IMPACTSCAN MATRIX SYSTEM – OVERVIEW

IMPACTSCAN is based on three data sets ordered in 3 matrixes:
Matrixes 1 and 2 put light on the organisation of the intermediary system, enlightening its composition, policy priorities and the relative weight of the various intermediaries and services in the system. Matrix 3 assesses the effectiveness of regional innovation support services to foster firm’s innovation practices.
In concrete terms:
M1: presents regional innovation budget split according to policy objectives and intermediaries;
M2: presents regional innovation budget split according to intermediaries and services;
M3: presents impact scores of various services against a typology of innovation enablers, as assessed by beneficiaries (firms).

The user introduces budgetary data for M1 and M2, as well as scores for services impacts in M3. These are stored in the database of the tool, and automatically transformed in percentages, and used for the production of a variety of graphs and bar charts. When the tool is filled by several regions, pages are provided automatically with minimum, maximum and mean values for every cell in the set of pages available for the regions, and comparative graphs for each matrix (GM1, GM2, GM3) are produced. These charts and graphs can be customised by the user through the “pivot” function provided in MS-Excel. This function enables the user to select a subset of variables from each matrix, as well as a subset of regions, or minimum, maximum, mean values. The user can also integrate comments for cells, lines or columns of the matrixes, providing explanations for the regional data. The IMPACTSCAN tool provides the average scores of the sample of all IMPACTSCAN partner regions as an artificial region called “IMPACTSCAN average” allowing also some benchmarking if the tool is used by single regional authorities.

Matrix 1 - Matrix 2 - Matrix 3