully lexical approach (Kahane and Mogoutov, 2007) which remained however static (considering only the whole period covered). We have updated it since in order to account for the explorations made proposing a ‘dynamic‘ approach (Kahane et al., 2014). The exploration of the first dataset (1998-2006) enabled a characterisation of dynamics highlighting very strong agglomeration effects since 200 ‘clusters’ (very near in their bottom-up definition to the US definition of metropolitan areas and to the OECD recent developments on “functional urban areas”, OECD 2012) concentrate over 80% of world knowledge production (Delemarle et al., 2009). They provide a very different image than when keeping only track of national developments, thus corroborating the ‘deconcentration’ approach. These clusters gather over 80% of publications. As 70% of these publications come from more than one organisation, we hypothesised that a majority, for a science at the frontier, might be internal to clusters, and this was the case but to a far lower extent than expected, having 40% of total publications being inter-cluster. Characterising collaboration practices (Larédo and Villard 2015) drove to two major results. First the share of intercontinental collaborations remained marginal (around 8% of total collaborations). This drove us to focus on the 80 European clusters and their collaborations as a dynamics per se. It showed that inter-country links are more important than intra-country ones, once account is taken of one central phenomenon: the very ‘national’ structure of linkages within the UK. This may also explain as well why, probably for the first time in science history, neither Oxford nor Cambridge play central roles in the European dynamics of science production. They are replaced by ‘newcomers’ at world level, such as Louvain, Julich or Grenoble. This very European nature of collaborations and networks in turn drove us to consider the role that European funding might play in this concentrated but geographically distributed knowledge production pattern. While there are numerous works on the spatio-temporal dynamics of European funding, in particular the European framework programme (FP) (see e.g, Scherngell and Barber 2011, Scherngell and Lata 2013), there are few empirical works that relate European funding to the spatial distribution of knowledge (see e.g. Hoekman et al. 2013, Di Cagno et al. 2016, Wanzenböck and Piribauer 2016). Against this background, the objective of this work is to investigate the role of FP funding for knowledge creation in nanoscience and technology. In our conceptual approach, we shift attention to two distinct dimensions of knowledge creation: One linked to exploration and the spreading of excellence, and the other associated with the development of exploitation capabilities. We consider publications as markers of exploration and patents as markers of exploitation (technology). The two spatial distribution of publications vs. patents differs remarkably across the European territory (Laredo et al., 2010) with, for example, the UK playing a strong role in publications, while Germany plays a major role in patents. This drives us to test three hypotheses: H1 European FP funding tends to reinforce the spatial concentration around central nodes of excellence in the Europe H2 European FP funding correspond to a maturing of the knowledge base and thus we can identify a stronger effect of the FPs on exploitation, H3 European FP funding is particularly conducive for the constitution of a number of sub-spaces that poorly connect with central nodes both in exploration and in exploitation To be able to test these hypotheses, we rely on the following datasets: The NANO database for publications and patents about nanotechnology, covering the time period 2000-2011. For publications, one important aspect is to build indicators of quality, complementary to indicators of size. We use for this citations and well-established measures of excellence (share of top 1 and top 10% cited articles in total production of a FUA). This enables to construct both absolute (‘market share’) and relative (‘performance’) measures. We remain at the level of absolute measures for patents focusing only on transnational priority patents (see de Rassenfosse et al. 2013 and Laurens et al., 2015) The EUPRO database on EU funded projects. EUPRO comprises systematic information on R&D projects and name-standardized participating organizations funded by the EU FP. It covers information on projects and, particularly relevant for this study, on the address of the participating organisations. In order to trace relevant funded projects in nanoscience and technology, we have used a semantic analysis to identify ‘nano’- based projects using a simple query on 2 fields (subject index, project title and project objectives). A database of European metropolitan areas, based on OECD FUA approach (OECD 2012) and corresponding to 672 FUAs. Methodological developments were made to allocate addresses to FUAs (Villard 2016) The ETER database (Lepori, 2016), which contains information on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Europe, to be able to estimate the number of Phd awarded in each FUA as a proxy measure of the scientific capacities The OECD Regional database, the Geonames and the EUROSTAT R&D database to estimate respectively for each FUA its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Population and Gross Expenditure in R&D (GERD). We employ descriptive analyses, spatial visualisations, network analytic techniques and econometric techniques to address the three hypotheses described above. To assess the role of EU funding on knowledge exploration and exploitation, we employ a regression framework for limited dependent variables given the count nature of our dependent variables, relating the number of Nano publications and patents in Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) to the participation intensity in EU FPs, controlling for other factors influencing exploration and exploitation like the economical and scientific capabilities of the FUA. To understand the evolution of the FUA’s collaborations and the influence between the 3 dimensions (European funding, knowledge exploration and knowledge exploitation), we construct 3 different geographical network and use social network analysis techniques to identify cores and peripheries. We then investigate different techniques (multi-layer network analysis, estimation of spatial spillovers) to understand how the FUA’s position in one network is connected to its position in the other two, and how FUA’s situation depends on its geographical neighbours. Preliminary results show that the EU funding plays a role in the metropolitan areas’ participation in the nanotechnology knowledge exploration and exploitation. However, EU funding is not the only determinant for this participation, other determinants must also play a part as there is a clear difference in the relative role and centrality of metropolitan areas in the 3 different networks. These results show that we need comparative approaches of the articulation between European funding and explorative / exploitative activities in nano S&T at European level., This work has been presented at the Eu-SPRI Vienna 2017 Conference, the STI 2017 Conference and the 4th Geography of Innovation Conference. This version is the result of the feedback received during these presentations.

Trabajo presentado en Workshop on Co-production in the Evaluation of Research Impacts, celebrado en modalidad virtual el 2 de junio de 2020., Transformative Innovation Policies: key characteristics¿Current approaches to IP fail to address social needs & challenges (e.g. sustainability)¿Current challenges call for complex systemic change¿TIPs aim at ¿socio-technical¿ regime change (directionality)¿Facing uncertainty on the direction of innovation...need to underline and support diversity¿Decision processes need to be based on participation ¿Inclusiveness.

A common belief among policy-makers, scientists, and businesspeople is that more science and technology (S&T) funding leads to more S&T development, which in turn leads to a better life. This expectation is espoused as fact and rarely questioned. However, enduring and growing inequality in the United States casts doubt on the assumptions of science’s endless frontier to “lift all boats.” In “Public Value of Science Public Value of Science Public Value of Science” (Issues, Summer 2020), Barry Bozeman shows how the promise that more S&T leads to a better life is not an unassailable fact. Indeed, in some circumstances, S&T progress makes life harder for people, especially those already marginalized by class, gender, race, occupation, and location.

Trabajo presentado en el 8th European Environmental Evaluators Network Forum (EEEN2020). Environmental Evaluation Supporting the Implementation of SDGs and Transformative Policymaking, celebrado en modalidad virtual del 4 al 5 de noviembre de 2020., UN Sustainable Development Goals are meant to guide decision-making within and across different policy sectors to tackle the persistent environmental and social challenges of our time. In the European context, many environmental issues are among those sustainability questions that require most pressing action as e.g. the SOER2020 report highlights. This means that environmental issues can no longer be addressed in isolation and that the interconnections of environmental and social phenomena need to be addressed both in policy making and evaluation.

Transformative Innovation Policies (TIPs) propose that addressing the key challenges currently facing our societies requires profound changes in current socio-technical systems. To leverage such `socio-technical transitions¿ calls for a different, broad mix of research and innovation policies, with particular attention being paid to policy experiments. As TIPs diffuse and gain legitimacy they pose a substantial evaluation challenge: how can we evaluate these policy experiments with a narrow geographical and temporal scope, when the final objective is ambitiously systemic? How can we know whether a specific set of policy experiments is contributing to systemic transformation? Drawing on TIPs principles as developed by and applied in the activities of the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC) and on the concept of transformative outcomes, this article develops an approach to the evaluation of TIPs that is operational and adaptable to different contexts.

Trabajo presentado en el Webinar: Política d'innovació transformativa: oportunitats i reptes per a Catalunya , celebrado en modalidad virtual el 19 de octubre de 2020., Per què és un repte l'evaluació de les polítiques dínnovació transformativa? ¿Les pràctiques d´evaluació han de ser consistents amb els objectius i valors de la política ¿Polítiques d´innovaciótransformativa: algunes característiques rellevants? ¿Direccionalitat? ¿Voluntat d´inclusió? ¿Objectius sistèmics molt ambiciosos (canvi sociotècnic)¿Implicacions/reptes per a l´avaluació. Inclusió i direccionalitat enfocs d´avaluació participativa. El repte d´avaluar intervencions amb objectius que se situen molt més enllà de la intervenció (downstreameffects)

Growth in collaborative research raises challenges for those tasked with research evaluation, particularly in situations where outcomes are slow to emerge. This article presents the ‘Diversity Approach to Research Evaluation’ (DARE) as a novel way to assess how researchers, engaged in knowledge creation and application, work together as teams. DARE provides two important insights: Firstly it reveals the differences in background and experience between individual team members that can make research collaboration both valuable and challenging; secondly, DARE provides early insights into how these teams are working together. DARE achieves these insights by analysing team diversity and cohesiveness in five dimensions, building on Boschma’s multidimensional concept of proximity. The method we propose combines narratives, maps, and indicators and is broadly applicable to the study of research collaboration. The article introduces the DARE method and pilots a proof-of-concept operationalisation through the study of two grant-funded biomedical research projects led by researchers in the UK. Suggestions for further development of the approach are discussed.

[EN] The impact of national legislative frameworks on the higher education sector's contribution to technological innovation is heavily disputed. This paper argues that legislative frameworks may stimulate the development of local practices for the management and exploitation of intellectual property (IP), which in turn determine the level of academic patenting. We present case studies of two comparable universities in each of four selected European countries with different histories of national IP legislation. A within-country analysis shows that a wider range and earlier development of local IP management and exploitation practices are accompanied by higher levels of academic patenting, and that increasing similarity of IP practices is associated with decreasing differences in patenting outputs. A preliminary cross-country analysis reveals an expansion in and increasing similarity of practices for IP management and exploitation in countries with different national IP framework histories.We conclude that adopting Bayh-Dole-like legislation may trigger the development of local IP practices, which stimulate patenting. However, it is not always sufficient and definitely not always necessary. The study concludes with some policy recommendations., Part of this research was supported by the European Patent Office. Funding is gratefully acknowledged.

[EN] This paper studies the differences in the organizational strategies of two prestigious Spanish university departments in the social sciences. This variety emerges in a context of strong institutional homogenization and regulation of the higher education sector. The study addresses two important elements of organizational dynamics in university departments: i) human resources strategies and ii) the management of economic resources. Despite the rigid national regulations, we observe differences in organizational strategies and cultures that derive from the choice of specific strategic objectives. These choices are reflected in the implementation of different staff recruitment and promotion policies, and of different ways to reward academic excellence. Strategic differences and choices also show in the different channels used by both departments to obtain and manage their economic resources., [ES] Este artículo presenta la divergencia en el modo en que dos prestigiosos departamentos del sistema universitario español del ámbito de las Ciencias Sociales articulan sus estrategias y formas de organización, a pesar de la homogeneidad y rigidez del marco legal y regulador en el que se insieren. El análisis aborda dos importantes aspectos de las competencias universitarias que afectan la dinámica de los departamentos: las políticas de recursos humanos y la financiación de sus actividades. Las diferencias en las culturas y estrategias organizativas de ambos centros se explican por diferencias en las formas de priorizar y explicitar sus objetivos institucionales, que se plasman en el uso de figuras contractuales de una forma que difiere significativamente de la intención que el legislador perseguía con su intención. Se asocian también a diferencias en las políticas de promoción, reconocimiento y recompensa de la excelencia en la actividad académica del profesorado. Estas diferencias también se reflejan en los canales de obtención y mecanismos de gestión de los recursos económicos., [EU] Artikulu honek, Gizarte Zientzien alorreko espainiar unibertsitate sistemako prestigio handidun bi departamentuk -nahiz eta lege eta arau esparru homogeneo eta zurrun batean egon- antolatzeko dituzten modu eta estrategietan duten dibergentzia azaltzen du. Azterketak, departamentuen dinamikari eragiten dioten unibertsitate eskumenen bi alderdi garrantzitsu jorratzen ditu: giza baliabideen politikak eta beraien jardueren finantzazioa. Zentro bien antolatzeko kultura eta estrategien arteko desberdintasunak helburu instituzionalen lehenespen eta zehaztetik datoz. Horiek, sustapen-politikan, irakasleen jarduera akademikoaren bikaintasunaren aitortze eta saritzean, eta erabiltzen dituzten kontratu-motetan islatzen dira. Kontratu-mota horiek, legegileak, berauek ezartzerakoan, zuen asmotik nabarmenki urruntzen dira. Aipatutako desberdintasun horiek baliabide ekonomikoen kudeaketarako mekanismoetan eta baliabide ekonomikoak lortzeko kanaletan ere islatzen dira., Los autores agradecen la financiación recibida del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad en el marco del Plan Estatal de I+D+i para la realización del proyecto «Prest-Ence: la universidad española del prestigio a la excelencia. Una comparación internacional» (Referencia: CSO2013-45377-P), del cual proceden los datos del estudio aquí presentado. Agradecen, asimismo, expresamente toda la colaboración prestada por los miembros de los dos departamentos estudiados

Trabajo presentado a la Science, Technology and Innovation indicators (STI) Conference, celebrada en Paris (Francia) del 6 al 8 de septiembre de 2017., The overall geographical deconcentration discussed by Grosseti and Maisonobe can go along with strong concentration effects for emerging S&T. This is what we have shown for nano S&T that agglomerates in 200 ‘metropolitan areas’. A first analysis of collaboration practices has highlighted that, within inter-cluster collaborations, inter-continental collaborations remain marginal. This warrants a more in-depth analysis of dynamics within Europe. These first analyses have also highlighted two complementary results : (a) the spatial distribution of knowledge production differs when looking at exploration (seen through publications) and exploitation (seen through patents) ; and (b) there are quite diverging dynamics between clusters. This presentation focuses on the role of public funding in this dynamics and more specifically on the role of European Union programmes (that are by far the largest funder in Europe), the role it plays in the agglomeration process observed, in the collaboration patterns observed and whether the EU support applies more in exploration or in exploitation. This is done through the development of a dynamic query for delineating nano S&T, the mobilisation of the OECD-based approach of ‘functional urban areas’ and the integration of three RISIS datasets dealing with publications, patents and European Projects., Research infrastructure for research and innovation policy studies (RISIS); FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2012-1-RTD - 313082.

Trabajo presentado a la Science, Technology and Innovation indicators (STI) Conference, celebrada en Paris (Francia) del 6 al 8 de septiembre de 2017., A provocation?: “I cannot the point of all this combining methods stuff? Where is the problem? We have always combined methods. For instance, we do macro quantitative analysis to understand general trends and we explain how these come about in specific contexts with qualitative analysis. What’s the issue with this?”