Driving Strategic Data-Driven Experimentation with the European Innovation Council
The Innovation Growth Lab (IGL) partnered with the European Innovation Council (EIC) on a one-year project to provide research and evidence-based advice on data-driven, experimental, and collaborative public sector innovation processes to support the development of the EIC’s strategic intelligence. We brought together policy and academic stakeholders to share, learn, and act on how data is used to improve innovation funding across Europe.
Through this project, we leveraged data mapping, benchmarking methodologies and data science to identify meaningful problem spaces to pursue. We turned these problems into case studies which aim to help the EIC become more experimental in its approach and research. These experimental case studies helped answer operational and strategic questions, ultimately informing key policymaking for EIC by turning data into actionable evidence.
The benchmarking efforts also led to the organisation of interagency events such as the Innovation Data Dialogues, a space for mutual learning. In parallel, IGL organised a datathon with external researchers and synthetic data generated by IGL on top of real EIC data sets, which further enhanced the scope of data analysis and ideas.
All of these activities aimed to give a range of ideas on where the challenges and potential lay in data exploitation and how to further leverage data to improve innovation funding.
Data mapping
In the initial stage of the project, IGL focused on mapping internal EIC data that could inform priority setting for EIC work programme and strategic policy feedback at large. This process started with a schema definition plan that was updated through meetings with internal teams and individual data stakeholders to discuss data availability, ownership, management, and use, shaping the focus of the case studies.
Benchmarking exercise
As part of the project, we also embarked on an ambitious benchmarking study. The goal was to explore how innovation agencies are leveraging data to drive decision-making and strategic operations and so learn about best available practices and facilitate peer learning.
Our findings indicate that agencies often tackle data challenges in isolation, limiting the potential for cross-agency learning and best practice sharing. The EIC, through its partnership with IGL, aimed to transform this approach by fostering data-centric dialogues among agencies. This collaborative effort was designed to not only address individual agency needs, but also to elevate the overall standard of data-driven innovation funding across Europe. To gain more insights, read our anonymised data use benchmarking report.
Case study on outreach effectiveness
The case study focuses on data from EIC start-ups, matched EUIPO patents, and OpenAlex data to identify innovation clusters across EU member states using academic taxonomy tags. The effectiveness of EIC’s outreach in specific funding instruments was assessed by examining the spatial relationships and overlaps between its events and the locations of relevant companies, researchers and innovators.
The study included metrics to evaluate the reach of EIC events and their ability to target potentially overlooked innovation hubs. We also analysed responses to Open and Challenge calls to determine how well these initiatives engage specific groups or fill gaps in innovation expertise.
Case study on multidisciplinary
This case study was motivated by the belief that innovation flourishes at the intersection of diverse disciplines, seeking to provide evidence-based insights that could inform future funding strategies to maximise the creative and operational strengths of cross-disciplinary teams. It aimed to quantify the impact of interdisciplinary collaboration on innovation to assess and enhance the effectiveness and inclusivity of specific EIC funding instruments. Utilising data from project applications and outcomes, this case study intended to develop metrics to measure the diversity of ideas and the complementary skills brought in by cross-disciplinary teams. The data was then examined through the lens of its impact on assessors’ evaluations, project successes and long-term impact.
Innovation Data Dialogues
We organised the Innovation Data Dialogues with the support of the EIC, a series of collaborative sessions between innovation agencies exploring different dimensions of data-driven innovation. The sessions explored topics such as data governance, leveraging data to improve innovation funding and policy, and the potential of experimentation for innovation funding. Read the insights in this summary.
Datathon
The datathon offered researchers the chance to dive into and analyse data from one of the EU’s largest innovation funders. It was a chance to tackle relevant and pressing questions in the field of innovation technology, leveraging the wealth of EIC internal data, made available in this context through the creation of synthetic data on top of real data. This was an opportunity to influence how innovation data is utilised at a policy level, and to guide EIC’s approach to data accessibility, ensuring it aligned with the needs of the research community and the goals of innovation policy.
Innovation Data Forum
For the culmination of the Innovation Data Dialogues and the Datathon, we brought together innovation agencies and researchers to reflect, learn and explore the way forward. The forum featured reports based on the discussions from the Innovation Data Dialogues, presentations of the EIC datathon research project results, and created a space for a strategic discussion on the path forward.