The Canary Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI) has participated in the 2026 Plenary Session of the R&D&i Policy Network (Red IDI), held on April 21 and 22 in Santiago de Compostela, where Javier Franco has intervened in the round table on the evaluation of innovation policies in the autonomous communities.
During his intervention, Franco focused on one of the main challenges of the Canary Islands: balancing the weight of R&D&i investment, currently with nearly 70% from public sources versus 30% private. For this, he highlighted the role of the expanded RIS3 as a tool to strengthen governance, align instruments, and generate synergies among the different agents of the system.
In this context, he/she underlined the need for innovation to have a real impact on the productive fabric and on citizens. "The objective is for R&D&I policies to translate into tangible results, in employment and economic diversification", he/she pointed out.
Franco also highlighted the progress of Canarias in terms of public policy evaluation, with the approval of the Strategic Evaluation Framework in December 2025 and the development of a regulatory decree that will give stability to the system. This process is already taking shape in pilot projects, both in the social sphere and in innovative entrepreneurship, with a practical approach based on “learning by evaluating”.
Likewise, he/she presented the main difficulties detected in the intermediate evaluation of the RIS3, such as the lack of sufficiently mature data, the need to review indicators or the limitations derived from the short execution period. "The intermediate evaluation allows measuring progress, but not structural transformations," he/she pointed out.
As a next step, Canarias will address the impact evaluation in concrete instruments, especially in lines of support for innovative entrepreneurship and for the resolution of social challenges, with the aim of identifying what works and better guiding public policies.
In this regard, Franco pointed out that the evaluation is already influencing the design of the new Plan Canario de I+D+i 2026–2030, incorporating from the beginning information improvement systems that allow evaluation during execution. “It is not about evaluating at the end, but about integrating evaluation from the beginning to make better decisions,” he concluded.
The IDI Network is a workspace between administrations to share experiences and advance in the coordination of R&D+i policies. The participation of Canarias in this forum allows contrasting approaches and contributing to the development of common instruments in innovation matters.