How different forms of policy learning influence each other: case studies from Austrian innovation policy-making

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the question whether different forms of policy learning influence each other. The focus is on relationships between different forms of policy learning, which are explored on the basis of case study research in the field of research, technology and innovation policy-making in Austria. Methods utilised are expert interviews and document analysis besides literature and media recherché. With the goal to better understand the mechanisms behind learning processes, different forms of knowledge utilisation are linked to organisation types. The analysis suggests that the introduction of radical policy innovations was possible because different forms of learning were mutually beneficial and enabled actors to reach their goals. Learning about how to obtain political goals provided opportunities to increase the leverage of learning on policy instruments and goals, whilst insights into policies from other countries were also utilised for political learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy analysis
• policy learning
• political learning
• knowledge utilisation
• research
• technology and innovation policy-making
• Austria

Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to Sonja Blum and two anonymous reviewers for commenting on earlier versions of the paper as well as Thomas Palfinger for help with the manuscript.

Notes on contributor

Peter Biegelbauer is Senior Scientist at the Department Innovation Systems of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology in Vienna. He teaches courses on public policy-making and comparative politics at the University of Vienna. His research work focuses on the fields of research, technology, industry and innovation policy, where he has concentrated on policy evaluation and the possibilities of learning from experience.

ORCID

Peter Biegelbauer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4113-6524

Interviews

Table

Notes

1. Schnapp shows the power and independence of the Austrian civil service in an international comparison in the mid-2000s, when most of the cases in this paper have already taken place (2004).

2. Since interview partners were talking openly in the framework of a small policy community, they were guaranteed anonymity. Interviews therefore are codified after an internal scheme differentiating between policy cases and interviewee.

3. Overviews focusing on different aspects of learning can, for example, be found in Bennett and Howlett (1992), Freeman (2006), Bandelow (2009), Radaelli (2009), Zito and Schout (2009), Dunlop and Radaelli (2013) and Biegelbauer (2013).

4. For the UK, see Sharp (2003); for Austria, Pichler, Stampfer, and Hofer (2007); for Germany, Bauer, Lang, and Schneider (2012).

5. Austrian National Council (1987, 4111–4145, especially 4118, 4125, 4131).

6. Typical for Austrian policy-making procedures a compromise was struck, as part of which research institutions could be funded (only) when cooperating with firms, see Austrian National Council (1987, 4133).

7. Not all interview partners agreed. A former high-ranking civil servant from the science ministry finds that he ‘misses this cooperative form of problem description and analysis, which has been lost' all the last years (interview 1-1).

8. http://www.fteval.at/en/platform/ (accessed 10 May 2015).

9. This important thought came from one of the reviewers.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the FWF under grant number P16169-G04 (project LEARN-POL); OeNB grant number 9607 (project TECH-LEARN) and 11213 (project RTD-GOV); and BMVIT (project INNO-STEER).