Toward Increasing the Impact of Grand Innovation Prizes: Lessons from the Emergence of an Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Ecosystem

创新奖已成为联邦机构提高公共投资对研发影响的重要工具。例如，最近出现的自动驾驶车辆（AV）归因于美国国防高级研究计划局（DARPA）大挑战竞赛（2004-2007）。然而，人们对创新奖为何以及如何发挥作用来改善与研发相关的技术、教育和商业成果知之甚少。因此，该项目旨在了解负责创新奖影响的具体因素。了解技术、教育和商业影响是如何以及为什么发生的，不仅有助于奖项模型文献，还将产生对创新奖项的建立和有效管理至关重要的见解，提高未来创新奖项竞赛的社会和商业影响。为了实现项目目标，研究团队将实施嵌入式多案例研究设计，这种方法非常适合在不同的分析层次上研究复杂的、相互关联的现象。该研究小组将通过重点访谈来自大学，政府机构，公司和其他参与DARPA大挑战比赛的AV开发组织的个人进行案例研究。该研究还将包括参与AV开发的类似组织的案例研究，这些组织没有参与大挑战。这些案例研究将产生AV发展和影响的主要和竞争对手的理论解释，并通过案例之间的比较，阐明如何以及为什么创新奖的影响发生。除了出版物，项目成果将在一个研讨会上传播，重点是利用大挑战模型来改善少数民族的STEM教育和创业成果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Innovation prizes have become an important tool for federal agencies to improve the impact of public investments in research and development. For example, the recent emergence of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are attributed to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grand challenge competitions (2004-2007). However, there is little understanding of why and how innovation prizes function to improve technology, education, and commercial outcomes associated with research and development. This project thus seeks to understand the specific elements responsible for innovation prize impact. Understanding how and why technological, educational, and commercial impact occurred will not only contribute to the prize model literature, it will also generate insights important to the establishment and effective management of innovation prizes, improving the social and commercial impact of future innovation prize competitions. To fulfill the project goals, the research team will implement an embedded, multiple case study design, an approach well-suited for investigating complex, interconnected phenomena over time, at different levels of analysis. The study team will conduct case studies through focused interviews individuals from universities, government agencies, companies, and other organizations involved in AV development that participated in the DARPA grand challenge competitions. The study will also include case studies of similar organizations involved in AV development that did not participate in the grand challenges. These case studies will generate both primary and rival theoretical explanations of AV development and impact and, through comparison among cases, illuminate how and why innovation prize impact occurred. In the addition to publication, project findings will be disseminated in a workshop focused on the utility of grand challenge models for improving STEM education and entrepreneurship outcomes among minorities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.