The Advanced Technology Program Assessing Outcomes (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Panel II: ATP's Assessment Program
Panel II: ATP's Assessment Program
Pages 117-130
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From page 117... ...
"By insisting on cost sharing, we keep the program anchored in the market economy, focused on efficiency and the bottom line. At the same time, the program's selection criteria ensure the funding of highly enabling technologies." In a more detailed discussion of the ATP's economic assessment methods, she recommended the earlier National Research Council (NRC)
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From page 118... ...
These projects have seeded innovations that are leading to broad benefits for the nation. Direct and Indirect Paths to Impact ATP cost sharing affects the economy through new technical capabilities that enable new and better ways of doing things, generating productivity gains, new business opportunities, employment benefits, solutions to a wide variety of problems, and, more generally, increases in the nation's standard of living and quality of life.
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From page 119... ...
All of the indirect impacts can be considered spillovers from the original R&D. The complete social return of an ATP project is the net result of the combination of direct- and indirect-path effects private returns to the company from the project, market-spillover benefits to that company's customers, and a variety of indirect benefits to other companies and to their customers in turn.
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From page 120... ...
According to recent news, two terminal cancer patients, who needed bone marrow transplantation, were unable to find a suitable donor. Tiny samples of matching stem cells, however, were found in an umbilical donor bank, and the new technology allowed the small samples to be expanded enough to enable treatment for the patients, who otherwise could not have been treated.
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From page 121... ...
Our data shows that . 72 percent completed all of their research; 52 percent published technical results; · 54 percent were awarded patents; · 16 percent received prestigious awards from organizations outside the ATP; · 60 percent had incorporated their technologies in products that were on the market; 80 percent either had products on the market or expected them shortly; · 90 percent had identifiable outputs of either knowledge (representing the indirect path)
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From page 122... ...
Ruegg outlined the characteristics of the ATP that distinguish it from other public and private technology programs: Innovation with National Benefits · emphasis on innovation for broad national economic benefit; · focus on enabling technologies with high spillover potential; and . goal of overcoming difficult research challenges.
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From page 123... ...
After the project is finished, the ATP Assessment Office follows up with studies of progress in commercialization and knowledge dissemination, and the identities of customers and competitors. PERSPECTIVES ON PROGRAM EVALUATION AT THE ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM Irwin Feller Pennsylvania State University Economists, according to Dr.
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From page 124... ...
The assessment program has provided a credible case that the program works that it is proceeding according to design and producing measurable economic and technical benefits. The question immediately arises, however, whether the products of the ATP Assessment Office have had impact on the program's operation or on the world outside the ATP Congress, for example.
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From page 125... ...
To quote Adam Jaffe, "We know enough about spillover prediction and measurement to improve the ATP's project selection and evaluation of outcomes using more systematic and explicit treatment."~° As an outside observer, I do not know, however, if the ATP incorporates findings from its assessments in program activities. I do know, from my work with other programs and agencies, that the record of use is mixed.
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From page 126... ...
He then introduced Dr. Nicholas Vonortas of George Washington University and Jim Turner of the minority staff of the House Science Committee.
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From page 127... ...
Policy makers relied on this not-very-well-developed literature for guidance on setting up programs such as the ATP.12 This movement produced a series of significant new laws, such as the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984, which eased antitrust review of cooperative research by reducing civil penalties and raising the standard of proof. To me the associated policy deliberation sounded simplistic.
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From page 128... ...
The ATP, compared with other federal technology programs, is unquestionably far ahead of the pack in its use of program evaluation. In fact, other programs are beginning to apply some of the ATP techniques.
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From page 129... ...
He found this a positive feature of the program, so long as the failure rate is substantially below 100 percent. On the other hand, he was disturbed by ATP's data, presented by Rosalie Ruegg, suggesting that 13 percent of the terminations involved joint ventures that failed to reach agreement and did not start their projects.
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From page 130... ...
Many of the terminated projects, for example, had patenting activity before they ended, and evaluators can often discern signs of knowledge from those patents being exploited by others. Jim Turner observed that another indirect impact of the projects was its benefits for NIST.
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