Measuring the impact of publicly funded open innovation programmes: the case of Data Market Services Accelerator

Abstract

One of the current goals of the European Commission is to stimulate the development and uptake of data and AI technologies in the economy. Substantial funding has been invested in programmes that help startups and small-medium enterprises (SMEs) to assimilate the latest technical and regulatory trends. In order to assess the efficacy and impact of such initiatives, their specific social and economic objectives must be taken into consideration. Our paper proposes a generalisable mixed-methods approach for assessing the impact of publicly funded innovation programmes across multiple dimensions, including their effect on the market, fundraising capabilities of companies, innovation, and socio-economic aspects. We apply this framework to evaluate the recent performance of the Data Market Services (DMS) Accelerator, a current programme funded by the European Commission. In addition to assessing how DMS has been able to meet its objectives, our examination alerts other similar programmes of the challenges in assessing specific outcomes such as standardisation and long-term legal strategy in the fields of data innovation.