Editorial: Bridging the gap between policy and science in assessing the health status of marine ecosystems

Editoria

From regional innovation systems to regions as innovation policy spaces

The regional systems of innovation concept is well established in academic and practitioner discourses about innovation and economic development. As with the innovation systems approach more generally, the use of the concept has expanded significantly from its initial analytical purpose and has been extensively used to inform policy making. The paper identifies a number of dangers associated with the use of RIS as a normative concept and proposes that a better understanding of the roles regions play as policy and implementation spaces may lead to a more careful and nuanced application of the concept in the future.

Evaluation, foresight and participation as new elements for regional innovation policy practice: lessons from the regional innovation strategies (RIS)

Science, technology and innovation policies are experiencing numerous developments and changes in their orientation and design, which demand corresponding adaptation of policy evaluation methods and practices. Innovation systems are evolving towards more complex socially distributed structures of knowledge production activities, involving an increasing intertwining between science and technology, greater multidisciplinarity and specialisation in technological knowledge bases and a diversity of knowledge generating organisations. These changes require new forms of intervention, based on adaptability, policy learning and evolution, systemic coordination and the enhancement of firms & innovative capabilities. Moreover, there is a regained interest in sub-national (regional and local) levels of accumulation of innovative capabilities. Indeed, regional innovation policies are becoming more and more important, which in turn represents an important opportunity to be seized specially by less developed regions in narrowing the technology gap with more advanced ones. In addition, new and more sophisticated tools of policy intelligence and planning such as technology foresight are being employed. These new tendencies in innovation policies pose new challenges for the assessment and evaluation of these activities. Along with the actual intents to build new and effective capacities, the institutionalisation of evaluation systems is now a precondition for the implementation of organisational learning within the policy and decision making frameworks. Evaluation is definitely one of the most adequate instruments to foster processes of reflexivity and continuous learning within organisations. Even so, evaluation has to be implemented and executed during the entire process of policy design, implementation and analysis to be useful, which requires the development of new capacities and strengthening the existing ones, in order to institutionalise the evaluation practices and build up a comprehensive `evaluation system. Within this context, the demand for evaluation activities and its stimulation is as important as the promotion of the evaluation supply capacities, i.e. the existence of training and qualification facilities for evaluators, the communication between professionals by means of journals, networks, professional organizations, etc. The new regional innovation policies and the need for new evaluation practices suppose now a great opportunity for, on the one hand, the institutionalisation of evaluation within this new policy field and, on the other, the development of new evaluation methods and techniques, adapted to the particularities of regional innovation policy practices and knowledge based activities. The aim of this paper is to inquire into the adequacy of current evaluation systems and methods to the changes in the objectives and practices for regional innovation policies, supported by EU Structural Funds. The paper begins with a brief account of changes in the objectives and guidelines of European regional innovative actions. This discussion is followed by an assessment of the relevance of traditional evaluation practices for the monitoring of the effectiveness of these policies. This analysis will evidence a series of shortcomings and challenges in policy evaluation and will underline the importance of the institutionalisation of evaluation. This framework will be illustrated using evidence of innovative actions in Spanish regions. Practical policy recommendations will be advanced in the final section.

Charging for Nature: Marine Park Fees and Management from a User Perspective

User fees can contribute to the financial sustainability of marine protected areas (MPAs), yet they must be acceptable to users. We explore changes in the fee system and management of Bonaire National Marine Park (BNMP) from the perspective of users. Responses from 393 tourists indicated that 90% were satisfied with park conditions and considered current user fees reasonable. However, only 47% of divers and 40% of non-divers were prepared to pay more. Diver willingness-to-pay (WTP) appears to have decreased since 1991, but this difference could be due in part to methodological differences between studies. Although current fees are close to diver maximum stated WTP, revenues could potentially be increased by improving the current fee system in ways that users deem acceptable. This potential surplus highlights the value of understanding user perceptions toward MPA fees and management

The ‘policy mix’ for innovation: rethinking innovation policy in a multi-level, multi-actor context

Recent years have seen the emergence, take-up and use of the term 'policy mix' by innovation policy makers and by policy analysts & scholars alike. Imported from economic policy debates, the term implies a focus on the interactions and interdependencies between different policies as they affect the extent to which intended policy outcomes are achieved. However the meaning of the term remains ambiguous. Nonetheless, we argue that the emergence of the „policy mix‟ concept into common use in the field of innovation policy studies provides us with a window of opportunity to reconsider some basic and often hidden assumptions in order to better deal with a messy and complex, multi-level, multi-actor reality. We draw on the mainstream policy studies literature and on evolutionary thinking in order to re-conceptualise the basic building blocks of innovation policy studies in order to arrive at a useful definition of ‟policy mix‟ interactions. We suggest that this reconceptualisation has profound implications for the scope and focus of innovation policy studies and for what such studies can realistically hope to achieve in terms of policy prescriptions.Policy mix; policy interactions; policy instruments; actors; agency; innovation policy

Is existing legislation fit-for-purpose to achieve Good Environmental Status in European seas?

Recent additions to marine environmental legislation are usually designed to fill gaps in protection and management, build on existing practices or correct deficiencies in previous instruments. Article 13 of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires Member States to develop a Programme of Measures (PoM) by 2015, to meet the objective of Good Environmental Status (GES) for their waters by 2020. This review explores key maritime-related policies with the aim to identify the opportunities and threats that they pose for the achievement of GES. It specifically examines how Member States have relied on and will integrate existing legislation and policies to implement their PoM and the potential opportunities and difficulties associated with this. Using case studies of three Member States, other external impediments to achieving GES are discussed including uses and users of the marine environment who are not governed by the MSFD, and gives recommendations for overcoming barriers