Integrating horizontal perspectives in sectoral policies is an increasingly popular way to address complex, societal problems like climate change and gender inequality. Policy evaluation can contribute to policy integration by shedding light on the coherence between sectoral goals and the mitigation or solution of the problem in question - including possible synergies and/or conflicts. To denote this evaluation modality, we introduce the concept of "integrated evaluation" - i.e. integrating horizontal perspectives in evaluations of sectoral policies. A Swedish case study helps identify salient factors affecting the implementation of this type of evaluation. We find that the prospect for integrated evaluation is significantly affected by the perceived inappropriateness in asking independent evaluators to contribute to political agendas, the lack of requisite knowledge to produce credible integrated evaluations, and a disinterest in the integrated perspective among policymakers. In light of our case study, we discuss the outlook for this kind of evaluation and provide ideas on how to support its future implementation.

Policymakers increasingly try to steer researchers to choose topics of societal concern and to conduct research in ways that reflect such concerns. One increasingly common approach is prompting researchers to integrate certain perspectives into the content of their research, but little is known about the effects of this governance modality. We analyze 1,189 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research proposals submitted to the Swedish Research Council which, starting in 2020, required all applicants to consider including the sex and/or gender perspectives in their research. We identify three overarching strategies upon which researchers rely (content-, performer-, and impact-centered) and analyze the ways in which researchers across disciplines motivate, through text, the inclusion or exclusion of these perspectives. Based on our findings, we discuss the scope of the desired effect(s) of a requirement of this kind.

This article focuses on how academic and industrial leaders view central aspects of the initiation, collaboration process, and the outcomes in government-funded R&D projects. In much previous work on university-industry collaborations (UICs), universities or researchers and/or firms have been studied without any direct reference to the other party, thus neglecting the fact that the motivations, perceptions, and actions involved in UICs are two-sided at least. In contrast, this study builds on interviews with academic-industry project leader pairs to identify how both sides perceive the initiation, interaction, conditions, and outcomes of the collaborative project. While there is unexpected overlap in both parties' perceptions of goals and utilities of the collaboration, there is also a clear tendency for academics to stress the less tangible or distant factors (e.g., 'a culture', 'priorities', or general university support), while industry actors emphasize more tangible operative factors (e.g., collaborative networks, timing issues, having project owners and conflict resolution procedures). This might illustrate different cultural or professional mores as well as different notions of what types of efficiencies to seek collaborative R&D in general.

Entrepreneurship research suggests that entrepreneurship education and training can bridge the gender gap in entrepreneurship, but little empirical research exists assessing the validity and impact of such initiatives. We examine a large government-sponsored entrepreneurship education program aimed at university students in Sweden. While a pre-study indicates that longer university courses are associated with short-term outcomes such as increased self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions, results from a more comprehensive study using a pre-post design suggest little effect from these extensive courses on long-term outcomes such as new venture creation and entrepreneurial income. In contrast, we do find positive effects on these long-term outcomes from more limited but more specific training interventions, especially for women. Our study suggests that less extensive but more tailored interventions can be more beneficial than longer or more extensive interventions in promoting entrepreneurship in general, and entrepreneurship of underrepresented groups in particular. We discuss implications for theory, education, and policy.

This study applies a systematic literature review and qualitative content analysis to identify and synthesize key factors that enable collaborative innovation between industry and universities. Using a keyword search in the Web of Science database, the review identified 40 papers that were frequently cited on the topic. Results were summarized into seven main themes or central factors stimulating collaborative innovation: resources, university organization, boundary-spanning functions, collaborative experience, culture, status centrality and environmental context. This article elaborates on these ‘enabling factors’ and uses them to summarize a number of results from the reviewed studies regarding facilitators of collaborative innovation. The discussion focuses on how these factors relate and the extent to which they are amenable to policy intervention.

Publicly funded demonstration projects represent a critical intermediate step between basic R&D on the one hand, and large-scale commercialization of new sustainable technology on the other. However, these projects often suffer from various technical and nontechnical difficulties, frequently fail to meet objectives, and sometimes stall despite the best intentions of their facilitators. This paper reports on a multiple case study of 21 demonstration projects in the area of sustainable technology set in Sweden and offers two contributions. First, it maps the project-internal and external factors that allow or prohibit demonstration projects to reach their goals. Second, it suggests a process model outlining the key activities for setting up a new demonstration project. By doing so, the paper provides important implications for the process of developing and commercializing sustainable technologies. The escalating environmental crisis in particular underscores the need for new knowledge about how cleaner and more sustainable technologies can be applied.

This study applies a systematic literature review and qualitative content analysis to identify and synthesize key factors that enable collaborative innovation between industry and universities. Using a keyword search in the Web of Science database, the review identified 40 papers that were frequently cited on the topic. Results were summarized into seven main themes or central factors stimulating collaborative innovation: resources, university organization, boundary-spanning functions, collaborative experience, culture, status centrality and environmental context. This article elaborates on these 'enabling factors' and uses them to summarize a number of results from the reviewed studies regarding facilitators of collaborative innovation. The discussion focuses on how these factors relate and the extent to which they are amenable to policy intervention.

The economy-wide dynamic cost-benefit study of the Swedish industrial subsidy program 1976 through 1984 (Carlsson et al. Res Policy 10(43):336–354 1981; Carlsson J Ind Econ 32(1):9–14, 1983a, b) is revisited in light of later economic development. Since the Swedish Micro to Macro model (Eliasson Am Econ Rev 67(1):277–281 1977a, 2017a) was used for quantification, this article is both (1) a study on the calibration of high dimensional micro-based and nonlinear economic systems models, and (2) a post inquiry into the empirical credibility of the cost-benefit calculations performed. We find that the Micro-based Macro model represents the minimum of detailed resolution necessary for the dynamic cost benefit calculations of the micro interventions in the Swedish economy we study. Even though the increased model complexity meant significant parameter calibration difficulties, a thoroughly researched model specification with exactly defined policy interfaces (with the markets of the economy) should take priority over parameter estimation problems, and always be preferred to estimating the parameters of a wrongly specified model perfectly. The oil price shocks of the 1970s caused radical market disorder in the western economies, bankrupting some 35% of Swedish manufacturing and threatening the Swedish government with massive unemployment. We confirm the earlier results that the government choice of a radical employment rescue policy came at enormous social cost in the form of economic stagnation, and still did not prevent the unemployment of the rest of OECD Europe from hitting Sweden a decade later, and persisting well into the next millennium. According to an alternative simulated policy scenario on the model, had the subsidies been replaced with a general lowering of the payroll tax of the same magnitude and the consequent increase in unemployment taken immediately during 1976–1980, production structures would have been radically and rapidly reorganized, normal employment would have been rapidly restored, and neither the stagnation nor the radical increase in unemployment of the early 1990s would have occurred. In retrospect we see no reason to worry about the empirical credibility of this computed dynamic trade off between Keynesian demand and Schumpeterian supply effects (caused by resource reallocations and endogenous structural change due to the price change), as we did then. We conclude with certainty that this trade-off would not even have been discovered as a possibility had we used a traditional model that did not embody these micro-macro linkages.

We examine trends in innovation output for two highly ranked innovative countries: Finland and Sweden (1970-2013). Our novel dataset, collected using the LBIO (literature-based innovation output) method, suggests that the innovation trends are positive for both countries, despite an extended downturn in the 1980s. The findings cast some doubt on the proposition that the current stagnation of many developed countries is due to a lack of innovation and investment opportunities. Our data show that Finland catches up to, and passes, Sweden in innovation output in the 1990s. In per capita terms, Finland stays ahead throughout the period. We find that the strong Finnish performance is largely driven by innovation increase in just a handfull of sectors, but is not restricted to few companies. Both countries saw a rise in innovation during the dot-corn era and the structural changes that followed. Since 2000 however, Sweden has outperformed Finland in terms of total innovations, especially in machinery and ICT, while the Finnish rate of innovation has stabilised. We suggest that these patterns may be explained by different paths of industrial renewal.

While priority setting for research, development and innovation (RDI) traditionally focuses on which thematic areas should be supported, less is known about how such goals are implemented on the agency level. Key challenges are how to translate broad priorities into programs and projects, how to govern the knowledge base, and how to handle organizational tensions during implementation. Many of these challenges must be addressed by ‘street-level’ administrators and agency experts during implementation. We take these agency challenges to be of central concern for RDI policy implementation, and propose a process perspective on priority setting. We apply this perspective to a case study of the Swedish Energy Agency and highlight a number of insights such as the tension between existing organizational capabilities and new goals for research and innovation. We argue that these insights are particularly relevant to other research funders with a sectoral mandate, for example, health, defense, or agriculture.

This study explores the question of whether the Swedish innovation output of the 1970s and 1980s (and the following decades) indicates structural lock-in or renewal. It is motivated by inconsistent explanations in the current literature about the relation between the economic slowdown and subsequent industrial renewal, as well as a lack of research focusing, in this context, on the primary driver of economic growth and structural change: innovation. By observing the number and type of innovations as they hit the market, the data in this paper tell a real time story about micro level innovation activity during the time that the economic crisis unfolds. The analysis considers Swedish innovation output between 1970 and 2007, characterising the number of significant innovations, their novelty, and their origin (including size of firm and industry sector). Three central findings emerge, defined by both the time period and the character of innovations. First, the magnitude of innovation activity peaks in the late 1970s to early 1980s. Second, starting in the late 1970s, small firms begin to outperform large firms in terms of both innovation quantity and quality (i.e. world market novelties). Third, the 1980s saw a distinct shift in the industrial origin of innovations, with software and telecom becoming the leaders in innovation output. The findings suggest that the observed industrial renewal is more nuanced than what has emerged from previous research.

This doctoral thesis investigates changes in the volume and character of Swedish manufacturing sector innovation output between 1970 and 2007, a time span composed of both extended periods of relative prosperity and decline. More specifically, it examines whether changes in the number of innovations, the character of the innovating firms, and the distribution of innovations across industries are generally associated with any such period. Significant differences in received accounts of structural transformation in the Swedish manufacturing sector motivate the study. A newly compiled database containing observations of nearly 4000 innovations is explored. It is found that innovation output is at its greatest during the economically stagnant period running from 1975 and until the first years of the 19 80s. Furthermore, innovations produced in this period are more novel than those of any other period. Innovation output observed in the relatively prosperous period 1994-2007 is meager and generally less novel. There is a marked increase in small firm innovation; from the early 1980s onwards, small firms are the most important source of innovation. The increase cuts through the entire period and stands in contrast with the economically important role traditionally considered to be played by large firms in the Swedish economy. Innovation output is found to shift from being primarily achieved in the capital goods sector to being subsequently developed in fields such as instruments, telecom products, and software. With regard to the revolutionary growth of microelectronics characterizing the period, the Swedish manufacturing sector is found to be competent in implementing such technology and to be primarily a receiver rather than a supplier of microelectronic components. (Less)

This paper introduces a new database of Swedish innovations, SWINNO, in manufacturing and some services such as software. Innovation data are collected with the Literature Based Innovation Output method (LBIO) by use of trade journals and technical magazines and cover the period 1970-2007. Each innovation is described by more than fifty parameters making possible a detailed analysis from several aspects. The innovations captured in SWINNO are significant innovations, not minor or incremental, and the total number over the so far covered period is above 4000. The highest number of Swedish innovations were commercialized around 1980. The paper discusses the representativity and validity of SWINNO and assesses the LBIO method in comparison with other indicators of innovation. Some LBIO databases have previously been constructed but comparable with SWINNO is presently only the Finnish database SFINNO.