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3 Selecting Prize Topics and Implementing Early Prize Contests
Pages 40-48

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From page 40...
... 3 Selecting Prize Topics and Implementing Early Prize Contests In this section we offer more detailed suggestions for processes and criteria that the National Science Foundation (NSF) may wish to use to identify and select prize topics and to design the contests to go with them.
From page 41...
... 2004 Centennial Challenges Workshop Report. Washington, D.C.: October 26, 2004.
From page 42...
... Given the widespread application of energy technologies and the broad reach of energy systems, there are many possibilities for employing innovation inducement prizes to overcome technical and scientific challenges in lowcarbon energy supply, demand, and storage technologies, including biofuels, solar energy, advanced wind energy, fuel cells, advanced lighting, nuclear fission and fusion, hydrogen storage, and advanced batteries. At the same time, because energy production and utilization systems are complex systems with many interdependent parts, it will be a considerable challenge to design successful prizes that contribute to replacing significant amounts of the high-carbon energy currently used in industry, transportation, and residences.
From page 43...
... In the early days of establishing an innovation inducement prize program, NSF needs to act fairly quickly to select, design, and announce a small number of first-round contests on somewhat limited specialized topics on which there may already be a strong consensus among technical and business leaders about the most important barriers to further development. We believe that these can be identified by canvassing specialists in a few fields, beginning with NSF's own program managers and incorporating suggestions from scientific and technical societies, federal laboratories, industrial research managers and planners, and others familiar with the state of the art of relevant technologies and bodies of practice.
From page 44...
... 44 INNOVATION INDUCEMENT PRIZES AT THE NSF cials should consult NASA about the most effective and efficient organization of such a workshop. The selection process should proceed together with other tasks that need to be addressed at the outset, including • Establishing and staffing the Office of Innovation Prizes (OIP)
From page 45...
... 45 SELECTING PRIZE TOPICS AND IMPLEMENTING EARLY PRIZE CONTESTS CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF PRIZE TOPICS Here we summarize under several categories the large number of criteria that could be employed to decide which set of candidate topics should be the focus of an NSF inducement prize program. Criteria Related to Government Encouragement of Innovation As for any other mode of government support of or incentives for innovation, inducement prizes should be offered in cases that comport with common understanding of the rationales for government involvement in the innovation process, namely, that the development and application of the hoped-for innovation meets the following criteria: • The contest goal is widely judged to be worth pursuing and is in fact among the most important challenges facing the nation.
From page 46...
... 46 INNOVATION INDUCEMENT PRIZES AT THE NSF • It will be feasible to define a plausible contest objective that is a suitable surrogate for the test of innovative success that is usually applied in the marketplace. • The contest will encourage a wide range of types of contestants, including those not ordinarily active in the research grant and contract world, to participate.
From page 47...
... 47 SELECTING PRIZE TOPICS AND IMPLEMENTING EARLY PRIZE CONTESTS • Early prize topics should be selected with an eye toward their likely contribution to building NSF's capabilities for mounting longer prize contests. • When a contest is being considered that would help fulfill the missions of other federal agencies, those agencies should be invited to participate in administering and funding the prize contest.


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