| Session Title: Evaluation of a Nano Science and Technology Centers Program: Mixed Methods Approach to Assessing its Realization of Policy Objectives |
| Multipaper Session 979 to be held in Manhattan on Saturday, Nov 5, 2:20 PM to 3:50 PM |
| Sponsored by the Research, Technology, and Development Evaluation TIG |
| Chair(s): |
| Juan Rogers, Georgia Institute of Technology, jdrogers@gatech.edu |
| Abstract: The main instrument of recent US nanotechnology policy is a set of programs to fund multiple research centers with a variety of foci depending on the funding agency's portfolio. This session presents the design and results of an evaluation research project to assess the outcomes and impacts of one of these programs. The papers will present the overall design of the project and the results in three dimensions: a) the performance of research as reflected in the published record of papers, patents and other products and the evidence of use mainly using bibliometric approaches and networks of collaboration; b) The links with the commercial sector paying special attention to the collective picture that emerged from the combined activity of the centers; c) The societal dimensions of the program that were specifically built into the design of the solicitation as it responded to one of the priorities of the policy. |
| Program Level Assessment of Outcomes and Impacts of Research Performance of Centers |
| Juan Rogers, Georgia Institute of Technology, jdrogers@gatech.edu |
| The project used a mixed methods explanatory sequential research design, which commences by assembling and analyzing quantitative data and formulates questions to be followed up in depth with qualitative case studies. The quantitative component was developed from all the center reports, WOS publication records and patent records. Both bibliometric and network analyses were conducted on these data to find patterns at the program level. These patterns were then compared to field level data for nano science and nano technology that are already part of the research infrastructure of our team. For productivity, citations, collaboration, interdisciplinarity and international linkages, among other such features of the performance of research, we were able to establish field level benchmarks and program level patterns in order to situate the program in the field and get a sense of its role and impact. |
| Aggregate Patterns of Linkage of Nanotechnology Centers With Industry: Program Outcomes |
| Luciano Kay, Georgia Institute of Technology, luciano.kay@gatech.edu |
| The commercial potential of research on nanoscience and nanotechnology is one of the main justifications for its public support. This paper uses the results of both the quantitative and qualitative analyses to establish program level patterns of linkage between centers and industry. The analysis did not focus merely on the one-to-one instances of center-industry relations. It developed the emergent patterns of interaction amongst all centers and companies to map the network of relations that characterize much of the nanoscience and nanotechnology R&D environment today. First, there is a typology of linkages according to substance and form of relations. Second, there is a network of interactions that shows complementarities of the linkages in the field between the centers in the program and a large subset of the companies in this industry. The results show that the nanotechnology industry has become interdependent with the research infrastructure constituted by these centers taken together. |
| Societal Dimensions of the Nano Science and Technology Center Program |
| Jan Youtie, Georgia Institute of Technology, jan.youtie@innovate.gatech.edu |
| The societal implications of nanotechnology are specifically included among the concerns that must be addressed by research centers in the US policy for the field. These include and go beyond the development and composition of the R&D workforce. They also focus on the exploration of potential consequences of the introduction of nanotechnology-based products in mass markets from an environmental and health point of view as well as pre-figuring new social experiences that these products might bring about. These issues represent difficult interdisciplinary problems that require not only the interface of natural and health sciences but also social sciences and humanities. We found that the interdisciplinary formulation of these problems has been done with mixed results. Much progress has been made on the educational and public diffusion side but it has proven more difficult in areas where the concepts and theoretical frameworks are still at considerable cognitive distance from each other. |