NIRT: Science and Commercialization NanoBank, Database and Analysis

该项目使用计量经济学方法来评估纳米级科学和技术(纳米S和T；T；)研究以及相关的跨学科研究对公司进入和成功的直接影响，从而对美国经济增长、生活水平和竞争力的影响。研究小组还对纳米S和汇聚领域的扩散和网络进行了科学计量学和制度分析，以及制度对纳米S和学术科学家参与商业化对其科学生产力和教学的相互影响。这些实质性研究解决的问题对于维持对NANO和相关的S公司的长期支持特别重要，本科生、研究生和博士后将通过实际参与以及暑期和学年实习来持续参与这项研究。研究结果将被转化为MBA学员和实践型企业家(包括科学家)的课程。对这些影响的准确和令人信服的分析需要建立一个综合数据库，该数据库将作为名为NanoBank.org的公共、网上部署的数字图书馆(DL)提供。该数据库将有助于进行不同社会科学分析的其他研究人员，以及寻求将投资分配给前景看好的新技术的投资者和公司、试图评估替代政策建议影响的政策制定者，以及能够追踪相关研究的纳米科学家和工程师，例如，关键科学家是一篇文章的作者、专利的发明人、还是一家公司的合作者或高管。纳米银行的用户还可以查询从事碳纳米管特定用途的公司的所有出版物、专利、合作、联盟和股票价格回报，并追踪与参与该用途的每家公司有关的所有纳米S公司的学术出版物和研究拨款。项目数字图书馆专家将解决具有挑战性的数字图书馆技术问题，使NanoBank用户能够在各种数据库中搜索多个质量加权的(例如，根据专利或文章引用或就业增长)字段，并对经常出现的组织和个人的不同名称进行复杂的匹配。该团队在使用计算机和判断相结合的方法进行匹配方面拥有丰富的专业知识，这将加快建设更完全自动化的匹配/搜索系统。与该项目相关的纳米科学和技术专家也对实质性的经济、商业和政策问题感兴趣，纳米银行可能是这些问题的关键，他们愿意提供必要的专家意见，以建立一种方法来跟踪和包括应属于纳米S公司的专利、文章、公司、授权和产品，并评估拟议的商业活动措施。它们提供了获取重要知识的途径，这些知识往往是默许的，并通过在法官一级和在工业中工作来转移。初步的实证结果表明，公司进入纳米技术的地点和时间与高被引用的学术文章、联邦大学研究资金和劳动力质量等地区衡量标准相关。NanoBank将使我们能够对影响公司进入的因素提供更明确的估计，并进一步追踪大学与公司之间的知识流动对公司成功的影响，以及科学家和工程师的商业参与。科学计量学分析可以识别新兴领域并解释纳米S研究中跨学科研究的趋势。这个项目将开始回答有关纳米S研究公共投资的经济基础、有价值的新发现的知识传播的渠道、发现如何改变这些渠道以及哪些机构对这一投资的回报做出贡献等问题。该项目将直接让未来和年轻的社会、物理和生命科学家参与研究将知识转化为有价值的商品和服务的过程。NanoBank的出现将吸引雄心勃勃的社会科学家研究社会影响，比如拥有新探测器的高能物理学家，同时它还有助于在国家纳米技术倡议的其他研究领域工作的科学家的发现。这项纳米级跨学科研究团队(NIRT)的提案是应“纳米科学与工程”(NSF 02-148)的邀请提交的。它得到了社会、行为和经济科学局(SBE)、计算机科学和工程局(CEISE)、工程局(ENG)以及数学和物理科学局(MPS)的支持。MPS的三个部门共同发起了这项工作：数学科学、物理和材料研究。

This project uses econometric methods to estimate the impact of nanoscale science and technology (nano S&T) research, and associated interdisciplinary research, directly on firms' entry and success and hence on U.S. economic growth, standard of living, and competitiveness. The research team also performs scientometric and institutional analyses of diffusion and networks in nano S&T and converging fields, and the reciprocal effects of institutions on nano S&T and of academic scientists' involvement in commercialization on their scientific productivity and teaching. These substantive studies address issues that are particularly important to sustaining long-term support of nano and associated S&T. Undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students will be engaged in this research continuously, through hands-on participation and summer and academic-year internships. Results of the research will be translated into courses for MBAs and practicing entrepreneurs, including scientists. Accurate and convincing analysis of these impacts requires building an integrated database, which will be made available as a public, web-deployed digital library (DL) called NanoBank.org. The database will be useful to other researchers pursuing different social-science analyses, as well as investors and firms seeking to allocate investment to promising new technologies, policymakers attempting to assess the effects of alternative policy proposals, and nano scientists and engineers, who will be able to trace relevant research, for instance, whether a key scientist is author of an article, inventor on a patent, or collaborator or officer of a firm. A NanoBank user might also seek all publications, patents, collaborations, alliances, and stock-price returns of firms working, say, on a particular use of carbon nanotubes and trace all academic publications and research grants in nano S& T tied to each firm involved in that use. The project DL experts will solve challenging technical DL problems to enable NanoBank users to search multiple and quality-weighted (e.g., by patent or article citations or employment growth) fields across a variety of databases, with sophisticated matching of variant names of frequently appearing organizations and individuals. The team is rich in expertise in carrying out matches using combined computer and judgment methods that will accelerate the construction of more fully automated matching/search systems. Nanoscience and technology experts affiliated with the project are also interested in the substantive economic, business, and policy questions for which NanoBank can be the key and are willing to provide the expert input necessary to build a methodology for tracking and including patents, articles, firms, grants, and products that should fall within nano S&T and to assess proposed measures of business activity. They provide access to important knowledge that is often tacit and transferred by working at the bench level and in industry. Preliminary empirical results show that where and when firms enter nanotechnology correlates with regional measures of highly cited academic articles, federal research funding to universities, and labor force quality. NanoBank will enable us to provide more definitive estimates of the factors affecting firm entry and furthermore trace the effects of university-to-firm knowledge flows on firm success, and of commercial participation on scientists and engineers. Scientometric analysis can identify emerging fields and explain trends in cross-discipline research in nano S& T. This project will begin to answer questions about the economic retum to public investment in nano S& T research, the channels that knowledge of valuable new discoveries travels, how discoveries alter these channels, and what institutions contribute to returns on this investment. The project will directly involve future and young social, physical, and life scientists in research on the processes which convert knowledge into valuable goods and services. NanoBank's availability will attract ambitious social scientists to study of societal impacts, like high-energy physicists with a new detector, while it also facilitates discovery by scientists working in other research areas of the National Nanotechnology Initiative.This Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) proposal was submitted in response to the solicitation "Nanoscale Science and Engineering" (NSF 02-148). It is being supported by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), the Directorate for Computer Science and Engineering (CISE), the Directorate for Engineering (ENG), and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS). Three divisions in MPS are co-sponsoring this effort: Mathematical Sciences, Physics, and Materials Research.