Measuring the Impacts of Federal Investments in Research A Workshop Summary (2011) / Chapter Skim
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5 MIXED MARKET AND NON-MARKET IMPACTS OF RESEARCH
5 MIXED MARKET AND NON-MARKET IMPACTS OF RESEARCH
Pages 37-48
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From page 37... ...
Foresight, leadership, and risk are all involved in pursing research with difficult-to-measure but very real benefits. MEASURING PROGRESS TOWARD GOALS IN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a private foundation focused in part on improving health, reducing poverty, and improving food security in some of the world's poorest countries.
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From page 38... ...
For example, according to a study by Philip Pardey and colleagues for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI,1996) , from an overall investment of $71 million since 1960 in wheat improvement research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
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From page 39... ...
"We can track changes that are taking place in African households over a long period of time and then track the contribution of productivity improvement to household welfare and the relationship between those two over this long period of time," said Pingali. "Of course we won't be able to attribute those changes specifically to our efforts, but I don't think that matters as long as we can show that there's progress toward achieving our ultimate goals of hunger and poverty reduction." INVESTMENT DECISIONS AT DUPONT As it enters its third century, the DuPont Company is undergoing a transformation that is bringing biology into a product mix based on traditional chemistry, said Richard Broglie, Director of Research Strategy at DuPont Agricultural Biotechnology.
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At each stage, decisions involve people from the technical organization, the legal organization, the regulatory group, and the marketing group. CHALLENGES IN QUANTIFYING RESEARCH VALUE IN AGRICULTURE An economic cost-benefit analysis is an interesting problem but can be very difficult to implement, according to Michael Roberts, Assistant Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State University.
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It also may be possible to value canonical examples, such as the development of hybrid corn, which depended on the work of a few key researchers. Finally, it may be possible to value projects and projects in retrospect and adjust research priorities accordingly.
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The Packard Foundation made $236 million in grants in 2010 in four areas: population and reproductive health; children, families, and communities; local programs; and conservation and science, with the last of these categories accounting for $154 million in grants in 2010. For example, it supports the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, which is a major oceanographic institution created by David Packard in which scientists and engineers work together.
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From page 43... ...
Such an experiment requires systematic monitoring of outcomes to determine the consequences, including unanticipated consequences, of a policy. "You want to do integrative assessment of that knowledge to build knowledge of the system that you're innovating in, the ecosystem if you like, to inform model building, to structure a debate, and from that to enable strong inference."
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From page 44... ...
Similarly, defense research can have immense payoffs that are difficult or impossible to predict. For example, a relatively modest investment in gallium arsenide monolithic microwave integrated circuits for signal processing led to the development of a technology that is now used in every cell phone around the world.
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Core technologies refer to longstanding traditional capabilities, such as explosives and propulsion. Critical technologies refer to revolutionary or transformational technological changes.
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Public Agenda does considerable public opinion research to find out how people are looking at problems. It also conducts public and stakeholder engagement and communications to set in motion collaborative processes.
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The choice framework "can help people learn quickly and shift from a non-productive, circular reasoning and non-exploratory dialogue to one where they are working off each other, thinking about solutions, and generating really interesting questions." DISCUSSION During the discussion period, Van Atta was asked how to build institutional support for entities such as DARPA that are institutionally disruptive. The best approach, he said, is through top-down leadership.
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From page 48... ...
The question is difficult to answer, he said, because there are many reasons why something might not progress through the commercialization pipeline. However, DuPont has worked with the Gates Foundation on crops for which it does not sell seed to improve the nutritional quality of grains.
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