Economic development agencies worldwide have eagerly embraced clusters as a strategy to boost local economic development. When implementing cluster-based interventions, one of the main issues encountered by many public sector bodies is that the majority of cluster analysis and measurement techniques only give a partial overview of how they actually operate. Often it is the dynamics of collaboration within a cluster that has the biggest influence on overall success. This paper adopts a system thinking approach to help us understand cluster development and inter-firm collaboration. The outcome of this work was the development of a basic five stage conceptual model that helps explain how a cluster develops, together with the changes in company behaviour and company interaction that might be seen at different stages of this developmental trajectory. Using Scotland as an empirical test case, this article highlights the model and examines the problems associated with the adoption of this approach. This methodological approach was shared with other regions working to support clusters to ascertain the relevance of this approach elsewhere. Overall this paper concludes that the model proves to be a useful tool in assessing the varying stages of a cluster's development both within and outside Scotland.

Cluster policies are widely used to strengthen regional competitiveness, yet difficult to evaluate. While academic approaches to cluster evaluation are often ignorant of the needs of policy‐makers and practitioners, practitioner‐led approaches often lack structure and rigour. As such, there remain significant gaps between theory and practice. The contribution of this paper is to reflect on a unique methodological approach that has regularly brought together academics, policy‐makers and practitioners from around the world to collectively address the challenges of cluster evaluation. A participatory process of integrating theory and practice highlights the importance of triple helix engagement to co‐design evaluation of what is a triple helix policy proposition.

For decades, cluster initiatives and funding programmes have been used as instruments of industrial and innovation policy—addressing system failures by strengthening linkages among actors, fostering innovation, and developing more effective innovation systems. More recently, a growing segment of these initiatives are also focused on driving system-level transformation and contributing to broader societal benefits. This segment is characterized by larger-scale and longer-term strategic efforts involving a variety of stakeholders across different parts of society, aimed at contributing to addressing societal challenges. These characteristics are shared with the emerging frame of transformative innovation policy, which highlights the importance of embedded practices of learning and reflexivity to enable continuous monitoring of progress and inform and adapt the direction of systemic change processes—requiring new approaches to governance and evaluation. Despite deep experience with implementing cluster programmes and other systemic innovation policy instruments, practitioners still struggle with monitoring and evaluation. Current approaches focus on evidencing strengthened innovation (and economic effects) on the level of firms and research actors, and fail to capture contributions on the level of the broader system. This article presents an evolving approach for tracking system transformation in clusters and collaborative innovation initiatives. Through an interactive, co-development process with initiatives in the Swedish Vinnväxt programme, this research proposes a definition and set of system effect categories for cluster initiatives. It tests a participatory approach for tracking their contribution to system-level change over time, providing an initial case on which to build and apply in other transformative innovation programmes.

Regions around the world employ cluster-based policies as part of their industrial, innovation and development policy mixes. They have become a key tool in smart specialisation strategies and are increasingly used to address societal challenges. Given their popularity and longevity, there is significant demand to better measure and understand the impacts of cluster policies. Yet the diversity of cluster policies employed in different regional competitiveness policy mixes, a complex effect logic and a variety of (mostly intangible) outcomes, and few recognised norms for guiding cluster policy evaluation all hamper a more holistic understanding of their patterns of effects and broader impacts. There lacks a common frame to guide cluster policy evaluation. This paper reviews international evidence on the effects of cluster policy programmes from academic and policy literature, which is then used as an input into a co-creation process with groups of cluster policymakers, practitioners and researchers. The result is a proposal for a generalised framework of effects for cluster policies to support the structuring of cluster policy evaluations and strengthen international policy learning possibilities.

Evaluation is undertaken for various reasons from helping to ensure that objectives are met to identifying success. This paper examines the significance of creative evaluation in a co-design approach. We have identified a major gap in appropriately embedding evaluation into engagement and consultation processes. The study explores the use of evaluation to evidence the value of co-design and consultation. As a part of this we have established a broad framework to gather information and data to build a portfolio of evidence to evidence the difference we are making. From the initial studies we have identified findings that are significant and shared across our partners within their evaluation practice. Throughout the project, our evaluation is embedded in our process. We have proposed an evaluation process, and an evaluation framework which will be used at various stages of the project to capture evidence. At each stage we capture the impact in a meaningful format so it is visible to communities and the researchers, in turn making evaluation a collaborative process. For this purpose, we developed a creative evaluation approach which is innovative, engaging but also designed in an unobtrusive manner.