Evaluating the performance of innovation intermediaries: insights from the experience of Tuscany’s innovation poles

With the growing importance of innovation in-termediaries, particularly in the policy context, a need has emerged for appropriate instruments to evaluate their performance. The identifica-tion of appropriate performance indicators, however, has proved to be problematic. First, indicators are likely to influence the behavior of innovation intermediaries, not always in a desirable manner. Second, commonly used in-dicators focus on the immediate results achieved by the intermediaries, often disregard-ing the permanent behavioral changes that they can stimulate in their innovation system. In-stead, we argue that the latter are particularly important for the evaluation of innovation in-termediaries, whose success should be meas-ured in terms of their ability to enable other or-ganizations to improve their innovation capa-bilities. By focusing on an innovation policy intervention implemented by the Italian region of Tuscany in the period 2007-2013, we dis-cuss the advantages and limitations of the indi-cators that have been set up by the regional government in order to evaluate the perfor-mance of innovation poles, a particular type of innovation intermediary, and discuss some fea-sible avenues for their improvement.