Depicting Innovation in Information Technology

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The very success of the industry sectors that produce information technology (IT) and the pervasivenessof IT products and services in daily life can obscure the interacting roles that industry, government, andacademia play in conducting IT research and translating results into new products, services, andindustries. This project will update earlier illustrations of such phenomena such as how much industrybuilds on government-funded university research, the long incubation periods sometimes needed forresearch to be translated into major industry activities, the steady work and funding required to get frominitial exploration to large-scale commercial deployment, the interdependencies between researchadvances in different subfields, and the complex nature of the IT research "ecosystem." This project willalso build on earlier work by adding updated examples of research investments and impacts.A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee will update the "tire tracks"figure published in CSTB's 2012 report Continuing Innovation in Information Technology. Drawing on aliterature review, input from experts, and suggestions solicited from the relevant communities, it willidentify emerging research areas and significant new industries, products, and firms. Using a graphicalapproach similar to that used in 2012, it will depict the interconnections across research areas and withthe creation and evolution of IT industry sectors. It will illustrate the roles of industry, academia, andgovernment in computing innovation and the development of IT products, services, and industries andconsider if and how these roles may have evolved since the last report. In addition to presentingestablished computing research areas and industry sectors, it will also consider emerging candidates inboth categories. A National Academies report will be prepared containing the figure together with areview of lessons learned about the structure and nature of information technology research and itsimpacts. Two derivative products will be prepared: (1) a brochure containing the figure and a summary ofthe report's analysis and (2) a Web interactive infographic that links the figure to more detail on selectedtopics and connections drawn from earlier Academies work and other sources.