RAPID: Examining the Innovative Ecosystem During the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19疫情的爆发不仅威胁社区的健康和安全，也威胁到为创新生态系统提供必要产品和服务的公司和行业的运营和生存。这场危机对小企业（员工少于500人的公司）的打击尤为严重。对于许多美国小公司来说，获得紧急财政资源，如工资保护计划和联邦和州政府机构提供的可原谅贷款，仍然非常困难。这尤其适用于由少数民族，妇女和退伍军人等代表性不足的群体成员拥有的公司。该项目有两个主要目标，跟踪不同类型的小型高科技公司。首先，我们的目标是了解小型高科技公司在适应这一意想不到的转变和引入旨在对抗COVID-19的创新方面所面临的独特挑战和机遇。第二，我们的目标是评估州和联邦对大流行病的反应，评估它们对推动美国创新的小型高科技公司活动的影响。我们计划建立一个全面和可扩展的全国性数据库，跟踪美国小型高科技公司，这些公司是与流行病应对相关的关键公共卫生技术的当前或潜在供应商。我们将公开这个数据库，以加速广泛的系统研究。我们的结果将包括疫情对小型企业表现影响的详细见解。此外，由此产生的公共数据库和交互式仪表板将使决策者和企业能够发现新的机会，使小型高科技公司能够在大流行病期间发展和提供急需的专门知识和资源。 我们研究了COVID-19大流行对美国创新生态系统的影响。我们专注于小型高科技公司（员工少于500人），包括由代表性不足的群体（少数民族，妇女和退伍军人）成员拥有的公司。小企业是抗击COVID-19的潜在创新来源，但仍然特别容易受到这一流行病带来的前所未有的健康、社会和经济风险的影响。我们有两个主要的研究目标。首先，我们试图描述小型高科技公司因持续的大流行和政策反应而发生的变化。我们将建立一个全面的交互式数据库，以捕捉创新生态系统的时空模式变化。其次，我们试图使用这个数据库进行计量经济学分析，以评估州和联邦流行病政策对小型高科技公司业绩的不同影响。具体交付成果包括：（i）详细的描述性统计数据，以地理精度描述不同行业商业活动集中度的变化;（ii）带有交互式地图的公共仪表板，用于可视化州和行业层面创新生态系统的变化;（iii）公共数据存储库，可访问用于创建可视化工具的所有汇总数据文件;以及（iv）利用国家政策变化的计量经济学模型，以确定这些政策对小企业的因果影响。我们预期的更广泛影响是更清楚地了解创新生态系统的哪些领域最容易受到COVID-19的影响。我们将确定公司层面的特征，这些特征表明哪些公司最具弹性，哪些公司最不具弹性，以及哪些公司最适合协助政府采取应对措施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic not only threatens the health and safety of communities but also the operation and survival of firms and industries that provide essential products and services to the innovative ecosystem. This crisis has hit small businesses (firms with fewer than 500 employees) particularly hard. Obtaining access to emergency financial resources such as the Paycheck Protection Program and forgivable loans offered by federal and state government agencies remains extremely difficult for many U.S. small firms. This holds especially for firms owned by members of underrepresented groups that include minorities, women, and veterans. This project has two primary aims in tracking the different types of small high-tech firms. First, we aim to understand the unique challenges and opportunities that small high-tech firms face in adapting to this unexpected shift and in introducing innovations designed to combat COVID-19. Second, we aim to evaluate state and federal responses to the pandemic by estimating their impacts on the activity of small high-tech firms that drive U.S. innovation. We plan to construct a comprehensive and scalable nationwide database that tracks U.S. small high-tech firms that are current or potential suppliers of critical public heath technologies related to pandemic response. We will make this database publicly available to accelerate broad systematic research. Our results will include detailed insights on the impacts of the pandemic on small business performance. Moreover, the resulting public databases and interactive dashboard will enable policymakers and businesses to identify new opportunities to empower small high-tech firms to grow and supply much needed expertise and resources during the pandemic. We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the U.S. innovative ecosystem. We focus on small high-tech firms (with fewer than 500 employees), including firms owned by members of underrepresented groups (minorities, women, and veterans). Small firms are potential sources of innovation in combating COVID-19, but remain especially vulnerable to the unprecedented health, social, and economic risks arising from this pandemic. We have two primary research aims. First, we seek to characterize changes in the landscape of small high-tech firms resulting from the ongoing pandemic and policy responses. We will build a comprehensive, interactive database to capture shifts in the spatial and temporal patterns of the innovation ecosystem. Second, we seek to use this database for econometric analysis to evaluate the differential impact of state and federal pandemic policies on the performance of small high-tech firms. Specific deliverables include: (i) detailed descriptive statistics characterizing changes in concentrations of business activity in different sectors with geographic precision; (ii) a public dashboard with an interactive map for visualizing changes in the innovative ecosystem at state- and sector-levels; (iii) a public data repository providing access to all aggregated data files used to create our visualization tool; and (iv) econometric models exploiting variation in state policies to determine the causal impacts of these policies on small firms. Our intended broader impact is a clearer picture of which areas of the innovative ecosystem are most susceptible to the effects of COVID-19. We will identify firm-level characteristics that indicate which firms are most and least resilient, as well as those best positioned to assist with government countermeasures against the pandemic. This will illuminate priorities for public and private sector efforts to rebuild innovative activity and allocate support resources more effectively.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.