In Theme one meeting at 11am. Present are Dave Witzel, Brand Niemann, Gary Berg-Cross, Stuart Umpleby, Sushil Birla, Jody Roberts, Steven Blumberg, and Peter Meyer (410X)
- I volunteer to take notes but preferably not to be the only one. (410Y)
- We discuss what we are being asked to do, which is not quite clear to us collectively. One thing we are asked to do is to evaluate these questions and whether they are framed well from our points of view: (410Z)
1. What are the behavioral foundations of innovation? (40WV) {nid 4154} 2. What explains technology development, adoption and diffusion? (40WW) {nid 4155} 3. How and why do communities of science and innovation form and evolve? (4156)
- Stuart Umpleby takes charge. Interested in philosophy of science. Of interest to him is a problem in this area that physics is so often the model of science development and that a more reflexively-changing one is needed for the social sciences since they are redefined. Better science of social science would improve understanding of this. Wishes to study how science has grown across all fields to advance the understanding of this. The capacity of policy to advance it would then improve. Is asked: what are the categories and theories of this. In Kuhn's book in a postscript there is a matrix, apparently with one row per field-of-science. column identify different aspects or variables. e.g. some fields emphasizes or draw from sequences of events; histories. others emphasize values or ideas. others emphasize groups -- to understand them. so the science of science policy should have an empirical understanding of what the science is doing and also what effect this science has on social change, society, the public. different disciplines describe the science activity in their own language. Is asked: is "system science" a row in the matrix? yes. inference: the matrix has rows for each science. if we describe each field using his scheme, says Stuart, you look not only at the aspects of the science but also social aspects like the tools and mechanisms of interchange that are used in that field. thus the process of evolving and changing science policy responds to evidence that could be shown in the matrix. (4110)
- Gary Berg-Cross suggests that such a matrix is at the end of the document to which we are responding to. (4111)
- Roberts suggests to focus on the three questions listed under Theme 1. (4112)
- He suggests a question: What is the relationship between science and innovation? and How do scientific fields and/or institutions evolve? (4113)
- Gary Berg-Cross adds that these are different by the kinds of science. Need to understand the nature of science and its evolution. (4114)
- Stuart refers to a difference across the Atlantic. Europeans tend to be more philosophical. US practitioners tend to be more concrete. It takes time to get this idea across. Suggests we expand our philosophical notions of the origin of knowledge. Cognitive science is getting better at understanding. (4115)
- Jody says the community needs to be understood. (4116)
- Stuart suggests to reframe question 1 to refer to philosophical foundations. (4117)
- Sushil suggests to change behavioral to also refer to framework. and take out "micro". Sushi and Gary agree. (4118)
- Reference to 40 years of post-Kuhn literature. (4119)
- reference to Max Planck research. some things generate innovations and others don't. organizing of scientific teams. (411A)
- maybe we suggest "behavioral and conceptual". (411B)
- regarding the predictability of outcomes it is suggested to refocus on not specific predictable products but rather the productivity of the process. agreeable. E.g.: Are we getting something for what is invested? avoid the question of whether the outcomes are predictable. (411C)
- include the broad interpretation (411D)
- we have a good understanding of what the problems will be, says Roberts. Meyer says though that problems are re defined when solution opportunities appear (example: the Web "solves" problems that are reframed once it appears) Cross examples that we or were not predicted like privacy, spam, partly predictable and partly not. (411E)
- Stuart says working on problems generates discoveries including unexpected ones. And that interdisciplinary interaction helps. (411H)
- I ask if there are objections to adding "and conceptual" or "and philosophical" to question 1. making "what is an innovation?" more admissible. (411I)
- Stuart suggests changing question 1 to say "behavioral, conceptual, and philosophical" (411J)
So we prefer this reframing a little: (4157)
1. What are the behavioral and conceptual foundations of innovation? (40WV) {nid 4158} 2. What explains technology development, adoption and diffusion? (40WW) {nid 4159} 3. How and why do communities of science and innovation form and evolve? (415A)
We will reconvene at 1:30. We will move to our second theme groups. (411K)
==================== (414X)
In Theme four meeting at 13:30. (414Y)
- One suggestion is that science policy (and our meeting here) should developing an understanding of where "good" science and technology comes from, not just track our funding of it. (414Z)
- A couple of people including me took the view that that the activity of doing science policy should include observing and science and technology are actually being created (internationally; by amateur hobbyists and open-sourcers, in teams, etc) not just tracking the U.S. government system of funding and authorizing them. And it should include some creative envisioning of how science and technology will be created in the coming years. (416P)
- The rhetorical emphasis on “competitiveness” gets in the way of clear understanding of science and technology which are often improved collaboratively. When it is politically practical, it would be good to switch the language, toward “efficiency”, “productivity” and “satisfaction”. And/or perhaps “collaboration” and “coopetition” since these are really quintessentially part of the activity. (416Q)
================== earlier in the day, 9:30 introductions (4151)
Intros from remote sites on the phone. (clear) (40YX)
- Joy Green IBM (40YY)
- Peter Yim from SF bay area infrastructure provider supporting susan’s effort. Personal passion. Seeks to take ontologies into the mainstream and international standards. In/runs ontolog community. Sci and tech policy is a long time interest. (40YZ)
- Jeff Alexander consulting firm __ Strategies. R&D for local web development (40Z0)
- Rex Brooks – president and CEO of Starborne communications design. Participated in past (40Z1)
- Alex can__ U Mich Sci Tech policy at Gerald Ford School. Processes of sci and tech policy making. They offer a MA in policy. He’s from aerospace program. (40Z2)
- Joy Rhode from “the program” (UMich) (40Z3)
- Marie ___- Dennis. Working with Susan. Maybe also at UMich. (40Z4)
- Harold Williams from UMD. Planetarium and physics lab coordinator. History with connecting U to the net. (40Z5)
- Robyn Wyrick from database connecting company OSS PHP runs 300 member group in the DC area! Would like to expand that into the govt more. *** meet him ** good, got his card. Send a quick email. (40Z6)
- Richard Spivack, co-chair of this meeting, NIST, techi… hands me The Economic Evaluation of Technological Change from 1998 by NIST/ATP, now called TIP (tech and innov). He’s an economist. Greg Tassey and Gary Anderson are there. (40Z7)
- me (40Z8)
- Grant Miller from the national coordinator of large scale r&d across federal agencies (40Z9)
- Karl from GSA (40ZA)
- Jim – ANSI 15.36 nondestructive assay of radioactive. Program manager for __. Has come to 40% of these meetings since #4. went to a meeting in Second Life and it was really energetic and good. Also he’s on semantic interoperability. There is an interagency agreement between DOE and NOAA to use . . . many things, second life among them. Trying to teach the public (40ZB)
- ___ grad degree from UT Austin? Founded community ___ (40ZC)
- david whitsell – forum one communications in Alexandria which he founded. Works on open govt policy idea. (40ZD)
- Lucas (demonstrates that the microphone is unreliable, cuts in and out apparently depending partly on location) UB8.org for massively scalable conversations. Works with the intelligence cmty on million person conversations (40ZE)
- ___ interested in philosophy of science and science conversation types in (40ZF)
- john granhilm – CIO’s office of NSA?__ working on more collaboration maybe across agency. Building tools. Needs security. **** relevant. (40ZG)
- tricia __ DOE interagency counterterrorism office. Daily interagency activity. (40ZH)
- tom russell from Air force office of sci and tech office. (40ZI)
- Brendan godfrey service from same office, air force, $500 million/yr, and two blocks from here (40ZJ)
- Todd Laporte, George Mason policy prof, two blocks ago, formerly OTA, thought well of it, hopes something similar comes back. He may know John Alic and Keith Hennessey. Thinks of public confidence in govt insts. From DOE, quiet voice asian woman. Involved in overseeing__ here to expand her horizons. (40ZK)
- Su__ from NRC, Indian name. new to NRC. In research. See the need for efficient collab across agencies and across his agency which is not all in one location. Seeks to leverage the tools. (40ZL)
- Dan Santos, also from Nuclear Regulator Commission. Workforce challenges (turnover and retirement I assume, he’s not specific) (40ZM)
- Brand Niemann of CIO’s office at EPA. Longtime attendee. Global communities. Wiki allows tagging – semantic community, e-government web 2.0 and 3.0. Federal CIO council. Next version of data reference model. And project with Frederick__ here on global/software as service. (40ZN)
- Alex Tablatt independent consultant. Raised multiple millions from VC some years ago. Thinks about VC as less innovative, more conservative, more short term than in 1970s. VC used to support industrial research labs, long term. Sees that as a problem. Worries about the ability of private capital to responde.g. to climate change. Will need federal policy to move the ball. Wants to make connections along those lines. (40ZO)
- ram? Tech representative in the nitre/mitre program on __ groups. (40ZP)
- __ from operaton arm of the nitre program. Coordinating 13 agencies R&D dollars from 13 agencies. We support this extrernal workshop activity. I went to the Dec 3 george Washington U workshop likes to be here at the follow one. (40ZQ)
- Ladonna __ of military’s fort belvoir. (40ZR)
- Jo Ann Remshard works at NIST with Richard spivak. Cheerful. “Nontraditional librarian”. (40ZS)
- Karen Cohann sci/tech fellow NOAA undersea research program. Seeks cross agency undersea infrastructure collab because that’s expensive. **** (40ZT)
- Danielle Scott. Grad student, now at NARA. Is taking notes and observing this mtg. (40ZU)
- Jerry Jones from federal lab consortium fedlabs.org. 250 members. DOD NIH etc. tryin to move techn from the govt labs into the private sector. Took Dr. Oakley’s philosophy of sci class many years ago can vouch for his interest. (40ZV)
- Jody Roberts of Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia. Coordinates conferences between industrial research and govt research and awareness of history. His area is environmental history and policy. Innov for enviro decision making. And policy (40ZW)
- Ellen Trivonaitis. Local and state economies (40ZX)
- U Wisc extension on loan to __ (AAAS maybe?) (40ZY)
- young person at AAAS sci and tech policy I think (40ZZ)
- Gary Burg-Cross Cog scientist principal investigator or founder of CA&I. (sp?) (meaning??) (4100)
Susan Turnbull is working to support collab wikis on climate change. modeling sites. Thinks of coevolution in the organizing processes. (4101)
Next up will be Julia Lane who will speak regarding the roadmap doc/process (4102)
Julia Lane speaks of the science of science policy. Need per Marburger. He had to recommend allocations but didn’t have adequate metrics; had to operate from anecdotes. Asked for the development of a social science of science policy. In response NSF established a science of sci and tech policy program. Linda Carlson in a statistics office worked on indicators. Lane takes the view that careful measurement and science are needed for this. (4104)
Helsinki meeting, lightfoot and marburger and her co-chair bill valdez . . . (4105)
Ah the password to scienceofsciencepolicy.net is sosp/roadmap or vice versa. (4106)
Valdez and she did a lit review, relevant data review the roadmap. Federal sci policy only. Not allowed to release to public till many agencies concur. 17 agencies. 2 yrs. 3 themes. (4107)
Theme 1 Regarding key findings suggests that fed sci and tech isn’t well enough integrated with “practitioners”. (4108)
Theme two: need to measure the effects of publicly funded sci and tech knowledge. Can we predict discovery? What determines the effectiveness of investment in this area? Finds that agencies are using different approaches, tools, and metrics for this. Some agencies do something mature others do little or are new to it. (4109)
Theme three: impact of science and policy on innovation and “competitiveness”. Should funding decisions be more transparent? Should have a different intellectual property structure? Changed tax policy? More or less money to sci agencies? R&D tax credits? Tax credits for investment into intangibles? Lack of data in all these areas was a real problem. Little has been invested into understanding them. (410A)
Recommendations. Asks us to weigh in on them. Will be synthesizing this. (410B)
4th theme: describe that data infrastructure. Asks for our input. Asks for us to invest in data tools and metrics using the roadmap’s evaluation. (414W)
- !! need stdized counts of interchange like books published. (410C)
The ITG (interagency task group) examined tools and methods and data. (410D)
Purpose of this workshop is to promote this community of practice and get feedback on the roadmap. (410E)
Participants in some related workshops are supposedly here: http://scienceofsciencepolicy.net/uploads/Participant_List.pdf but it doesn’t include me. (410F)
Todd Laporte. asks about “competitiveness” and yes it turns out to be political from Marburger and the President. “The law” is called the “America Competes Act”. Later this is explained more: The "America Competes Act" of 2007 is oriented toward offering more science funding and more accountability for it. (4152)
Lane says please put that in writing. Please! (410G)
[break] (410H)
Karl of GSA – brings up that in diffusion of techns in private sector one of the great predictors of “successful” versus “failed” diffusion is “trust” but trust wasn’t in the roadmap characterization. Julia responds that the roadmap isn’t supposed to answer the questions but (modestly) to organize them. Jim says no problem but please know that trust is central to policy. (410I)
Richard Spivack: when will happen after Jan 20? Julia says she doesn’t know but the transition team is actively present here at NSF. (410J)
Another question, to which Julia responds by saying her/NSF job is to improve the science micro data to help with policy and international comparisons. What we need to have is info about the level of funding to various individuals and understanding of to whom it is distributed (e.g. to which grad students) and to track the future outcomes of this. There is no infrastructure to track this. US R&D funding has dropped since 15 years ago. Should it go back to the previous level? What is our evidence on how much it affects national outcomes and objectives. (410K)
In response to Brand Niemann comments or question Julia says that some agencies are reporting estimates but not micro following of anything. She’s thinking of the $ going to the principal investigators. Stanford annual report years ago mentions Larry Page got funding then went off to start a company. That’s in a .pdf and not databased systematically. She would like to show a database that tracks the students and what they go off to do. We have nothing like that now. (410L)
Todd asks whether this would be analogous to the data that IRS has, and about privacy. Julia says yes it would be similar data but that violations of privacy of government holders of data are punishable by many years in jail. Our job is to recommend a data infrastructure that tracks the dollars and outcomes. We are to address what are the feasible ways to develop such an infrastructure. (410M)
Jody Roberts from Chemical Heritage asks about roadmaps in general. Asks whether road maps are an effective way of doing sci policy; has this been studied? Says it’s been done in the semiconductor industry with green yellow and red but it led to the perpetuation of moore’s law without creativity of changing directions, and implies there was a mistake in there. Julia says the ITG group of which she is a cochair was charged with creating a road map and she doesn’t know about systematic alternatives. (410N)
Regarding theme 1 she suggests looking at the decision tool which is supposed to gather feedback (option 2) or to suggest changes to the questions (option 1). Option 2 is to fill out the form. (410P)