Nesta’s Innovation Growth Lab (IGL) organised a workshop for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers on Wednesday, 20 November 2019 at Vrije Universiteit (VU) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Participants learnt about the latest experimental research on science, innovation, entrepreneurship and business productivity, and were guided through the process of developing their own trial design to answer a research question in one of these areas.
Albert Bravo Biosca, Director, Innovation Growth Lab
Does management quality matter for firm outcomes, and how to improve it? Are investors biased against female inventors? Can we use social networks to accelerate the diffusion of new technologies? How can we identify and support high-growth entrepreneurs? Does mentoring work - and for whom? These are just a few of the questions we will address through the lens of recently published experimental results.
Serene Ho, Senior Policy Associate, J-PAL Global, Eszter Czibor, Principal Researcher, Innovation Growth Lab
When it comes to RCTs, practical considerations are as important as the experimental design. We will cover issues such as finding a good implementation partner, obtaining consent, minimising attrition, dealing with non-compliance, etc. We will also discuss the scalability of results from relatively small-scale experiments.
In this interactive brainstorming session, participants will sort into groups based on their research interests, and receive prompts and suggestions to create their own trial design.
Facilitator: Hugo Cuello Diaz, Researcher, Innovation Growth Lab
Participants will discuss their designs with members of the IGL team along several dimensions, including methodological rigour, policy relevance and practical concerns, and receive ideas for implementation partners, funding opportunities and dissemination of their research.
The 'feedback fair' will consist of:
Funding: Lou-Davina Stouffs, Research and Programme Manager
Policy: Albert Bravo Biosca, Director, Innovation Growth Lab
Implementation: Teo Firpo, Senior Researcher
Methods: Eszter Czibor, Principal Researcher
Communications: Meg Doherty, Assistant Programme Manager
Incorporating the feedback they received, the teams pitch their proposals and receive questions and suggestions from the audience.