CAREER: Rethinking National Innovation Systems -- Economic Downturns, Offshoring, and the Global Evolution of Technology

在过去的十年中，美国的创新生态系统一再遭受全系统的冲击。这些冲击的范围从互联网泡沫破裂，到新一波离岸外包，再到最近汽车和金融行业的崩溃。虽然过去的研究关注的是此类危机对就业或美国经济的个别部分的影响，但它未能关注此类冲击如何改变全球生产活动轨迹、技术轨迹和国家的比较优势。智力价值：本研究展示了2000年3月电信泡沫的破裂是如何影响美国和国际创新的数量、方向和轨迹的。研究重点是光子学的创新，这是一种通用技术，不仅对电信行业的发展至关重要，而且对能源、生物技术、传感、成像、计算和军事应用也至关重要。本研究回答了五个问题：(1)离岸外包如何影响美国公司的研发轨迹？(2)如果离岸公司放弃对新技术的研发，个人发明者是否会在美国的其他机构继续对这些新技术进行研究？(3)其他国家的创新体系，如日本的创新体系，是否具有更强的抗冲击能力？(4)离岸公司所在国的替代性生产经济和体制环境是否会导致这些国家出现新的技术轨迹？(5)在经济低迷时期，美国发明家的个人特征如何影响他们的职业轨迹？该教育计划制定了新的课程，以培养新一代的大学毕业生和政策分析师在分析工具。更广泛的影响：在金融和工业危机期间，政策往往侧重于应对失业或为企业或工业提供救助，而不是对更广泛的创新生态系统的长期影响。这项综合研究和教育计划为政策制定者提供了洞察美国创新生态系统的哪些方面最受经济衰退的影响，哪些技术最容易受到离岸外包的影响，以及如何在此类危机中增强国家比较优势。

Over the past decade, the United States (U.S.) innovation ecosystem has repeatedly been subjected to system-wide shocks. These shocks have ranged from the dot-com bubble burst, to new waves of off-shoring to the recent meltdowns in the automotive and financial sectors. While past research has looked at the impact of such crises on jobs or discrete sections of the U.S. economy, it has failed to look at how such shocks may change the global locus of productive activity, technology trajectories, and the comparative advantage of nations. Intellectual Merit: This research demonstrates how the burst of the telecommunications bubble in March 2000 affected the quantity, direction, and locus of innovation both in the U.S. and internationally. The research focuses on innovation in photonics, a general purpose technology central to growth not only in the telecommunication industry, but also in energy, biotechnology, sensing, imaging, computing and military applications. This research answers five questions: (1) How does off-shoring impact the research and development (R&D) trajectories of U.S. firms? (2) If off-shoring firms abandon R&D in new technologies, do individual inventors continue their research efforts in those new technologies in other institutions still in the U.S.? (3) Do alternative national innovation systems, such as Japan's, have greater resilience to such shocks? (4) Do the alternative production economics and institutional environments in the developing nations hosting the off-shoring firms lead to new technology trajectories in those nations? (5) How do the characteristics of individual U.S. inventors affect their career trajectories during economic downturns? The education plan develops a new curriculum to train a new generation of university graduates and policy analysts in analytic tools. Broader Impact: During times of financial and industrial crisis, policies often focus on responding to job loss or providing firm or industrial bailouts, rather than the long-term impact on the broader innovation ecosystem. This integrated research and education plan provides policy-makers with insights into what aspects of the U.S. innovation ecosystem are most affected by economic downturns, what technologies are most susceptible to off-shoring, and how to bolster national comparative advantage during such crises.