In the UK the purpose of and approach to evaluation of state activity in science and technology has changed over recent years from a tactical tool, to determine whether programmes have performed their allotted tasks, to a strategic one which investigates the programmes appropriateness. By...

In the field of R&D policy at least, reality, theory and therefore the needs of evaluation users seem to have moved well ahead of evaluators' conceptual apparatus. The way we think about both innovation and how knowledge is produced has moved towards a systems perspective, while much of the...

Despite a large and growing effort in the evaluation of public R&D funding programmes, we know surprisingly little about their long-term effects. This is a pity, because the conventional justifications for state intervention in research depend upon phenomena such as the production and use of...