Government as entrepreneur: Evaluating the commercialization success of SBIR projects

Thinking of government as entrepreneur is a unique lens through which to view a subset of government actions. The lens is not a template for an evaluation of government policy; rather, it is a characterization that underscores the government's purposeful intent, ability to act in new and innovative ways, and willingness to undertake policy actions that have uncertain outcomes. Our focus is on the U.S. Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. We argue that the innovative action of government - the innovative use of public resources through the SBIR program to target and support research in small firms - does lessen innovation barriers that cause small firms to underinvest in R&D. However, this government action is subject to entrepreneurial risk, namely the a priori uncertainty that the funded research will result in a commercialized product, process, or service. We quantify the uncertainty that the government accepts in the context of innovation supported by the SBIR program; or stated alternatively, we quantify the probability that a project funded by the SBIR program will fail to commercialize its results. Our empirical results show that the entrepreneurial risk that characterizes the SBIR program is, on average, somewhat more than the probability of failing to get heads on the toss of a fair coin. Importantly, however, our evidence shows that there is a large range in the entrepreneurial risk that the government accepts—across the projects, the predicted probability of failure covers essentially the entire range from 0 to 1.0.     

Internal and external discipline: The effect of project leadership and government monitoring on the performance of publicly funded R&D consortia

R&D consortia have been regarded as an effective means of promoting innovation. Several R&D consortia obtain public financial support, which may affect their governance structure and performance. This study investigates the governance mechanisms of publicly funded R&D consortia and their effects on innovation performance. Few studies have empirically addressed the effect of project monitoring by the government or the role of project leadership in R&D consortia. Focusing on a major support program for R&D consortia in Japan and using a sample of 251 firms that participated in publicly funded R&D consortia from 2004 to 2009, we empirically confirm that to enhance firms’ innovation performance, both project leadership as internal discipline and government monitoring as external discipline matter. Our results show that project leadership directly improves firms’ innovation performance, while firms’ commitment indirectly affects performance. Project leadership and government monitoring also promote commitment. Furthermore, both factors are complementary: consortia members are more willing to accept a project leader’s coordination under stricter government monitoring.     

In the eyes of the beholder: The effect of participant diversity on perceived merits of collaborative innovations

Technological innovations often involve collaboration among firms from diverse industries. Existing literature has largely viewed participant diversity as a conduit for non-redundant information or complementary resources, thereby affecting the ex-post outcomes of innovation projects. However, it is seldom examined how projects are initially evaluated during the resource competition stage. In this study, we develop a theory of diversity as a cognitive primer, asking how collaborators from diverse backgrounds may affect external reviewers’ ex-ante evaluation of potential merits of an innovation project. We argue that there are two logics at work in the process of evaluating innovations: the logic of technological advancement and the logic of market value. When an innovation project involves firms from diverse industries, it may be perceived as having a fuzzier market identity, hence making it less appealing to reviewers who hold with the strong market value logic. However, the penalty associated with participant diversity should be less pronounced among reviewers who hold the technological advancement logic. We also expect the relationship between participant diversity and reviewers’ ratings to be moderated by project novelty and fuzziness of technology category. We find support for our hypotheses with a sample of collaborative innovation projects funded by the Advanced Technology Program of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.     

日本经产省项目立项评估程序、指标及其启示

政府资助的产业技术研发项目对推动国家产业技术创新,提高国家科技竞争力具有重要作用。如何科学遴选符合国家目标的优秀项目,合理分配和优化科技资源、强化项目过程管理是世界科技管理部门都非常关注的重要议题。本文在阐述、分析日本经济产业省大型研发项目立项评估程序、方法及指标体系的基础上,提出了加强和完善我国国家科技重大专项项目管理的相关建议。     

广东省自然科学基金资助项目成果管理现状、问题及对策建议

成果管理是项目中后期管理中非常重要的部分,广东省自然科学基金通过多年来的管理实践,在项目申报、评审、立项等方面已经建立起一套比较完整的管理体系,但是作为中后期管理阶段的成果管理相比之下却非常薄弱。本文通过对广东省自然科学基金资助项目成果管理现状的分析,结合广东省自然科学基金管理工作的实际情况,针对性地分析广东省自然科学基金资助项目成果管理的主要问题,并提出思路和发展对策,为基金资助项目成果管理模式创新提供新思路。     

基于集成学习的科研计划项目绩效预测研究

提出基于集成学习的项目绩效预测方法,利用多分类集成监督学习算法,对网络爬虫得到的已结题项目数据中隐含的关于项目绩效的信息进行有效挖掘,形成项目绩效预测模型.基于国家自然科学基金项目数据,利用多种指标对模型的性能进行评估,将模型对项目的绩效预测结果与专家的评估结果进行比较,结果显示模型的有效性.     

稳定拨款与项目资助的资助差异性研究——基于2009-2018日本化学领域资助产出的数据分析

稳定拨款与项目资助是政府科研资助的两种主要模式。科学分析两种资助模式的差异性,对合理设计政府科研资助机制具有重要意义。本文以日本化学领域2009-2018年,稳定拨款与项目资助的产出所蕴含的多维科研活动特征信息为对象,从研究团队、研究内容、研究产出绩效三个维度入手构建了科研要素视角下的资助差异性分析框架。方法上,引入了深度学习算法,建立了针对化学领域的研究对象实体识别训练模型,实现了对研究对象实体的精准识别,为资助差异性的分析提供了事实基础。数据分析结果显示,稳定拨款与项目资助在多个维度均具有显著的差异性,稳定拨款资助下的科研活动更关注于研究问题本身,而项目资助下的科研活动则更多地体现了科学共同体对项目遴选的标准。结合数据分析结论,研究提出了应科学认识两种资助模式的差异性,合理布局、扬长避短,建立高效的政府科研资助机制的政策建议。     

Funding model and creativity in science: Competitive versus block funding and status contingency effects

In many countries the scientific funding system is shifting from an internal block funding model toward a competitive project funding model. However, there is growing concern that the competitive project funding system favors relatively safe, conventional projects at the expense of risky, novel research. It is important to assess different funding models in order to design better funding systems for science. This paper empirically tests for differences in the novelty of funded outputs between internal block funding and competitive project funding, in the setting of Japan, where both funding models play a significant role. Combining survey data from a large sample of research projects in Japan and bibliometric information about the publications produced from these projects, we find that projects funded by competitive funds on average have higher novelty compared to those funded by internal block funds. However, such positive effects only hold for researchers with high status, such as senior and male researchers. In contrast, compared to internal block funding, competitive project funding has a negative relation to novelty for low status scientists (especially junior and female researchers). The findings suggest that the competitive project selection procedure is less receptive to novel ideas from researchers with low academic status and therefore discourages their novel research. These findings can serve as a warning about potential biases in competitive funding allocation procedures and suggest the importance of secure stable funding for allowing researchers with low status to pursue their novel ideas.     

“双一流”建设下我国药学学科的科研竞争力水平——来自48家高校院所的实证

为丰富从获取科研基金角度分析我国高校院所药学科研竞争力的研究,基于2005－2019年间国家自然科学基金（NSFC）在药物学、药理学领域有关资助数据,从获取科研经费、基金项目负责人数量等维度构建改进的药学学科科研竞争力指数（PSCI）,以国内设有药学一级学科博士学位授权点的48家高校院所为实证对象,分析其药学学科科研资助情况、科研竞争力及变化趋势。结果显示：NSFC在药物学、药理学领域资助以面上项目和青年科学基金项目为主,资助项目数量和经费均呈现出先快速增长后平稳发展的态势,表明我国药物学与药理学领域基础研究水平已达一定高度;药学科研竞争力强的单位主要集中在东部沿海和北部沿海综合经济区;高校院所药学科研竞争力位次呈固化趋势,科研资源聚集现象显著。     

Public support of science: A contingent valuation study of citizens' attitudes about CERN with and without information about implicit taxes

Large-scale projects in fundamental science, such as major particle colliders, radio telescopes, synchrotron light sources are promoted by scientific communities in the first place, mainly funded by governments, and ultimately by taxpayers. Little is known, however, about preferences of the latter except in the form of qualitative social attitudes survey. We suggest that understanding taxpayers' preferences in the form of their willingness to pay (a money metric) for fundamental science is feasible and informative. We have designed a contingent valuation (CV) experiment about public support of science as reflected in the preferences of Swiss taxpayers for particle physics research at CERN, the laboratory where the Higgs boson has been discovered in 2012. Differently from a previous study on the attitudes of French citizens, in this paper we propose a novel methodological framework by a dual repeated bidding mechanism where sub-samples of respondents are respectively given/not given the information on the implicit tax they already pay to support CERN in the first place. We find clear convergence of results between the groups and discuss why such a finding has policy and methodological implications for research on government funding of basic research. We compare findings in Switzerland and France. The experiment is replicable in different countries and scientific fields and opens the way to a new empirical research avenue on the public support to science.     

Exploring the effect of overlapping institutional applications on panel decision-making

The assessing of a pool of competing projects is a challenging task for scientific panels at funding agencies. Using large-scale and rich data from a broad set of panels from the UK's largest research council, we explore whether scientific panels treat overlapping applications from the same institution in a selection round differently. Building on previous research that suggested that panels may favour institutional diversity in funding outcomes, we find that applications at the margin of the funding decision are less likely to be funded when an application from the same institution is also funded. However, we find little evidence of welfare losses associated with this outcome. The implications of these findings for understanding the role of panels in shaping of scientific funding are also examined.     

从专利引文看公共科学对技术创新的重要作用

定量考察公共科学对技术创新的贡献大小 ,可以为政府支持基础研究提供有用的论据。专利引文分析 ,是测度基础研究对技术创新的贡献的一个重要方法论。通过对专利引证的科学论文的计量研究 ,发现 :工业技术与公共科学的联系不断加强 ,公共科学在技术创新中起着重要的作用。其政策意义在于 ,政府应该继续支持基础研究 ,而企业应该加强对外部知识资源的“吸收能力”的建设。     

Commercialization of patents and external financing during the R&D phase

Using a unique database on Swedish patents owned by small firms and individuals, survival models estimate how different factors influence the decision to commercialize the patents. Such an analysis has seemingly never previously been undertaken. Since the owners know more about the patents than potential external financiers, problems related to asymmetrical information are present. To overcome these problems when inventors and small technology-based firms need financing, Sweden has for a long time relied on government support rather than private venture capital firms. The empirical results show that the larger is the share of patent-owners’ costs covered by government financial support during the R&D phase, the lower is the probability of patents being commercialized. This lower degree of commercialization is likely to depend on (1) the soft terms of the government loans, where the patent owner can avoid paying back the loan if the patent is never commercialized and/or (2) that the government is not able to select promising projects. The first explanation is related to moral hazard and the second one to adverse selection. The policy suggestion is for government to change the design of the loans, to base them on firms rather than projects.     

Federal funding and the rate and direction of inventive activity

Leveraging a new measure of patent citation trees (Corredoira and Banerjee, 2015), we demonstrate that research funded by the federal government is associated with more active and diverse technological trajectories. Our findings tie government funding to breakthrough inventions. The differences are especially evident at the upper percentiles of the distribution of long term patent influence and stem primarily from research conducted outside the federal government and sponsored by the DOD, HHS and NSF. Government funded patents are inputs into a broader range of technologies. Additional analyses indicate that federal programs invest in some technological areas that private corporations eschew, and federally funded university patents are in different technological classes than non-federally funded university patents. In this sense, the government may play an irreplaceable role in the rate and direction of inventive activity.“Generally speaking, the scientific agencies of Government are not so concerned with immediate practical objectives as are the laboratories of industry nor, on the other hand, are they as free to explore any natural phenomena without regard to possible economic applications as are the educational and private research institutions.” - Vannevar Bush, Science the Endless Frontier”, 1945.     

Knowledge to money: Assessing the business performance effects of publicly-funded R&D grants

UK Research Councils (UKRCs) spend around £3bn pa supporting R&D and innovation. We provide a comprehensive assessment of these grants on the performance of participating UK firms, using data on all projects funded by UKRCs over the 2004–2016 period and applying a propensity score matching approach. We exploit the richness of the data available in the Gateway to Research database by investigating the heterogeneous effect of these projects across several novel directions which have not been explored before. We find a positive effect on the employment and turnover growth of participating firms, both in the short and in the medium term. Exploring impacts across different types of firms we find stronger performance impacts for firms in R&D intensive industries and for smaller and less productive firms. We also consider how impacts vary depending on the characteristics of the funded research projects in terms of partners characteristics, receipt of other research grants and grant value. Finally, we focus on the different sources of grants, analysing in particular the evolution in the funding strategy of Innovate UK. Our results have implications for the extent and targeting of future Research Council funding both in the UK and elsewhere.     

农村民间图书馆众筹项目社交媒体应用对其成功的影响——适应性结构化理论视角

[目的/意义]农村民间图书馆众筹项目应用社交媒体可有效提高其成功率。[方法/过程]基于适应性结构化理论构建了社交媒体对农村民间图书馆众筹项目成功影响的框架,以典型农村民间图书馆众筹项目为例对构建的框架进行了验证和诠释。[结果/结论]本文提出的应用框架丰富并完善了农村民间图书馆众筹项目社交媒体应用理论,能有效指导农村民间图书馆众筹项目社交媒体的应用实践。     

Pork Barrel or Barrel of Gold? Examining the performance implications of earmarking in public R&D grants

Scholars tend to assume that publicly funded R&D projects, which are competitively selected, outperform projects, which receive funding through a political selection process. In this paper, we empirically explore this assumption, examining the outcomes of 321 R&D projects that were funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Hydrogen Program. Between 2003 and 2011, projects in this program could not only receive funding by means of a competitive selection process, but also by being earmarked by a U.S. member of Congress. We find that, whereas earmarked projects receive considerably lower peer review evaluation scores than non-earmarked projects, they do not consistently underperform in terms of the productivity, spillovers, and novelty of research- and science-based outcomes. Post-hoc analyses provide indications that this misalignment is driven by the existence of a bias of peer reviewers toward earmarked projects. Jointly, our findings challenge the dominant assumption that competitively selected projects always outperform politically selected ones in the setting of public R&D grants. In this way, we provide academics and policy makers with a richer perspective on the advantages and liabilities of earmarks.     

新时期高校科研间接费统筹管理路径探究

随着中国科技体制改革和资源配置优化和高校科技创新规模能力的增长,科研项目间接经费为科研单位成本补偿和人员激励提供了重要保障。当前高校科研间接费的统筹管理存在一定的挑战,本文系统梳理了国家科技科研间接费政策变化,对20所高校科研间接费分配模式进行了对比,分析了高校间接费统筹管理的存在的问题和原因,并从科技计划项目管理、间接费分配方式、高校科技管理体系、科研成本核算、人员薪酬制度改革等方面,提出高校增强科研间接费统筹管理能力效益的路径和建议。     

Government influence on the process of innovation in Europe and Japan

A total of 164 innovation projects were sampled in five industries to determine the effect, if any, of government policy on their conduct and outcome. Sixty-six of the projects had at the time of the study achieved commercial success, in the view of the firms involved. Fifty-one were considered failures, while 47 were still underway. Nearly half of the projects had been affected by one or more mechanisms of government policy. There is no indication that this degree of government involvement has either increased or decreased in recent years. There is also no indication that government involvement influenced success or failure, in any way. It does appear, however, that technology has been relatively successful in coping with government regulation in the area of safety, pollution control, etc., since projects affected by these policies were significantly more likely to be successful.     

北京化工大学十五年科学基金资助情况回顾与分析

国家自然科学基金是国家创新体系的重要组成部分,用以资助自然科学基础研究及部分应用研究。北京化工大学创办于1958年,原名北京化工学院,是新中国为“培养尖端科学技术所需求的高级化工人才”而创建的一所高水平大学。作为教育部直属的全国重点大学,国家“211工程”和“‘985’优势学科创新平台”重点建设院校,国家“一流学科”建设高校,北京化工大学肩负着高层次创新人才培养和基础性、前瞻性科学研究以及原创性高新技术开发的使命。北京化工大学经过60年的建设已经发展成为理科基础坚实,工科实力雄厚,管理学、经济学、法学、文学、教育学、哲学、医学等学科富有特色的多科性重点大学。在国家科技体制机制改革和“双一流”建设的形势下,国家自然科学基金已成为北京化工大学基础研究的重要支撑和科研经费的主要渠道之一,在鼓励原始创新、培养人才、产出成果和推动学科交叉建设等方面发挥了重要作用。北京化工大学的基础研究工作在国家自然科学基金资助下取得了较快的发展。值此北京化工大学建校60周年华诞之际,本文以我校2003年-2017年申请与获批国家自然科学基金数据库为基础,回顾了北京化工大学近十五来年国家自然科学基金项目的申请和资助情况,重点分析了北京化工大学国家自然科学基金项目资助数量、经费、类别、学部分布,以及负责人的学科、年龄、学历和职称分布,同时梳理了北京化工大学十五年以来国家自然科学基金项目管理工作情况,从国家自然科学基金项目的申报、执行过程、结题验收、项目经费、结余资金和档案归档管理等几个方面加以分析,总结了国家自然科学基金组织管理的工作成效、经验和不足。以期探索完善我校国家自然科学基金项目管理水平提升的有效途径,为今后学校制定科学发展战略和科技政策提供参考依据, 并对今后更加有效地促进学校基础研究的持续发展提出建议。