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Pages 1-8

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From page 1...
... Inducement prize contests with low administrative barriers to entry can attract a diverse range of talent and stimulate interest in the enterprise well beyond the participant pool. The limited historical experience and theoretical literature suggest that the success of prizes in these respects depends on the choice of targets and design features as well as the administrative competence of the sponsor.
From page 2...
... It has limited experience in supporting innovations intended to solve societal problems and no experience in administering innovation prize contests. Provided, as Congress stipulated, that the objective of promoting innovation is interpreted broadly to focus on high risk/high payoff research projects with ambitious scientific and technological objectives rather than narrowly on commercial or near-commercial innovations, the committee recommends that NSF embrace this challenge as an opportunity both to advance science and engineering and to learn a great deal more than we now know about what may prove to be a valuable mode of support for research and innovation.
From page 3...
... ADMINISTERING A PRIZE PROGRAM NSF should assume primary responsibility for developing, communicating, implementing, and evaluating this program through a dedicated program staff, perhaps designated as the Office of Innovation Prizes (OIP) , with its own appointed advisory committee.
From page 4...
... In the early years it would be clearly premature to attempt to determine whether NSF had accomplished the prize program goal of producing significant innovations for the nation. Instead, a formative evaluation strategy would focus on • whether the program is attracting large numbers of contestants more diverse than NSF's largely academic constituency, • whether private funds are forthcoming to support contestants and from what sources and for what reasons, • what spin-off activities result from contests, • whether public awareness of innovation or the goal of a particular prize is enhanced, • and whether NSF's public image is affected by its sponsorship of prize contests.
From page 5...
... • Of the two principal types of innovation inducement prize contests ("first-past-the-post," in which the award is to the first team or individual who accomplishes a stated contest objective, and "best-inclass," in which the winner is the team or individual who comes closest to achieving the contest objective within a specified time) the committee prefers first-past-the-post contests with set time limits for both smaller and larger prizes, although we encourage experimentation with both types and with combinations.
From page 6...
... The committee considered a number of candidates -- nanotechnology self-assembly, chemical sensors for pollutants, "green" substitutes for harmful chemical solvents and reagents, catalysts for converting cellulosic biomass into liquid fuels, advances in computing architecture and performance, low carbon energy systems, and learning technology for teaching science and mathematics -- not with an eye toward recommending them to NSF but as a basis for understanding the requirements of this task. We concluded that each of these fields has potential to yield one or more worthy prize contests, but determining the right objective and terms of competition is a difficult job likely to differ somewhat for each contest.
From page 7...
... There are today no experts on this process comparable to, say, the experts at identifying research opportunities, framing solicitations for or evaluating research proposals, or for that matter, designing financial incentives for private R&D spending. We believe that topics for smaller-scale, more technical and specialized prize contests can be identified by canvassing specialists in various fields, beginning with NSF's own program managers and peer review panels and incorporating suggestions from scientific and technical societies, federal laboratories, and industrial research managers.
From page 8...
... AWARDING INNOVATION INDUCEMENT PRIZES NSF innovation inducement prizes should be awarded in a manner conducive to raising public awareness of the importance of innovation to the economy and society. Smaller-scale prizes should be awarded in appropriate venues in ceremonies involving the NSF leadership, White House officials, and members of Congress.


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