Toward Infrastructure Improvement An Agenda for Research (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Research Leading to Infrastructure Improvement
Research Leading to Infrastructure Improvement
Pages 105-110
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From page 105... ...
Because the boundaries among these infrastructure research niche areas are difficult to define, overlap or duplication among specific research topics may occur within the broad scope of Me committee's agenda. Because similar topics can be stated from several perspectives, each possibly leading to fruitful results, some overlap and duplication may be a useful characteristic of a robust research agenda.
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From page 106... ...
While their creation and management often pose substantial challenges within the traditional disciplinary organization of a university, such centers offer advantages of bringing together a critical mass of research activity that begins to produce results greater than might be expected of the parts taken separately. Such famous centers as Thomas Edison's Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory, He Bell Telephone Laboratory, and Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Studies2 are frequently cited as examples of highly productive concentrations of research talent and activity.
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From page 107... ...
A program that includes a balanced mix of both types of activity, drawing on research resources and responding to research needs around the nation, is most likely to yield solid payoffs of infrastructure improvement. The research may be based at academic institutions, but could as well draw on the resources of government laboratories now being directed toward commercial activity and civilian concerns.3 This NSF-funded cross-cutting infrastructure research could augment activities at centers established under other programs, such as the 13 University Transportation Centers ac~inistered by the Department of Transportation or the NSF's own Engineering Research Centers (ERC)
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From page 108... ...
Committee members pointed out that the nation's private sector routinely expects that financial returns on assets should be 3 to 7 percent annually or more. If the nation's infrastructure, with a value probably exceeding $3 trillion, yields a similar return, the system's aggregate contribution to the nation's economy would be between $90 and $210 billion annually, equivalent to approximately 2 to 4 percent of GNP (gross national product)
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From page 109... ...
3These institutions in some cases already work closely together, for example, the Construction Engineering Research Labs and the University of Illinois, the Advanced Physics Lab and Johns Hopkins University, the Oak Ridge National Laboratories and the University of Tennessee, and the Forest Products Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin. 4The committee was informed by NSF staff of consideration being given to the establishment of innovative management structures, such as "virtual directorates," a term adapted from the "virtual reality" of computer jargon, referring to temporary or informal management units that may not match the organization's formal structure.
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