Furthering America's Research Enterprise (2014) / Chapter Skim
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7 Conclusion
7 Conclusion
Pages 119-126
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From page 119... ...
In seeking to increase the returns on federal investments in scientific research, Congress asked the National Academies to study measures of the impacts of research on society. Of particular interest were measures that could serve to increase the translation of research into commercial products and services.
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From page 120... ...
A SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE To understand how federal investments in scientific research result in societal benefits, it is necessary to understand the American research enterprise as a system that must be viewed in relation to the innovation system in which the discoveries produced by research are used to develop new technologies and other innovations. Without this system-level understanding, policies focused on relatively narrow objectives -- such as increasing university patenting and licensing of research discoveries or reducing the funding for certain disciplines or types of research -- could have undesired consequences.
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From page 121... ...
The committee concludes that societal benefits from federal research can be enhanced by focusing attention on the three crucial pillars of the research system: a talented and interconnected workforce, adequate and dependable resources, and world-class basic research in all major areas of science. A systems perspective also reveals how these three pillars interact to produce research discoveries: how knowledge flows among networks of individuals and institutions; how research is influenced by the availability of scientific infrastructure, funds, and other resources; how world-class research and the usefulness of research discoveries are affected by management, research environments, institutions, and peer review; and how these and other aspects of the three pillars interrelate.
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From page 122... ...
In particular, awareness of scientific discoveries may travel quickly, but sufficient understanding to extend them or to apply them for the development of new technologies or other innovations often requires that the nation's researchers possess considerable fundamental knowledge derived from diverse basic research. Third, world-class basic research attracts researchers from around the world.
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From page 123... ...
Yet despite the need for improvements in the peer review process, and especially in light of the decreasing success rate for research proposals, experience with the widespread use of alternative mechanisms by public agencies is limited, and little existing evidence suggests that there is generally a better mechanism. Nonetheless, peer review is designed to assess not overall program effectiveness but investigator qualifications and the innovativeness of individual projects within a given research program, and typically is most appropriate as a means of awarding funding rather than assessing performance.
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From page 124... ...
But greater benefits can be realized by focusing attention on the three pillars of the research enterprise detailed above: talent, resources, and basic research. Measures designed around these pillars would promote a better understanding not only of these critical components and how they relate to each other, but also of the research enterprise as a system.
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From page 125... ...
research enterprise as a system. These measures could be used to guide federal research investments that would enable the system to yield more of the societal benefits that have made it the world's premier scientific research enterprise.
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