Efforts to foster collaboration between science and industry have long been a part of innovation policy efforts in many countries. This impact evaluation studies the effect of the In-Tech program in Poland on science - industry collaboration, research and innovation, and product commercialization.
The In-Tech program, one of the two tracks of Innotech program, run by Poland's National Center for Research and Development (NCBiR), provides grants to consortia of research entities and firms for proposed research projects.
Applications receive a score based on peer reviewer ratings and those with a score above a threshold are offered funding. Based on this funding rule, a research team from the World Bank used a regression discontinuity (RD) design to estimate the effects of receiving In-Tech funding for applicants to the 2012 and 2013 calls for proposals.
The team used data from In-Tech application forms to show that applicants above and below the cutoff have similar characteristics, suggesting that the RD approach is valid.
The follow-up information on projects and consortia outcomes comes from a 2016 survey of 400 applicants both above and below the funding cutoff that was specifically designed to measure the impact of In-Tech.