Research evaluation of the Italian CNR institutes: a missed opportunity?

The paper deals with the institutional evaluation of the research infrastructure of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). The evaluation was commissioned by the agency itself and was carried out by a panel of experts. The paper analyses the procedure adopted and the results obtained with the aim of evaluating to what extent the exercise was appropriately designed and performed, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology adopted, suggesting relevant methodological changes, evaluating the impact of the evaluation within and outside the agency. The exercise is compared with similar evaluations carried out by other European agencies. From a science policy viewpoint it is argued that the evaluation of the CNR institutes is a missed opportunity if its outcome is not used for policy making – and after nine months from the release of the evaluation report it has not been so use

L'innovazione tecnologica nei servizi e nell'industria manifatturiera in Italia

This paper provides fresh empirical evidence on technological innovation in the service sector, and highlights major similarities and differences with manufacturing. Technological innovation is quite a diffused and variegated phenomenon in market services. Service firms rely on a wide range of innovation sources. Investment, R&D and software are the major components of firms’ innovation expenditure. Both in services and manufacturing the most important objectives of firms’ innovation strategies consist of improving service/product quality, increasing market shares and reducing production costs. Major obstacles to innovation are of an economic nature – i.e. lack of finance and cost of innovation too high. Technological innovation is drawn mainly from in-house production departments as well as from outside suppliers, clients and customers. Finally, in the near future the importance of technology for firms’ performance is expected to increase in al service industries. Overall, service and manufacturing sectors show more similarities than differences with respect to the basic dimensions of innovation processes

Costi e benefici della valutazione della ricerca e della didattica

A fronte dell’adozione generalizzata di istituzioni e strumenti divalutazione, è sorprendente che non si siano sviluppate parallelamente analisi sistematiche relative ai benefici ed ai costi della loro introduzione ed attuazione. Gli AA. offrono un contributo in questa direzione. Sullo sfondo, la consapevolezza che la ricerca e l’educazione superiore rappresentano sistemi sociali estremamente complessi, pieni di non linearità, che mal si prestano a misurazioni quantitative imposte all’accademia da un paradigma scientifico del tipo di quello dei mercati