Collaborative Expedition Workshop #79, The Science of Science Policy (40WH)
Theme Two: Investing in Science and Innovation, Session One, December 17, 2008 (40WI)
- 4. What is the value of the nation's public investment in science? (40X1)
- 5. Is it possible to "predict discovery"? (40X2)
- 6. Is it possible to describe the impact of discovery on innovation? (40X3)
- 7. What are the determinants of investment effectiveness? (40X4)
- Do you have additional suggestions? (411L)
- Engineers characterize product development as a sequence: research>concept development>engineering development>full scale development> production. (411M)
- We have good research and venture capital systems. (411N)
- VCs start with engineering development. The “valley of death” is concept development, the stuff Steve Jobs and Apple do so well. (411O)
- Concept development gets funded today if the task is small or strategically coupled with a companies core business (as with Apple). *Revolutionary Large (> $10 Million) projects do not get funded privately. I (411P)
- If we are going to develop innovations that resolve climate change & energy we need policy that encourages concept development. The military calls this 6.2 funding. (411Q)
- In addition, the government has provided multi-million dollar funds to projects, such as the human genome project jointly funded by the NIH and DOE for a number of years, which triggered an avalanche of new technology development and products development. (411R)
- This type of funding is critical for science and technology innovation. Alex Pavlak and Harold Williams A predictor of success is the existence of a “Dispute Resolution Clause”. This parameter needs to be collected for the benefit of investors, entrepreneurs and inventors. Jim Disbroww (411S)
- The United States has a finite pool of funds for basic research, spread among several federal agencies. The principle challenge confronting them, both individually and collectively, is how best to allocate those funds across numerous research areas. Even small progress in providing an analytical framework for addressing this challenge would be very helpful. (Question 7, "what are the determinants of investment effectiveness?", can be viewed as a variant of this challenge.) Even in the absense of an answer, better communication among funding agencies would be very helpful. (412B)
- Only two decades ago, the United States performed a majority of the world's basic research. Now, its percentage has dropped to about 33%, and this percentage is likely to continue to decrease. How will this trend impact the United States, and how can it best adjust to this changing environment. (412D)
- It can be argued that, at one time, the United States was capable of explointing new knowledge faster than any other nation, independent of where that knowledge was created. It is unclear whether the United States has that capability today. Should the United States, therefore, revisit the question of how or whether it should limit the use of its IP by others? (412C)
- If it is not possible to "predict discovery" (question 5), is it possible to specify the conditions that make discovery most likely? (414T)
- DDR&E is conducting a study searching for metrics by which the benefits of DOD-sponsored basic science can be measured. (414U)
- One of the introductory speakers suggested that capturing research grant data, for instance from the NSF data base, would be helpful. I would agree. However, I have concerns about the Grants Management Line of Business, which could be the basis for a government-wide grants data base. NSF, the principle manager, is proceeding too slowly,is not sufficiently open to the needs of others, and proposes to charge other too much. Unless this situation changes, other agencies ultimately will refuse to participate. (4150)