داده ها و اندازه گیری اثرات برنامه تحقیق و توسعه

The purpose of this paper is to propose a research agenda for the measurement of economic impacts of Canadian government R&D support programs. Different methodologies and indicators used to assess benefits from government support programs/agencies for R&D are discussed first. Using available information on major business-related R&D federal programs, the paper will assess which indicators and methodologies can be implemented. The specific programs/agencies under investigation include: Technology Partnerships Canada sponsored by Industry Canada, Industrial Research Assistance Program sponsored by National Research Council, Atlantic Innovation Fund sponsored by Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Canadian Space Agency and National Defence.

There have been a number of recent papers in this journal that investigated the effects of government R&D programs on innovation and economic growth (Feller, Ailes, & Roessner, 2002; Kostoff, 1995; Luukkonen, 1995; Martin, 1998). While there appears to be general consensus as to what sorts of evaluations are theoretically possible, there is little agreement on what is possible practically. The current Conservative federal government in Canada is interested in value for money in terms of their expenditures on R&D programs. This paper represents an early stage investigation to help inform the government of what is possible. The problem of measurement, however, is a difficult one. From my experience with Canadian program evaluation the main problem is a lack of data on outputs from R&D programs. The aims of this paper are to reiterate the reasons for government R&D support programs, to summarize five existing Canadian programs, and to propose a method for analyzing the socio-economic impact of these programs.2 Technology policy stems from the neoclassical belief that because of knowledge and technical spillovers there will be a market failure in the research and development conducted by private firms. The government's answer to this dilemma is technology policy. What is Canadian technology policy? It can be viewed as a set of institutions designed to increase the rate of technological change. Increasing technological change occurs when the rate of product and process innovations increases, when the rate of adoption/diffusion of new technology increases or some combination of the two. The federal government is quite dedicated to “innovation” as is evidenced by their presence on the Internet at (www.innovation.gc.ca). In 2005/2006 the federal government's expenditure on science and technology (S&T) is expected to be $9.1 billion. Approximately $5.8 billion of that will be on research and development (R&D) and the remainder on associated activities. The federal government is directly responsible for conducting approximately $2.1 billion worth of R&D; the remaining $3.7 billion worth of research is conducted in private firms, universities and non-governmental labs (Statistics Canada, 2005). The structure of the paper is as follows: Section 2 gives a short introduction as to why governments intervene in the markets for research and development and innovation; Section 3 discusses the nature of five Canadian government programs; Section 4 details the current data situation for each program. Since the situation is not optimal for the measurement and evaluation of the programs, Section 5 asks “Where to Go From Here?”. Finally, Section 6 concludes the paper.

This paper has summarized five Canadian programs directed at R&D and commercialization—Technology Partnerships Canada, Industrial Research Assistance Program, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and its program Atlantic Innovation Fund, Canadian Space Agency and National Defence's R&D agency. The main policy implication is that, while the federal government would like to have concrete assessments of its R&D programs, the extant data are not up to the task. Thus, the ultimate intention of this exercise is to move towards the measurement of the intrinsic economic value of the five programs. Yet, in order to meet that objective, this paper has (of necessity) been primarily one of fact-finding. At this stage, it is readily apparent that more data are required from the five programs/agencies in order to conduct a thorough economic assessment. Eighteen areas for data collection categorized as general information, R&D inputs or R&D outputs have been put forth. These data range from qualitative to quantitative. The “hard” data will necessarily take the form of financial disclosure, disclosure of project outcomes, costs and revenues. The data can be collected by either a progress report that is sent to all current program participants, by individual visits to a small number of program participants in order to assemble case studies, or by a combination of both techniques. The next logical step is to forward this report to each agency and ask for their cooperation in assembling the data. Full disclosure of what information is collected by each agency will be indispensable for the data assembly phase. Onsite visits by government representatives and outside contractors will most likely be required