With OpenEye’s facilitation, VINNOVA used an “impact logic” approach to plan an ongoing societal-improvement program. The approach vastly enhanced the relevance of program objectives and implementation strategies used to attain tangible results.

Client profile

The Swedish government agency VINNOVA is the leading agency for funding, design and implementation of competitive clusters and innovation systems in Sweden.

Client need

To enhance the understanding of the role of innovation across Sweden’s sectors, VINNOVA has been funding an Innovation Journalism Fellowship Program for five years at Stanford University, in California.
Upon returning from their fellowship, participants in the program were expected to take a lead as a catalyst for innovation journalism within Sweden. The desired effect was a better awareness of the innovation process for key decision makers and a higher presence of innovation issues in the public debate. However, it was not possible for program managers to demonstrate that such a change was taking place.
VINNOVA realized the need to better understand the program’s potential for success.

Main takeaways

OpenEye's approach helped VINNOVA pinpoint exactly what the "problem spots" were in the overall process and kept managers focused on the difference between real/urgent needs, program inputs, intermediate milestones, and goals.

Not only did VINNOVA realize that there was a mismatch between program goals and activities, but one also needs to be flexible, as circumstances and goals change over time.

Lessons learned from this experience can help VINNOVA better design similar international internship programs.