Skip to main content

Transforming Research and Higher Education Institutions in the Next 75 Years Proceedings of the 2022 Endless Frontier Symposium (2023) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:

2 The "Valleys of Death": Addressing the Translational Gap Between Discovery and Innovation
Pages 9-16

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 9...
... THE NEED FOR FLEXIBILITY AND RISK TAKING At the Department of Energy, Under Secretary for Science and Innovation Geraldine Richmond oversees both basic research funded by the Office of Science and applied research focused on such topics as energy efficiency, the electric grid, and carbon sequestration. Reflecting the department's mission to "take basic research and put it to good use," Richmond also oversees 14 of the department's 17 national laboratories, "which are our engines of innovation and have been working a long time to bridge this gap." As such, a major aspect of her job has been to get new knowledge through the so-called valley of death.
Read the entire page →
From page 10...
... -- Geraldine Richmond Basic science will continue to be the seed corn that generates new technologies and well-trained students, but "we all have to embrace flexibility and being able to take risks because we can't stay in the mode that we've worked in for so long." OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS TO TRANSLATION Mark Fishman, professor in the Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, pointed to two fundamental reasons why basic discoveries can fail to produce improvements in human health or other societal benefits. The first is that translational science, which in biomedicine includes such steps as assessing toxicity and first clinical trials in humans, is difficult.
Read the entire page →
From page 11...
... -- Mark Fishman A HYBRID COMPANY TO BRIDGE THE VALLEY OF DEATH When the company DeepMind Technologies was founded in 2010, co-founder and chief executive officer Demis Hassabis sought to combine the cultures of several different kinds of research institutions. One inspiration was the golden era culture of Bell Labs and government programs like the Apollo program.
Read the entire page →
From page 12...
... Hassabis pointed out that the British government has set up a new funding body called the Advanced Research and Innovation Agency that is designed to fund riskier research in a fashion similar to that of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. The private sector also needs to take risks, he said, and not rely entirely on government to de-risk potential innovations.
Read the entire page →
From page 13...
... MEASURING IMPACT In response to a question about how best to measure scientific impact beyond publications and citations, Richmond said that "you have to know what your values are." When the goals of individuals and organizations are clear, metrics can be aligned to measure those values. -- Geraldine Richmond Thus, publications and citations give an indication of productivity, but they are not necessarily a measure of the influence of scientists and their research on a broader scale.
Read the entire page →
From page 14...
... students from disadvantaged backgrounds or other underrepresented backgrounds and then almost put them through a conversion course in machine learning at some of the top universities in the U.K. They come out of that being able either to apply machine learning in their own domain of expertise or go further into a Ph.D." By increasing the diversity of people in STEM, the diversity of inputs into problem-solving is increased as well.
Read the entire page →
From page 15...
... We will be powerless to offer this alternative if we don't keep pace with Communist China. Implementing the CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law last month by President Biden and includes key components of my bill, the Endless Frontier Act, is vital to this effort.
Read the entire page →

Key Terms

  • science act
  • scientific impact
  • vannevar bush
  • societal benefits
  • drug discovery

  • private enterprise
  • tech transfer
  • medical centers
  • transfer offices
  • beyond publications

  • machine learning
  • artificial intelligence
  • time horizons
  • risk taking
  • basic scientists

  • multidisciplinary research
  • research impact
  • private realm
  • basic discovery
  • research environment

  • judging research
  • basic discoveries
  • translational sciences
  • translational science
  • basic sciences

  • riskier research
  • research focused
  • thereby bringing
  • deepmind technologies
  • helpful incentives


    • This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
    More information on Chapter Skim is available.