NIRT: Science and Commercialization NanoBank, Database and Analysis

该项目使用计量经济学方法来评估纳米科学技术（纳米S&amp；T）研究以及相关跨学科研究对企业进入和成功的直接影响，从而对美国经济增长、生活水平和竞争力产生影响。研究小组还对纳米科技和聚合领域的扩散和网络进行了科学计量学和制度分析，并对纳米科技的机构和学术科学家参与商业化对其科学生产力和教学的相互影响进行了分析。这些实质性的研究解决了对维持纳米和相关技术的长期支持特别重要的问题。本科生、研究生和博士后将通过亲身参与和暑期及学年实习的方式持续从事这项研究。研究结果将转化为mba和实践企业家（包括科学家）的课程。对这些影响进行准确和令人信服的分析需要建立一个综合数据库，该数据库将作为一个公共的、网络部署的数字图书馆（DL）提供，名为NanoBank.org。该数据库将对其他从事不同社会科学分析的研究人员、寻求将投资分配给有前途的新技术的投资者和公司、试图评估替代政策建议的影响的政策制定者以及纳米科学家和工程师有用，他们将能够追踪相关研究，例如，一个关键科学家是一篇文章的作者、一项专利的发明者、还是一个公司的合作者或官员。NanoBank的用户还可以查找研究碳纳米管特定用途的公司的所有出版物、专利、合作、联盟和股票价格回报，并跟踪与该用途相关的每个公司有关的纳米技术的所有学术出版物和研究资助。该项目的深度学习专家将解决具有挑战性的技术深度学习问题，使NanoBank用户能够在各种数据库中搜索多个和质量加权（例如，通过专利或文章引用或就业增长）领域，并对频繁出现的组织和个人的变体名称进行复杂的匹配。该团队在使用计算机和判断相结合的方法进行匹配方面拥有丰富的专业知识，这将加速构建更全自动的匹配/搜索系统。该项目的纳米科学和技术专家也对实质性的经济、商业和政策问题感兴趣，纳米银行可以成为这些问题的关键，他们愿意提供必要的专家意见，以建立一种方法来跟踪和包括专利、文章、公司、赠款和产品，这些都应该属于纳米标准和技术，并评估拟议的商业活动措施。它们提供了获取重要知识的途径，这些知识通常是隐性的，并且是通过在工作台级别和工业中工作而传递的。初步的实证结果表明，企业进入纳米技术领域的地点和时间与高被引学术文章、联邦政府对大学的研究资助和劳动力质量的地区指标相关。纳米银行将使我们能够对影响企业进入的因素提供更明确的估计，并进一步追踪大学到企业的知识流动对企业成功的影响，以及商业参与对科学家和工程师的影响。科学计量学分析可以识别新兴领域，并解释纳米材料跨学科研究的趋势。该项目将开始回答有关纳米材料研究公共投资的经济回报的问题，有价值的新发现的知识传播的渠道，发现如何改变这些渠道，以及哪些机构对这种投资的回报做出了贡献。该项目将直接涉及未来和年轻的社会、物理和生命科学家，研究将知识转化为有价值的商品和服务的过程。NanoBank的可用性将吸引雄心勃勃的社会科学家来研究社会影响，就像拥有新探测器的高能物理学家一样，同时它也促进了在国家纳米技术计划的其他研究领域工作的科学家的发现。这个纳米尺度跨学科研究小组（NIRT）的提案是响应“纳米尺度科学与工程”（NSF 02-148）的征集而提交的。它得到了社会、行为和经济科学理事会（SBE）、计算机科学和工程理事会（CISE）、工程理事会（ENG）和数学和物理科学理事会（MPS）的支持。MPS的三个部门共同赞助了这项工作：数学科学、物理和材料研究。

This project uses econometric methods to estimate the impact of nanoscale science and technology (nano S&T) research, and associated interdisciplinary research, directly on firms' entry and success and hence on U.S. economic growth, standard of living, and competitiveness. The research team also performs scientometric and institutional analyses of diffusion and networks in nano S&T and converging fields, and the reciprocal effects of institutions on nano S&T and of academic scientists' involvement in commercialization on their scientific productivity and teaching. These substantive studies address issues that are particularly important to sustaining long-term support of nano and associated S&T. Undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students will be engaged in this research continuously, through hands-on participation and summer and academic-year internships. Results of the research will be translated into courses for MBAs and practicing entrepreneurs, including scientists. Accurate and convincing analysis of these impacts requires building an integrated database, which will be made available as a public, web-deployed digital library (DL) called NanoBank.org. The database will be useful to other researchers pursuing different social-science analyses, as well as investors and firms seeking to allocate investment to promising new technologies, policymakers attempting to assess the effects of alternative policy proposals, and nano scientists and engineers, who will be able to trace relevant research, for instance, whether a key scientist is author of an article, inventor on a patent, or collaborator or officer of a firm. A NanoBank user might also seek all publications, patents, collaborations, alliances, and stock-price returns of firms working, say, on a particular use of carbon nanotubes and trace all academic publications and research grants in nano S& T tied to each firm involved in that use. The project DL experts will solve challenging technical DL problems to enable NanoBank users to search multiple and quality-weighted (e.g., by patent or article citations or employment growth) fields across a variety of databases, with sophisticated matching of variant names of frequently appearing organizations and individuals. The team is rich in expertise in carrying out matches using combined computer and judgment methods that will accelerate the construction of more fully automated matching/search systems. Nanoscience and technology experts affiliated with the project are also interested in the substantive economic, business, and policy questions for which NanoBank can be the key and are willing to provide the expert input necessary to build a methodology for tracking and including patents, articles, firms, grants, and products that should fall within nano S&T and to assess proposed measures of business activity. They provide access to important knowledge that is often tacit and transferred by working at the bench level and in industry. Preliminary empirical results show that where and when firms enter nanotechnology correlates with regional measures of highly cited academic articles, federal research funding to universities, and labor force quality. NanoBank will enable us to provide more definitive estimates of the factors affecting firm entry and furthermore trace the effects of university-to-firm knowledge flows on firm success, and of commercial participation on scientists and engineers. Scientometric analysis can identify emerging fields and explain trends in cross-discipline research in nano S& T. This project will begin to answer questions about the economic retum to public investment in nano S& T research, the channels that knowledge of valuable new discoveries travels, how discoveries alter these channels, and what institutions contribute to returns on this investment. The project will directly involve future and young social, physical, and life scientists in research on the processes which convert knowledge into valuable goods and services. NanoBank's availability will attract ambitious social scientists to study of societal impacts, like high-energy physicists with a new detector, while it also facilitates discovery by scientists working in other research areas of the National Nanotechnology Initiative.This Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) proposal was submitted in response to the solicitation "Nanoscale Science and Engineering" (NSF 02-148). It is being supported by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), the Directorate for Computer Science and Engineering (CISE), the Directorate for Engineering (ENG), and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS). Three divisions in MPS are co-sponsoring this effort: Mathematical Sciences, Physics, and Materials Research.