1 governance as a continuous learning process? erik arnold 24 may 2006
TRANSCRIPT
1
Governance as a Continuous Learning Process?
Erik Arnold
24 May 2006
www.technopolis-group.com
2
Road map and acknowledgements
• A worry • What is governance and why does it matter?• What goes wrong?• Factors in designing governance systems• Sweden: how not to do it?• European Commission: changing the rules?• Some tentative conclusions
• Thanks to: EZ, RCN, BMVIT, NMR, ECA, CEC, NSTDA (Thailand), Foreign Ministry of Denmark, Teknisk Framsyn
3
Can we talk about ‘learning’ in systems as irrational as research and innovation governance?
• Politics at the expense of policy
• The power of personalities in determining outcomes
• Limited connection between policy and an evidence base
• Politicisation of evidence
• Personnel policy as an instrument of political control
4
Governance - the action or manner of governing - is firmly onto the policy agenda
• The nature of the ‘social contract’ between science and society continues to shift, with society demanding that science be relevant to its needs, making it natural that there be increased extra-scientific involvement in the governance of research
• The continuing spread of the so-called New Public Management among administrations provides a more general impetus towards transparency and efficiency in the use of taxpayers’ money to achieve social goals, in innovation and research policy as elsewhere
• Shifts in the way knowledge is produced and used imply a need to bring together different knowledges and knowledge producers, both across disciplines and between fundamental and applied work
• Theory increasingly emphasises the systemic nature of research and innovation in economic and social development, tying more closely together the performance and management of research and innovation with the levels of policy and politics
• Whereas research and innovation still is predominantly a national policy responsibility, international and regional actors are claiming a larger role in the whole policy cycle, thus asking for a change in the rules of the game
5
Traditionally, we see governance as being about control
Roles of governance
• Agenda setting: deciding the scope of actions the state and the publicly funded actors in innovation and research should take
• Prioritisation: deciding which of these actions are most necessary in the context of scarce government resources
• Ensuring effective implementation of the actions taken
• Learning and adapting to change
Governance as a control system
Governance
Research and
Innovation Policy Delivery System
OutIn
6
How does the governance system learn?
• Building institutions
• Evolving organisation, routines and processes
• Organisational memory (and organisational forgetting)
• Developing strategic intelligence
• Evaluation
• Theory building
7
In studying research and innovation governance, we technocrats typically think in terms of four levels, and slide over the politics
R&D Institutes
Parliament
Government Policy council
Ministry of Education
Research Councils and Academies
Universities
Other Sectoral Ministries
Producers: Firms, farms,
hospitals, etc
Ministry of Industry
Technology & Innovation Agencies
Support Programme Agencies
Programme Contractors
Instructions, resourcesAdviceResultsHorizontal co-ordination and integration
Level 1High-level cross-cutting policy
Level 2Ministry mission-centred co-ordination
Level 3 Detailed policy development, co-ordination
Level 4Research and innovation performers
Key
Source: Erik Arnold and Martin Bell
8
We do policy tourism and tell each other the Finnish model is best
Science and Technology
Policy Council
Parliament
Government
Ministry of
Education
Ministry of Trade and Industry
Other ministries
Academy of Finland
Technology Development Centre (Tekes)
Universities(20)
Polytechnics(29)
State Research Institutes, e.g.
Technical Research Centre (VTT)
Languages of FinlandForest Research InstituteNational Public Health
InstituteMeteorological Institute
Ministry of
Agriculture &
Forestry
Ministry of Social
Affairs and Health
Finnish National Fund
for R&D(SITRA)
9
In fact, innovation/research governance is liable to many failures
Structural issues
• Contested nature of the social contract - disagreement about who’s in charge
• Sectoral principle and organisation• Few convincing positive examples
• Integrated approaches• Change agencies
• Planning: ‘law of the missing middle’• Radical change cannot always be
tackled within the structures• Slow response-times
Capture of principal-agent systems by client communities
Research Community
Education Ministry
Research Council
Industry Ministry
Innovation Agency
Industrial Community
See Dietmar Braun, ‘Who governs intermediary agencies? Principal-agent relations in research policy making,’ Journal of Public Policy, 13 (2), 1993, pp135 – 162
10
Strategic intelligence is one of the keys to making the system work
• Doing the work needed to gain a descriptive understanding of relevant features of the research and innovation system, in order to provide an evidence base for policy making
• Diagnosing problems or bottlenecks in that system, understanding changes and identifying opportunities to improve its performance
• Anticipating the effects of interventions and setting objectives for improvement
• Designing policies, programmes and instruments with the aim of making these improvements
• Obtaining feedback about present and past interventions, thereby learning how to improve future actions
11
Where you put strategic intelligence relates to who drives policy
Policy design
Programme design
Programme management
Programme administration
Ca UK SF Ei S NNL
KTM
CFI
EZ
DTI
Sta
te
Pri
vat
e
DfE
Forfás
ND
ND
TEK
ES
EI,
SFI VIN
NOV
A
RCN
VTU
FIS
DK
12
Politik Design
Programm Design
Programm Management
Programm Abwicklung
FFFFWF
ASA BIT
AWS
BMVIT BMWA BMBWK BMF BMx
Rat Interessensgruppen
Regierung, Parlament
Länder EU
FFF TIGSchirm-Managements
In real life it can be chaotic (Austria, 2003)
Source: Dorothea Sturn, FFG
13
In addition to vertical steering, horizontal co-ordination is needed
• Compartmentalisation between research and innovation and between sectors is a significant obstacle to a more integrative approach to research and innovation
• Some societal issues are too big to address from one sectoral perspective only
• The creation of separate relatively closed departmental research and innovation networks means government receives poor quality advice
• From the perspective of the user (industry, research ) a large diversity of R&D support mechanisms hinders transparency
• A growing number of knowledge and policy challenges appear to span multiple sectoral responsibilities.
14
Evaluation is one of the sources of evidence needed for learning. But you need evidence before policy, not afterwards
Design Implementation Impact
Design Implementation Impact
Standard mode
Meta-analysis/synthesisStart
StopStart
Stop
Source: Ray Pawson, ‘Evidence-based policy: In search of a method,’Evaluation 8(2), 2002
15
Sweden: a case of arrested development?
Agricu ltu re
Parliam en t
Governm ent Cabinet Off ice(Re geringskansl iet)
For sknings be redningenEduca tion M inist er
Ministry ofthe
Environme nt
Ministry ofHealth &
Soc ial Aff airs
Ministry ofEducation &
Science
Ministry of Industry , Employment & Comm unications
FORM ASRes ear ch
Council forEnvironme nt,
Spa tia lPlanningandAgricu ltu ra l
Science s
FASRes ear ch
Council forW orking Li fe
and SocialScience s
Swe dishRes ear chCouncil :
HSFRMFRNFR
EducationCommitt ee
VIN NOVASwe dish
Agency f orInnova tio n
Sys tems
NU TE KSwe dish
Agency f orIndustrial
Deve lopmen t(includes
ALM Iholding
company)
ITPSSwe dish
Institu te forGrowthPolicyStudies
Univer sities (13) Colle ge s (24) plus sp ecialistcoll eg es (1 3)
Applied Research Insti tutes ( 32)
Res ear ch F orum
W age Ear nerFund
FoundationsSSF,
MIS TR A,KK , Vårda l,STI NT, RJ*TechnologyBridges ( 7)
Opera tin gagencies eg
STEM ,Roads and
RailAdministrat-ions, Swedish
EPA
PrivateFoundations,
egW allenberg ,
Nobel,Cancerfo nden, Craf oord,Hasse lb lad,
etc
16
“We have politics but no policy” (Industry ministry official)Some consequences
• Agency-driven policies, with policy competition
• Teknisk Framsyn 2 essentially had no audience
• Lowest Research Institute funding in the OECD. No clear future
• Knowledge Foundation tries to develop research capabilities in regional universities, in the absence of complementary instruments
• 30 years of long-term energy research, focusing increasingly on fundamental research and unable to spend the implementation budget
• Continuing (and increasing) fragmentation of the academic system, both within and between universities
• Innovative Sweden - light at the end of the tunnel? Another train?
17
Time to ditch Axel Oxenstierna?
• The traditional model of ‘thin’ ministries with limited strategic intelligence struggles to cope with modern reality
• The Swedish research and innovation governance and funding system is fragmented
• It lacks effective change-agency and suffers from lock-ins
• Horizontal coordination is poor
• Is it time for a national debate that goes beyond the box-shuffling exercise of 2000?
18
In contrast, the Commission is innovating in governance through coordination instruments and building ‘intelligent agents’
Level FP6 FP7 Policy/Ministry Open Method of Coordination
CREST R&D Policy Actions RTD-OMC-NET Trend Chart on Innovation
Open Method of Coordination CREST R&D Policy Actions RTD-OMC-NET Trend Chart on Innovation ERAWATCH
Programme/Agency ERA-NET Article 169
ERA-NET+ Technology Platforms* Article 169
Project/Performer New Instruments New Instruments Technology Platforms*
19
The essence of Commission strategy for opening R&D borders is thus to redefine governance
• To operate simultaneously at policy, agency and research performer levels
• To use variable geometry as a device to bypass objections and objectors
• To build constituencies bottom up around needs and problems in the research and innovation system, which are likely both to produce valid grounds for intervention and to act as lobby groups for cross-border action
• To devolve at least some of the new administrative burdens created to the beneficiaries
• As a result, to shift power from the member states to Brussels
20
We can generalise a little about what works in governance
• One or more arenas are required, in which policy can be negotiated
• Strategic intelligence needs to be distributed in order to be effective. (What you can see depends partly on where you stand)
• Intelligence needs to be vertically as well as horizontally distributed
• A measure of continuity is needed in policy, institutions and people
21
In Europe, at least, it looks as if we will have to learn to develop governance systems that embody network intelligence
Governance
Research and
Innovation Policy Delivery System
OutIn