Innovation Inducement Prizes at the National Science Foundation
Innovation Inducement Prizes at the National Science Foundation

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2007-04-21

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13: 0309104653

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Following a congressional directive in its FY 2006 Appropriations Act, the National Science Foundation asked the STEP Board to "propose a plan for administering prizes to individuals or teams that achieve novel solutions to specified social or research needs or capitalize on recognized research opportunities." A committee under the STEP Board concluded that an ambitious program of innovation inducement prize contests would be a sound investment in strengthening the infrastructure for U.S. innovation and that NSF, although inexperienced, is well suited to designing an experimental program that could add substantially to understanding regarding the appropriate goals of such contests, the motivations of participants and sponsors, and the rules and conditions that contribute to successful contests. The committee recommends that NSF start off with a series of small-scale prizes ($200K - $2M) in diverse areas while beginning to plan for much more ambitious contests ($3M-$30M) that would address significant economic or social challenges and be conducted over several years. The report addresses many of the generic issues that arise in administering innovation prize contests (types of contests, eligibility to participate, disposition of intellectual property rights, and decisions regarding awards) and explores 7 research and technology fields that might lend themselves to prize contests.

Strategic Planning for the Florida Citrus Industry
Strategic Planning for the Florida Citrus Industry

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2010-04-15

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0309153352

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Citrus greening, a disease that reduces yield, compromises the flavor, color, and size of citrus fruit and eventually kills the citrus tree, is now present in all 34 Floridian citrus-producing counties. Caused by an insect-spread bacterial infection, the disease reduced citrus production in 2008 by several percent and continues to spread, threatening the existence of Florida's $9.3 billion citrus industry. A successful citrus greening response will focus on earlier detection of diseased trees, so that these sources of new infections can be removed more quickly, and on new methods to control the insects that carry the bacteria. In the longerterm, technologies such as genomics could be used to develop new citrus strains that are resistant to both the bacteria and the insect.

Inventing Ideas
Inventing Ideas

Author: B. Zorina Khan

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 019093607X

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"This books shows how and why the ideas of creative individuals promote progress. The insights are based on original archival research regarding over one hundred thousand inventors, patented inventions, and innovation prizes in Europe and the United States during industrialization. This systematic empirical analysis across time and place and institutions provides an extensive microfoundation for understanding technological change and long-run macroeconomic growth. British and French policies favoured "administered innovation systems," in which elites, administrators or panels made key economic decisions about inducement prizes, rewards and the allocation of resources. European institutions generated returns that were misaligned with economic value and productivity, and perpetuated socioeconomic inequality. Europe fell behind when the negative consequences of such top-down administered systems accumulated and reduced comparative advantage. The modern knowledge economy emerged when, for the first time in world history, an intellectual property clause was included in a national Constitution, in the United States. This strong endorsement for open-access property rights and unfettered markets in ideas reflected a revolution in thinking about the sources of creativity and technical progress. U.S. global industrial ascendancy was a direct outcome of its decentralized market-oriented institutions, which fostered diversity in ideas and innovations, the diffusion of information and disruptive technologies, and sustained endogenous growth"--

The Power of Change
The Power of Change

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2016-09-30

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 0309371422

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Electricity, supplied reliably and affordably, is foundational to the U.S. economy and is utterly indispensable to modern society. However, emissions resulting from many forms of electricity generation create environmental risks that could have significant negative economic, security, and human health consequences. Large-scale installation of cleaner power generation has been generally hampered because greener technologies are more expensive than the technologies that currently produce most of our power. Rather than trade affordability and reliability for low emissions, is there a way to balance all three? The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Energy Technologies considers how to speed up innovations that would dramatically improve the performance and lower the cost of currently available technologies while also developing new advanced cleaner energy technologies. According to this report, there is an opportunity for the United States to continue to lead in the pursuit of increasingly clean, more efficient electricity through innovation in advanced technologies. The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Energy Technologies makes the case that America's advantagesâ€"world-class universities and national laboratories, a vibrant private sector, and innovative states, cities, and regions that are free to experiment with a variety of public policy approachesâ€"position the United States to create and lead a new clean energy revolution. This study focuses on five paths to accelerate the market adoption of increasing clean energy and efficiency technologies: (1) expanding the portfolio of cleaner energy technology options; (2) leveraging the advantages of energy efficiency; (3) facilitating the development of increasing clean technologies, including renewables, nuclear, and cleaner fossil; (4) improving the existing technologies, systems, and infrastructure; and (5) leveling the playing field for cleaner energy technologies. The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Energy Technologies is a call for leadership to transform the United States energy sector in order to both mitigate the risks of greenhouse gas and other pollutants and to spur future economic growth. This study's focus on science, technology, and economic policy makes it a valuable resource to guide support that produces innovation to meet energy challenges now and for the future.

Capturing Change in Science, Technology, and Innovation
Capturing Change in Science, Technology, and Innovation

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2014-08-25

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 0309297478

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Since the 1950s, under congressional mandate, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) - through its National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) and predecessor agencies - has produced regularly updated measures of research and development expenditures, employment and training in science and engineering, and other indicators of the state of U.S. science and technology. A more recent focus has been on measuring innovation in the corporate sector. NCSES collects its own data on science, technology, and innovation (STI) activities and also incorporates data from other agencies to produce indicators that are used for monitoring purposes - including comparisons among sectors, regions, and with other countries - and for identifying trends that may require policy attention and generate research needs. NCSES also provides extensive tabulations and microdata files for in-depth analysis. Capturing Change in Science, Technology, and Innovation assesses and provides recommendations regarding the need for revised, refocused, and newly developed indicators of STI activities that would enable NCSES to respond to changing policy concerns. This report also identifies and assesses both existing and potential data resources and tools that NCSES could exploit to further develop its indicators program. Finally, the report considers strategic pathways for NCSES to move forward with an improved STI indicators program. The recommendations offered in Capturing Change in Science, Technology, and Innovation are intended to serve as the basis for a strategic program of work that will enhance NCSES's ability to produce indicators that capture change in science, technology, and innovation to inform policy and optimally meet the needs of its user community.

Improving Measures of Science, Technology, and Innovation
Improving Measures of Science, Technology, and Innovation

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2012-02-17

Total Pages: 77

ISBN-13: 0309253926

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The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), at the U.S. National Foundation, is 1 of 14 major statistical agencies in the federal government, of which at least 5 collect relevant information on science, technology, and innovation activities in the United States and abroad. The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 expanded and codified NCSES's role as a U.S. federal statistical agency. Important aspects of the agency's mandate include collection, acquisition, analysis, and reporting and dissemination of data on research and development trends, on U.S. competitiveness in science, technology, and research and development, and on the condition and progress of U.S. science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Improving Measures of Science, Technology and Innovation: Interim Report examines the status of the NCSES's science, technology, and innovation (STI) indicators. This report assesses and provides recommendations regarding the need for revised, refocused, and newly developed indicators designed to better reflect fundamental and rapid changes that are reshaping global science, technology and innovation systems. The book also determines the international scope of STI indicators and the need for developing new indicators that measure developments in innovative activities in the United States and abroad, and Offers foresight on the types of data, metrics and indicators that will be particularly influential in evidentiary policy decision-making for years to come. In carrying out its charge, the authoring panel undertook a broad and comprehensive review of STI indicators from different countries, including Japan, China, India and several countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Improving Measures of Science, Technology, and Innovation makes recommendations for near-term action by NCSES along two dimensions: (1) development of new policy-relevant indicators that are based on NCSES survey data or on data collections at other statistical agencies; and (2) exploration of new data extraction and management tools for generating statistics, using automated methods of harvesting unstructured or scientometric data and data derived from administrative records.

Fostering Learning in the Networked World
Fostering Learning in the Networked World

Author: Christine L. Borgman

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 2011-05

Total Pages: 64

ISBN-13: 1437925804

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Provides a 21st Century Agenda for the Nat. Science Found. (NSF). Contents: (1) Intro.: Why Cyberlearning and Why Now?; (2) Background: How We Got Here and Why Now; (3) Strategies for Building a Cyberlearning Infrastructure; (4) Opportunities for Action; (5) Recommendations: NSF NSDL and ITEST Programs: Cyberlearning and the Evolving National STEM Digital Library (NSDL); Cyberlearning and the Evolving ITEST Program; (6) Summary Recommendations; Help Build a Vibrant Cyberlearning Field by Promoting Cross-Disciplinary Communities of Cyberlearning Researchers and Practitioner; Adopt Programs and Policies to Promote Open Educational Resources. Charts and tables. This is a print on demand report.

Federally Funded Innovation Inducement Prizes
Federally Funded Innovation Inducement Prizes

Author: Deborah D. Stine

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 2009-12

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 143791991X

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Contents: (1) What are the Different Kinds of Prizes?; (2) What is the Status of Federally-Funded Innovation Inducement Prizes?: DoD Wearable Power Prize; DARPA Grand Challenges; DoE Grand Challenges; Progressive Auto. X PRIZE; Amer. Le Mans Series Green Challenge Race; NASA Centennial Challenges: Astronaut Glove Challenge; General Aviation Technology; Lunar Regolith Excavation Challenge; Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge; Power Beaming and Tether; Lunar Oxygen Production or MoonROx; NASA Assessment of Program; Future Competitions; Biomed. Advanced R&D Authority Project BioShield; (3) What Policy Options Might Members of Congress Consider?: Create New Prizes; Modify Current Prize Programs.