MOD: Models of International Research Collaboration

随着世界研究能力的迅速扩大，美国的科学和工程企业发现自己处于一个新的位置。几十年来，美国在科学和工程研究方面的主导地位帮助美国在信息和生物技术等新兴产业中建立了领导地位。但美国的科学和工程研究很可能在未来几十年内在全球舞台上占据一席之地。欧洲、日本和韩国已经是研发领域的国际强国，中国、印度、巴西和南非也在迅速扩大其能力。在这种情况下，监控世界研究前沿和吸收其他国家研究知识的能力对美国来说比以往任何时候都重要。美国的创新将在一个开放的信息环境中蓬勃发展，在这个环境中，我们与世界其他地区的研究和开发联系紧密。许多因素将有助于美国研究的吸收能力。国际合作当然是其中之一。该项目探讨了国际合作对美国研究人员及其合作者的好处。国际合作有几种模式，包括非正式与正式，小科学与大科学。为了仔细研究在这些模式下合作的好处，本研究侧重于两个领域，生物燃料和材料科学。为了比较非正式和正式模式，在2007年鼓励国际合作的正式政策干预之前和之后，对每个领域进行了检查（在生物燃料方面，美国-巴西乙醇协议和材料科学中的Spiral中子源用户程序的开始）。此外，这些例子允许检查一个小的科学领域和一个大的科学项目在正式的合作计划开始之前和之后的时期。研究计划借鉴了文献和基金为基础的数据，访谈和调查。该研究通过其丰富的方法组合和对合作结果的实证关注，为国际研究合作的文献做出了贡献。它也有助于比较设计。访谈数据将干预措施的参与者与相同研究领域的其他国际合作者进行了比较，次级数据和调查数据提供了干预措施之前和干预措施期间这些研究领域合作一般模式的比较信息。通过之前-之后，参与者-非参与者，南北和美国-伙伴比较，来源，利益，成本和障碍的各种方面的国际研究合作的确定。 问题，如利益是否是相互的，是否包括初级研究人员带来的累积效益随着时间的推移，以及是否有不同的影响下调查的两种类型的程序也进行了探讨。该项目将有助于教学，培训和学习，涉及研究生和本科生在格鲁吉亚理工学院在研究的每一个阶段，给他们动手训练三种不同的方法。学生团队将在性别和种族方面多样化，两位高级研究员都是女性。该项目通过一名团队成员的论文研究，加强了格鲁吉亚理工学院和哥伦比亚之间的科学和创新政策网络。研究结果将向学术界和政策受众广泛传播，并将通过提供关于有效合作模式的信息，促进更快地推动全球创新。

As world research capacity expands rapidly, the United States science and engineering enterprise finds itself in a new position. Decades of U.S. dominance in science and engineering research helped create U.S. leadership in emerging industries such as information and biotechnology. But U.S. science and engineering research are likely in coming decades to take their place among many strong players on a global scene. Europe, Japan and Korea are already international powers in research and development, and China, India, Brazil, and South Africa are rapidly expanding their capabilities. Under these circumstances, the capacity to monitor the world research front and absorb research knowledge from other countries is more important than ever for the United States. Innovation in the U.S. will thrive best in an open information environment in which our ties to the rest of world research and development are strong. Many factors will contribute to the absorptive capacity of U.S. research. International collaboration is certainly one. This project explores the benefits of international collaboration for U.S. researchers and their collaborators. Several models for international collaboration exist, including informal versus formal and small versus big science. In order to take a close look at the benefits of collaboration under these models, this study focuses on two fields, bio-fuels and materials science. To compare informal with formal models, an examination is done of each area before and after a formal policy intervention in 2007 that encourages international collaboration (in bio-fuels the U.S.-Brazil ethanol agreement and in materials science the start of the user program at the Spallation Neutron Source). In addition, these examples allow examination of both a small science area and a big science project in the periods before and after a formal collaboration program starts. The research plan draws on literature- and funding-based data, interviews and a survey. The research contributes to the literature on international research collaboration through its rich mix of methods and its empirical focus on results of the collaborations. It also contributes with comparative design. The interview data compares participants in the interventions with other international collaborators in the same research areas and the secondary and survey data provides comparative information on general patterns of collaboration in those research areas, both before and during the intervention. Through before-after, participant-non-participant, North-South, and U.S.-partner comparisons, sources, benefits, costs, and barriers of a variety of dimensions of international research collaboration are identified. Questions such as whether benefits are mutual, whether the inclusion of junior researchers brings cumulative benefits over time, and whether the two types of programs under investigation have different effects are also explored. The project will contribute to teaching, training, and learning by involving graduate and undergraduate students at Georgia Tech in every stage of the research, giving them hands-on training in three different methods. The student team will be diverse in terms of both gender and ethnicity, and both senior investigators are women. The project strengthens science and innovation policy networks between Georgia Tech and Colombia by following through on dissertation research of a team member. The results will be disseminated broadly with both scholarly and policy audiences, and will contribute to moving global innovation forward more quickly by providing information on models of effective collaboration.