Science of Science and Innovation Policy Principal Investigators' Conference Summary (2014) / Chapter Skim
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2 Opening Sessions
2 Opening Sessions
Pages 9-22
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From page 9... ...
SETTING THE STAGE The opening session of the SciSIP Principal Investigators' Conference set forth the purposes of the conference and provided additional historical background. Speakers included Irwin Feller, professor emeritus of economics at the Pennsylvania State University and chair of the conference steering committee; Charles Vest, then president of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE, one of the constituents of the National Academies complex)
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From page 10... ...
Equally important in the advancement of the science of science and innovation policy field is the extent to which academic researchers and science and technology policy makers engage in productive interactive dialogue. Feller said one can dispense with a linear model in which knowledge flows downstream or downhill from academic research to policy makers.
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From page 11... ...
At the end of the day, the big issue is communication between the researcher community and policy makers. He challenged the conference participants to understand the issues facing science policy makers and articulate them in a way that people who are not part of the research community or particularly sympathetic to that community can begin to understand them.
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From page 12... ...
NSF looks forward to seeing how that initiative goes forward and to fostering linkages of federal statistical data with research in the underlying social sciences through interagency collaboration. Gutmann urged the conference participants to think about two fundamental questions.
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From page 13... ...
: Much of the available literature on science policy is being produced piecemeal by scientists who are experts in their fields, but not necessarily in the methods and literature of the relevant social science disciplines needed to define appropriate data elements and create econometric models that can be useful to policy experts. I am suggesting that the nascent field of the social science of science policy needs to grow up, and quickly, to provide a basis for understanding the enormously complex dynamic of today's global, technology-based society.
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From page 14... ...
Remarks of Thomas Kalil, Office of Science and Technology Policy Thomas Kalil gave his perspective on the importance of the SciSIP program from his role as a member of the White House staff in OSTP, serving as a "policy entrepreneur" -- one who develops new ideas and solutions to science and innovation policy issues for consideration by the President and the senior members of the administration, particularly in the run-up to the State of the Union and the preparation of the President's budget. Kalil impressed on SciSIP researchers that he has seen many occasions in which closer interactions between policy makers and academic researchers could have led to more productive outcomes.
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From page 15... ...
. White House policy staff found the paper useful because it had a very specific proposal that was perceived as straightforward to implement -- namely, according to a bullet point in the abstract of the paper: "The supply of applicants contains enough qualified candidates to allow for a 12 The G-7 or Group of 7, is an international group of finance ministers from the following countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States.
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From page 16... ...
, who has written extensively on problem solving using open-source networks or "open innovation." NASA found that a solution for getting research-to-policy was to partner with Lakhani, creating a tournament lab, which is allowing NASA rapidly and inexpensively to crowd-source problems that require improved algorithms or software solutions. Kalil indicated that NASA is getting results that have been deemed to be better, faster, and cheaper using open innovation, and Lakhani is getting peer-reviewed publications with novel data from the activity.
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From page 17... ...
In October of 2009, President Obama signed an executive order that called on the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force 18 to recommend how the policies and practices of federal agencies all across the country could support a national climate change adaptation effort. A year later, the task force provided a set of recommendations to the President, two of which Scheraga highlighted during his remarks.
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From page 18... ...
Building of that bridge is now a major focus of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, 19 a consortium of 13 federal departments and agencies that spend upwards of two billion dollars on global change research; they are increasingly focusing on involvement from the social and behavioral sciences.
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From page 19... ...
All three reports pooled judgments from experts about what the nation should do on these very important issues. Colglazier summarized his point this way: "Even the anecdotes sometimes carry more sway than some of the most carefully done academic research." He suggested that social science and anthropological research have important tools for improving this type of evidence for use in public policy.
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From page 20... ...
Transparency of process is important -- the questions posed, the scientific methods used, information that guided decisions, and so on all need to be communicated to congressional representatives and their staff. The final question was from an audience member, who wanted the panelists' thoughts on their observation that "there is a fair amount of bipartisan agreement among our parties and members of Congress related to the important of science and technology…" In response, Colglazier recounted a meeting with staff of former Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska on Capitol Hill:
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From page 21... ...
SCIENCE OF SCIENCE AND INNOVATION POLICY 21 We discussed this assessment with them [about climate change] , and their senior staffer just glazed over.
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