Understanding long-term impacts of R&D funding: The EU framework programme Erik Arnold* Technopolis Group Ltd, 3 Pavilion Buildings, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 1EE, UK and Department Science, Technology and Policy Studies, University of Twente, Institute of Innovation and Governance (IGS), P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, NL, The Netherlands *Corresponding author. Email: erik.arnold@technopolis-group.com 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 justifica- tions for state intervention in research depend upon phenomena such as the production and use of public goods, knowledge, spillovers, the production of human capital, and systemic changes that are inherently long term in nature. The few available long-term studies demonstrate that the time constants involved are indeed very big. However, the way public policy is governed and managed pushes us to evaluate in the short term: trying to explain or somehow to ‘measure’ the effects of programmes that may not be complete and whose effects may not even be expected until some time in the future. An earlier article considered what the existing evaluation record tells us about Framework Programme performance, pointing out the short-term orientation of the evaluation techniques used and the correspondingly limited perspective they provide on impacts. This article reports newer work to explore longer term effects and emphasizes the role of the Framework Programme in coordinating the development of the European innovation system. Thus while traditional studies of long-term effects of research emphasize the links between new knowledge and innovation, a more systemic approach points to the role of funding not only in these aspects but also in the social shaping of the research and innovation system. Keywords: long-term impact; research; Framework Programme; R&D. 1. Introduction The EU Framework Programme (FP) of Research and Technological Development is the main policy instrument for supporting Research and Technological Development at the level of the European Union. It is probably the largest competitive R&D programme in the world, funding a sig- nificant volume of research and innovation and accounting for more than 5% of Europe’s state expenditure on R&D. It is emblematic of the radical changes in the way we perceive and perform R&D over the last three decades and it is intended to play a pivotal role in coordinating the direction of research and innovation in Europe. The economics of research tell us that research is in general good for us. For making policy, this is nice to know—but we need to know a lot more: how and when it is good for us; through what mechanisms it will be good; and what are the good things it will bring. The realities of policymaking operate against finding the answers to these questions because there is a ‘dynamic inconsistency’ between the long time constants of the research and innovation system on the one hand and shorter political, administrative, and budgeting cycles on the other. Hence, the R&D evaluation community is constantly pushed to explain or somehow to ‘measure’ the effects of pro- grammes that may not be complete and whose effects may not even be expected until some time in the future. This problem has dogged evaluation of pre-competitive, collaborative R&D programmes since the early days of the Alvey Programme in the UK (Guy et al. 1991) or EUREKA at the European level (Dale and Barker 1994) and is still relevant to evaluation of the FP today (Rietschel et al. 2009). Since much policymaking is about capturing and deciding how to spend the next Research Evaluation 21 (2012) pp. 332–343 doi:10.1093/reseval/rvs025 Advance Access published on 25 October 2012 ß The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com