Expanding Understanding of the Innovation Process: R&D and Non-R&D Innovation

尽管研发是创新的一项重要投入，但越来越多的证据表明，相当大一部分创新并非诞生于正式的研发活动。鉴于创新对经济增长的重要性，以及创新在政策辩论中的核心作用，该项目将扩大对创新的研究，将非研发创新包括在内，并分析与基于研发的创新相比，非研发创新的驱动因素和结果。该项目包括三个关键部分：对新的和传统的创新指标进行详细的回顾和分析，包括对非研发创新率的估计；对知识环境与创新类型(研发与非研发)之间的关系进行建模和实证检验；以及考察创新类型对参与技术市场意愿的影响，以及发明特质如何影响这种关系。这项研究还涉及科学和创新政策中更基本的问题，即创新过程中知识的性质以及嵌入不同特征的发明的可能结果。更广泛的影响：该项目的目标是扩大对创新的理解，并利用这种更广泛的理解，以发展创新理论，并改善创新政策的经验基础。这些发现将有助于美国国家科学基金会正在进行的开发更复杂的创新措施的努力，并对理解非研发创新和帮助组织建立与知识环境相关的创新战略做出重要贡献。此外，关于按发明类型划分的许可意愿的研究结果可能有助于公司制定更好的战略，将其新技术商业化。一个目标是扩大对创新过程的理解，并建立一个经验基础来指导政策制定，以应对这一更广泛的创新活动，包括建立研发决策、新指标(非研发创新、特质)和创新过程新结果的新模型。

While R&D is an important input to innovation, there is growing evidence that a significant share of innovation is not born from formal R&D activity. Given the importance of innovation for economic growth and the central role of innovation in policy debates, the project will expand the study of innovation to include non-R&D innovations and analyze the drivers and outcomes of non-R&D compared to R&D-based innovations. The project includes three key parts: a detailed review and analysis of new and traditional indicators of innovation, including estimates of the rates of non-R&D innovation; modeling and empirically testing the relation between knowledge environments and innovation type (R&D v. non-R&D); and examining the impact of innovation type on willingness to participate in markets for technology, and how invention idiosyncrasy affects this relationship. The research also addresses more fundamental questions in the science of science and innovation policy on the nature of knowledge in the innovation process and the likely outcomes of inventions embedding different characteristics. Broader Impacts: The project's goal is to broaden the understanding of innovation and leverage this broader understanding in order to develop theories of innovation and improve the empirical foundation for innovation policy. Findings will contribute to ongoing efforts at NSF to develop more sophisticated innovation measures, as well as make important contributions to understandings of non-R&D innovations and helping organizations build their strategies for innovation related to knowledge environments. In addition, the findings on willingness-to-license by invention type may help firms devise better strategies for commercializing their new technologies. One objective is to broaden understanding of the innovation process and build an empirical base to guide policymaking that would address this broader universe of innovative activity, including building new models of the R&D decision, new metrics (non-R&D innovation, idiosyncrasy) and new results on the innovation process.