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行业建立了领导地位。但在未来几十年，美国的科学和工程研究可能会在全球舞台上的许多强大参与者中占据一席之地。欧洲、日本和韩国已经是国际研发强国，中国、印度、巴西和南非正在迅速扩大能力。在这种情况下，监控世界研究前沿并从其他国家吸收研究知识的能力对美国来说比以往任何时候都更加重要。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发联系密切。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给美国研究人员及其合作者带来的好处。存在几种国际合作模式，包括非正式与正式以及小科学与大科学。为了更好地了解在这些模式下合作的好处，这项研究聚焦于生物燃料和材料科学这两个领域。为了比较非正式模型和正式模型，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，在材料科学方面，散裂中子源用户计划的开始)。此外，这些例子允许在正式合作计划开始之前和之后对小科学领域和大科学项目进行检查。该研究计划利用了基于文献和资金的数据、访谈和调查。这项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。它还有助于比较设计。访谈数据将干预措施的参与者与同一研究领域的其他国际合作者进行比较，第二次数据和调查数据提供了干预前和干预期间这些研究领域的一般合作模式的比较信息。通过之前-之后、参与者-非参与者、南北和美国-合作伙伴的比较，确定了国际研究合作的各种维度的来源、收益、成本和障碍。还探讨了利益是否互惠，纳入初级研究人员是否会随着时间的推移带来累积利益，以及正在调查的两种类型的项目是否具有不同的影响等问题。该项目将为教学、培训和学习做出贡献，让佐治亚理工学院的研究生和本科生参与研究的每个阶段，用三种不同的方法给他们提供实践培训。学生团队将在性别和种族方面多样化，两名高级调查人员都是女性。该项目通过对一名团队成员进行论文研究，加强了佐治亚理工学院和哥伦比亚之间的科学和创新政策网络。这些成果将在学术界和政策性受众中广泛传播，并将通过提供有关有效合作模式的信息，有助于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.