Collaborative Research: Science Policy Research Report: Government Brokerage of Innovation Networks

合作研究：科学政策研究报告：创新网络的政府经纪

• 批准号: 1735668
• 负责人: Joshua Whitford
• 金额: $ 2.41万
• 依托单位: Columbia University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-07-01 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1735668&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Science; Policy; Report

Federal agencies offer American innovators at least two different sources of support: first, seed money and consulting services that would be all but inaccessible to early stage entrepreneurs at competitive market prices; and second, introductions to potential partners in collaborative networks. Given that innovation demands collaboration as well as competition, the latter contributions are no less important than the former. But they are decidedly less well known and understood. This is partly because federal efforts to build collaborative networks tend to occur early in the process, before innovations come to market and capture the public's imagination; and partly because they are informal, and public officials have an incentive to downplay their informal contributions, which tend to go unmeasured and unrewarded by their agencies, and highlight their formal roles, like offering small firms and start-ups low-cost finance and consulting services. The unintended consequence of this oversight, however, is that federal efforts to build innovation networks are hard to document and duplicate. By evaluating the extent and importance of the federal government's role in network-building, this research report considers the development of new mandates, metrics, and incentives that will encourage beneficial brokerage by public officials, innovation by their private counterparts, and prosperity in the country as a whole. The report draws a distinction between two types of brokers: middlemen, who are paid to transfer goods or services between unrelated parties and thus depend on fees; and catalysts, who build mutually beneficial relationships between unrelated parties free of charge and thus depend on external (e.g., government) support. It gauges the extent and importance of catalyst brokerage in federal innovation institutions by means of a systematic comparison of the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Small Business Innovation Research program, among others. And if offers policy recommendations designed to foster catalyst brokerage, where valuable, at low (or no) cost--including changes to the staffing, programming, and evaluation of federal agencies and programs.

联邦机构为美国的创新者提供至少两种不同的支持来源：第一，种子资金和咨询服务，这是早期创业者几乎无法以具有竞争力的市场价格获得的;第二，介绍合作网络中的潜在合作伙伴。鉴于创新需要合作和竞争，后者的贡献并不亚于前者。但他们显然不太为人所知和理解。这部分是因为联邦建立合作网络的努力往往发生在这个过程的早期，在创新进入市场并抓住公众的想象力之前;还有一部分原因是这些活动是非正式的，公职人员有动机淡化他们的非正式贡献，而这些贡献往往得不到他们的机构的衡量和奖励，并突出他们的正式作用，比如为小公司和初创企业提供低成本的融资和咨询服务。然而，这一疏忽的意外后果是，联邦建立创新网络的努力很难记录和复制。通过评估联邦政府在网络建设中的作用的程度和重要性，本研究报告考虑了新的任务，指标和激励措施的发展，这些措施将鼓励公职人员的有益经纪，私人同行的创新，以及整个国家的繁荣。该报告对两类经纪人进行了区分：中间人，他们在不相关的当事方之间转让货物或服务，因此依赖于费用;催化剂，他们免费在不相关的当事方之间建立互利关系，因此依赖于外部（例如，政府支持。它通过对美国国家科学基金会、美国国立卫生研究院、国家制造创新网络、美国国家标准与技术研究院、国防高级研究计划局和小企业创新研究计划等进行系统比较，衡量催化剂经纪在联邦创新机构中的程度和重要性。此外，《金融时报》还提供了一些政策建议，旨在以低成本（或零成本）促进有价值的催化剂经纪业务，包括改变联邦机构和项目的人员配置、项目规划和评估。