Zeitschrift für Evaluation: Issue Is RUBIN Effective?

This study provides an assessment of the potential effects of the „RUBIN – Regionale unternehmerische Bündnisse für Innovation“ (Regional Entrepreneurial Alliances for Innovation) funding program and demonstrates the value of indicative impact analyses in the early stages of program evaluation. In the absence of control groups and long-term outcome data, the analysis is based on monitoring/survey data and methods such as output analyses, pre-post comparisons, and counterfactual self-assessments to derive plausible directions of impact. The results suggest that RUBIN creates key prerequisites for innovation processes: the majority of funded entities achieved the planned outputs and made significant progress in research and development activities as well as in perceived enabling effects, such as collaboration, visibility, and project realisation. However, no strengthening of transversal competences can be observed. Overall, the study demonstrates how indicative approaches can provide early, robust evidence despite limited data availability – both regarding potential impact pathways of a program and areas where effects can only be captured in the long term. This facilitates the reflexive advancement of systemic funding programs and furnishes the methodological groundwork for rigorous subsequent evaluations.

Keywords
Innovation funding, Research and development, Program evaluation, Impact evaluation