Evaluation of the Dutch Innovation Programme on Food and Nutrition

Date de publication : 17 avril 2015 | langue de rapport : EN

In the 2005 the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs introduced the ‘key area approach’ for innovation programmes in prioritised areas in the Dutch economy. In 2006 the Innovation Programme Food & Nutrition (IPFN) was established in the ‘key area’ Flowers & Food. Following an interactive approach, IPFN was developed bottom-up by Dutch multinationals, SMEs and knowledge institutes in the food & nutrition sector, in cooperation with the innovation agency Agency NL. IPFN focused on the ‘post-harvest’ part of the industry chain and consists of two parts: the Top Institute Food & Nutrition (TIFN), and Food & Nutrition Delta (FND), together aiming at making the Netherlands a leading Food Innovation region in Europe. Agency NL and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation asked Technopolis to perform the evaluation of this programme after having performed the baseline study (2008) and midterm review (2009) as well. The aim of the evaluation is to determine whether the objectives of the programme have been achieved and to what extent IPFN has contributed to the overall policy objectives of the Ministry. Furthermore the evaluation looked at the interactive design process of the programme (the ‘innovation in dialogue approach’), its governance and the satisfaction amongst participants. The methods used are desk study, data analysis (both on the level of the food sector in general and the programme), a survey amongst participants, interviews and case studies of concrete examples of contribution of the programme in new product development. The result of the evaluation was a report, which was used in the development of a successor programme in the ‘Topsector Agrofood’.