Techno-economic impacts of large-scale national R&D projects

Abstract

This paper analyzes the techno-economic impacts of large-scale national R&D projects in ten years after the projects ended. Three different types of projects are evaluated: Mass Cell Culture Project, Super Computer Project and Super Heat-Pump Project. Based on the logical framework of evaluation, four aspects are examined qualitatively. They are technological impacts, R&D capacity building, economic impacts and impacts on people's life and society. Then, a quantitative analysis is conducted for economic impacts, including the calculation of induced production which is unique in this kind of analyses. We find that the impacts of the three projects are wide and that their economic impacts are large compared to government investment in a long run when taking into account of indirect impacts.