In this paper we report on the past evaluation of the STEVIN programme in the field of Human Language Technology for Dutch (HLTD). STEVIN was a 11.4 M euro programme that was jointly organised and financed by the Flemish and Dutch governments. The aim was to provide academia and industry with basic building blocks for a linguistic infrastructure for the Dutch language. An independent evaluation has been carried out. The evaluators concluded that the most important targets of the STEVIN programme have been achieved to a very high extent. In this paper, we summarise the context, the evaluation method, the resulting resources and the highlights of the STEVIN final evaluation.

In the last decade, the Dutch Language Union has taken a serious interest in digital language resources and human language technologies (HLT), because they are crucial for a language to be able to survive in the information society. In this paper we report on the current state of the joint Flemish-Dutch efforts in the field of HLT for Dutch (HLTD) and how follow-up activities are being prepared. We explain the overall mechanism of evaluating an R&D programme and the role of evaluation in the policy cycle to establish new R&D funding activities. This is applied to the joint Flemish-Dutch STEVIN programme. Outcomes of the STEVIN scientific midterm review are shortly discussed as the overall final evaluation is currently still on-going. As part of preparing for future policy plans, an HLTD forecast is presented. Also new opportunities are outlined, in particular in the context of the European CLARIN infrastructure project that can lead to new avenues for joint Flemish-Dutch cooperation on HLTD.

This paper shows how a research and industry stimulation programme on human language technologies (HLT) for Dutch can be “enhanced” with more specific innovation policy aspects to support the take-up by the HLT industry in the Netherlands and Flanders. Important to note is the distinction between the HLT programme itself (called STEVIN) with its specific related committees and actions and the overall policy instruments (HLT Agency, HLT steering board?) that try to span the entire domain of HLT for Dutch and have a more permanent character. The establishment of a pricing committee and a PR & communication working group is explained as a consequence of adopting the notion of “innovation system” as a theoretical framework. It means that a stronger emphasis is put on improving knowledge transfer and exchange amongst actors in the field. Therefore, the focus at the programme management level is shifting from the projects’ research activities producing results to gathering the results, making them available at a certain cost and advertising them through the appropriate channels to the appropriate potential customers. Our conclusion is that this policy stimulates the transfer from academia to industry though it is too soon for an in-depth assessment of the STEVIN programme and other HLT innovation policy instruments.

In 2004 a consortium of ministries and organizations in the Netherlands and Flanders launched the comprehensive Dutch-Flemish HLT programme STEVIN (a Dutch acronym for “Essential Speech and Language Technology Resources”). To guarantee its Dutch-Flemish character, this large-scale programme is carried out under the auspices of the intergovernmental Dutch Language Union (NTU). The aim of STEVIN is to contribute to the further progress of HLT for the Dutch language, by raising awareness of HLT results, stimulating the demand of HLT products, promoting strategic research in HLT, and developing HLT resources that are essential and are known to be missing. Furthermore, a structure was set up for the management, maintenance and distribution of HLT resources. The STEVIN programme, which will run from 2004 to 2009, resulted from HLT activities in the Dutch language area, which were reported on at previous LREC conferences (2000, 2002, 2004). In this paper we will explain how different activities are combined in one comprehensive programme. We will show how cooperation can successfully be realized between different parties (language and speech technology, Flanders and the Netherlands, academia, industry and policy institutions) so as to achieve one common goal: progress in HLT.