Dr. Vincent Duchêne is senior expert, Team Leader of IDEA’s “Competitiveness and Innovation” department and Managing Partner. Vincent has more than 25 years’ experience in the field of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policies, and more than 15 years’ experience in industrial policy and regional policy. After having obtained his PhD in Economic History at the Catholic University of Louvain (KU Leuven), he worked from 1999 until 2001 as policy advisor at the ‘Flemish Institute for the promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology’ (IWT), where he got involved in various international benchmark studies on STI policy, as well as in cost-benefit analyses of public support to high-tech companies. From November 2001 until October 2007, he worked as economist and policy analyst at the European Commission, DG for Research and Technological Development, where he was responsible for the development and exploitation of STI indicators and some major activities related to the monitoring of Member States’ STI performances. He was responsible for drafting DG RTD’s official scoreboard (the “Key Figures on Science, Technology and Innovation”) and for inter-institutional coordination between DG RTD, Eurostat, DG Entr and the OECD with regard to the development of STI indicators.  

At Idea Consult since 2008 he is mainly involved in monitoring/evaluations of -and studies on- STI policy and policy tools at both the regional, national and European level. He led some ex-post and mid-term evaluations of FP6, FP7 and H2020. He recently led studies on industrial competitiveness based on value chain analysis and studies on industrial decarbonisation. He regularly coaches cluster organizations for the revision of their strategy and instruments’ portfolio. On behalf of the EC he is also investigating new funding mechanisms for interregional demonstration initiatives. Vincent is currently involved in different projects related to developing scenarios and policy recommendations in the area of strategic industries and technologies. He contributed to or led many studies linked to industrial deployment of key technologies in sectors such as advanced manufacturing, additive manufacturing, agri-food or semicon industries, for which he combined desk-research with interviews and focus groups of industrial companies. Vincent is also heavily involved in the S3 thematic platforms and thematic smart specialisation partnerships, where he supports different interregional and international partnerships aiming at speeding up technology deployment in Europe. Vincent has a solid track record in large European projects involving multiple international partners, both in a role of Project Manager/Project Director as well as in the dedicated role of Quality Assurance Manager.