Developing Science, Technology, and Innovation Indicators for the Future

Consensus

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Since the 1950s, under congressional mandate, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) - through its National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) and predecessor agencies - has produced regularly updated measures of research and development expenditures, employment and training in science and engineering, and other indicators of the state of U.S. science and technology. A more recent focus has been on measuring innovation in the corporate sector. NCSES collects its own data on science, technology, and innovation (STI) activities and also incorporates data from other agencies to produce indicators that are used for monitoring purposes - including comparisons among sectors, regions, and with other countries - and for identifying trends that may require policy attention and generate research needs. NCSES also provides extensive tabulations and microdata files for in-depth analysis.

Capturing Change in Science, Technology, and Innovation assesses and provides recommendations regarding the need for revised, refocused, and newly developed indicators of STI activities that would enable NCSES to respond to changing policy concerns. This report also identifies and assesses both existing and potential data resources and tools that NCSES could exploit to further develop its indicators program. Finally, the report considers strategic pathways for NCSES to move forward with an improved STI indicators program. The recommendations offered in Capturing Change in Science, Technology, and Innovation are intended to serve as the basis for a strategic program of work that will enhance NCSES's ability to produce indicators that capture change in science, technology, and innovation to inform policy and optimally meet the needs of its user community.

Publication information

274 pages · 8.5 x 11 · paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-29744-3
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-29745-1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/18606

Suggested citation

National Research Council. 2014. Capturing Change in Science, Technology, and Innovation: Improving Indicators to Inform Policy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

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Robert E. Litan

ROBERT E. LITAN (Co-chair) is the vice president for research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation where he oversees the foundation’s program for data collection and research on entrepreneurship and economic growth. He also serves as a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. During his career, he has authored or coauthored 22 books, edited another 15, and authored or coauthored over 200 articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Since the onset of the financial crisis, he has authored or coauthored a number of essays on financial reforms for the Brookings website. He served in several capacities in the federal government: as associate director of the Office of Management and Budget; deputy assistant attorney general, Antitrust Division, Department of Justice; and staff economist, Council of Economic Advisers. He has a B.S. degree in economics (summa cum laude) from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and M. Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from Yale University. He is a member of the DBASSE Committee on Developing a Research Agenda for Social Science Evidence for Use.

Andrew W. Wyckoff

ANDREW W. WYCKOFF (Co-chair) is director of the OECD’s Directorate for Science, Technology, and Industry (STI). Prior to this he was head of the Information, Computer, and Communications Policy (ICCP) division at the OECD, which supports the organization’s work on information society as well as consumer policy issues. Before heading ICCP, he was head of STI’s Economic Analysis and Statistics Division, which develops methodological guidelines, collects statistics, and undertakes empirical analysis in support of science, technology, and innovation policy analysis. His experience prior to the OECD includes being a program manager of the Information, Telecommunications, and Commerce program of the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), an economist at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), and a programmer at The Brookings Institution. He has a B.A. degree from the University of Vermont, and an MPP degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Carter Bloch

CARTER BLOCH is a research director at the Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. His research focuses on innovation measurement, innovation policy, knowledge spillovers, and the relationship between R&D, innovation, and economic performance. He has been involved in a number of international projects concerning the development of innovation indicators, micro-based data analysis, and the development of biotechnology statistics, and is currently heading an international project on the measurement of innovation in public sector organizations. He was also the main draft writer of the 2005 revision of the Eurostat/OECD Oslo Manual for innovation measurement. He has a B.A. degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Nicholas Chrisman

NICHOLAS CHRISMAN has been professor of geomatics sciences at the Université Laval (Québec City) since January 2005. His main assignment is to serve as scientific director of the GEOIDE Network, a Network of Centres of Excellence in the field of geomatics. His career has revolved around geographic information systems (GIS). In particular, his research has concentrated on time in GIS, data quality testing and the social and institutional aspects of GIS. From 1987-2004, he was professor of geography at the University of Washington, and served on the Mapping Sciences Panel of the NRC for a three-year term. From 1982-87 he was assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In this position, he participated in a multidisciplinary team applying GIS to soil erosion planning. This project helped provide the impetus for the Wisconsin Land Records Committee that led to the current state-wide GIS program. From 1972-82 he was a programmer at the Harvard Lab for Computer Graphics. He participated in the design of prototype GIS software. For 30 years, his writing has tried to connect the technical details of GIS to larger issues of philosophy and culture. Recently, he has joined in an interdisciplinary group that studies the interactions of science, technology, and society. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. degree in geography from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, and he has a Ph.D. degree in geography from the University of Bristol, England.

Carl J. Dahlman

CARL J. DAHLMAN is the Henry R. Luce professor of international relations and information technology at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He previously had more than 25 years of service at the World Bank, where he served as senior advisor to the World Bank Institute. In this role, he managed the Knowledge for Development (K4D) program—an initiative providing training on the strategic use of knowledge for economic and social development to business leaders and policy makers in developing countries. Prior to developing the K4D program, he served as staff director of the 1998-1999 World Development Report, Knowledge for Development. He has also conducted extensive analytical work in major developing countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, India, Pakistan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. He is currently finishing a knowledge economy study on Mexico, working on a book on the challenge of the knowledge economy for education and training in China, and collaborating with research teams in Finland, Japan, and Korea to produce books on each country’s development strategies. He served as a member of the NRC Committee on Comparative Innovation Policy: Best Practice in National Technology Programs. He has a B.A. degree in international relations from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. degree in economics from Yale University.

Geoff Davis

GEOFF DAVIS is a senior researcher in the User Experience Group at Google. He earned his Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from New York University’s Courant Institute in 1994 and has since employed his doctoral education in a variety of capacities. He has been an assistant professor in the Mathematics Department at Dartmouth College, the Texas Instruments visiting assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Rice University, a researcher in the Signal Processing Group at Microsoft Research, a developer at the San Francisco-based startup company 4charity, a visiting scholar at Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Society, and a Werthheim fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. Dr. Davis’s mathematical research centered around representations of information, with a particular focus on wavelets and related transforms. His work on image coding led to an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship and the 2000 IEEE Leon K. Kirchmayer Prize Paper Award. He has had a longstanding interest in science education and policy issues. In 1997 he created the PhDs.org website, which currently receives approximately 200,000 visitors each month. He later ran the National Graduate School Survey with NAPGS and the Sigma Xi Postdoc Survey. He is also a past member of the National Bureau of Economic Research's Science and Engineering Workforce Project.

Katharine G. Frase

KATHARINE G. FRASE is vice president of Industry Solutions and Emerging Business at IBM Research. Prior to this she was vice president of Technical and Business Strategy at IBM Software Group (SWG). Her team is responsible for technical strategy, business strategy, business development, standards, competitive analysis, and the application of advanced technologies across SWG. Prior to this role, she was vice president of technology at IBM where she was responsible for technical resources, recognition, assessment, and strategy across IBM. In 2006, in recognition of her distinguished contributions to engineering, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Earlier IBM responsibilities included management of process development, design/modeling methodology and production for chip carrier assembly, and final test for IBM silicon products. Her research interests include mechanical properties/structural interactions in composites, high temperature superconductors, solid electrolytes (fast ionic conductors), ceramic powder synthetic methods, and ceramic packaging. She chaired an IBM/NAS workshop on lead solder reduction actions and is an ex officio member of the NRC’s Board on Assessment of National Institute of Standards and Technology Programs. She has an A.B. degree in chemistry from Bryn Mawr College, and a Ph.D. degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Barbara M. Fraumeni

BARBARA M. FRAUMENI is associate dean of research, chair of the Ph.D. program, and professor of public policy at the Muskie School of Public Service of the University of Southern Maine. She previously served as chief economist of the Bureau of Economic Analysis and was a research fellow of the Program on Technology and Economic Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Her areas of expertise and research interests include measurement issues and national income accounting; human and nonhuman capital, productivity, and economic growth; market and nonmarket accounts; investment in education and research and development; and measurement of highway capital stock and the real output of government by function. Currently, she serves on the National Research Council’s Panel on Measuring Higher Education Productivity. She has a B.A. degree from Wellesley College, and a Ph.D. degree from Boston College.

Richard B. Freeman

RICHARD B. FREEMAN is the Herbert Ascherman chair in economics at Harvard University. He is currently serving as faculty director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. He also directs the National Bureau of Economic Research/Sloan Science Engineering Workforce Projects, and is senior research fellow in labor markets at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science and is currently serving as a member of the AAAS Initiative for Science and Technology. He served on the study on Policy Implications of International Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars in the United States. He also served on five panels of the National Academy of Sciences, including the Committee on National Needs for Biomedical and Behavioral Scientists. He received the Mincer Lifetime Achievement Prize from the Society of Labor Economics in 2006. In 2007 he was awarded the IZA Prize in Labor Economics. He has a B.A. degree from Dartmouth College, and a Ph.D. degree from Harvard University.

Frederick D. Gault

FREDERICK D. GAULT is a professorial fellow with the United Nations University–Maastricht Economic and Social Research and Training Centre on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT). He is also a professor extraordinaire at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) in South Africa and a member of the TUT Institute for Economic Research on Innovation (IERI). He worked with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as a member of the Management Team coordinating the OECD Innovation Strategy delivered in May 2010. Prior to joining UNU MERIT, he held a visiting fellowship at Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa and, until April 2008, he was at Statistics Canada as the director of the division responsible for the development of statistics on all aspects of science, technology, and innovation. During this time he was chair of the OECD Working Party of National Experts on Science and Technology Indicators (NESTI) (2002 - 2008) and of the Working Party on Indicators for the Information Society (WPIIS) (1997 - 2002). Before joining Statistics Canada, he was senior lecturer in theoretical physics at the University of Durham in the U.K. He has a Ph.D. degree in theoretical physics and a B.Sc. degree in economics from the University of London. He served on the CNSTAT Panel to Review Research and Development Statistics at the National Science Foundation.

David Goldston

DAVID GOLDSTON is a visiting lecturer at the Harvard University Center for the Environment and director of government affairs at the National Resource Defense Council. Previously, he held a one-year appointment as a lecturer in the Science, Technology, and Environment Program at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He also writes the monthly column “Party of One” on Congress and science policy for the journal Nature. From 2001 through 2006, he was the chief of staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, which has jurisdiction over much of the federal research and development budget. He was also a key player in most environmental debates in the House from 1995, when he became legislative director to Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York, until the end of 2006, when he retired from government service. He has a B.A. degree in American history from Cornell University, and has completed the course work for a Ph.D. degree in U.S. history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board of the National Academies and a member of the Committee to Organize a Workshop on Measuring Economic and Other Returns on Federal Research Investments under the STEP Board. He served on the CNSTAT Panel on Modernizing the Infrastructure of the NSF Federal Funds for R&D Survey.

Michael Mandel

MICHAEL MANDEL is a senior fellow at the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Until 2009 he was chief economist at Business Week, where he won multiple awards for his stories on the U.S. and global economies. His particular areas of expertise include the link between innovation and growth, and the inability of the official economic statistics to properly measure today's economy. He is a senior fellow at both Wharton’s Mack Center for Technological Innovation and the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, DC. He has written several books, including an introductory economics text, Economics: The Basics. He has a Ph.D. degree in economics from Harvard University.

John E. Rolph

JOHN E. ROLPH is a professor emeritus of statistics at the Marshall School of Business of the University of Southern California, where he also holds appointments in the mathematics department and the law school. Previously, he spent 24 years as a statistician at the RAND Corporation, 12 of them as head of the statistical research and consulting group. His areas of expertise include statistics and public policy and empirical Bayes estimation. He served as a member of the National Research Council’s (NRC) Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) and as chair of the committee from 1998 to 2004; he has also served on the NRC Committee on Law and Justice. He has served on several NRC panels, on topics including ballistic imaging, statistical and operational test design in defense systems, methods for assessing discrimination, and decennial census methodology. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, a fellow of the American Statistical Association, a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and a lifetime national associate of the National Academies. He is a past editor of CHANCE magazine and has served in many other editorial capacities. He has A.B. and Ph.D. degrees in statistics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Leland Wilkinson

LELAND WILKINSON is the executive vice president of SYSTAT Software Inc., adjunct professor of statistics at Northwestern University, and adjunct professor of computer science at the University of Illinois Chicago. He wrote the SYSTAT statistical package and founded SYSTAT Inc. in 1984. After the company grew to 50 employees, he sold SYSTAT to SPSS and worked there for 10 years on research and development of visualization systems. SPSS eventually sold SYSTAT to Cranes Software International and then he rejoined SYSTAT in 2008. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has won Best Speaker Award at the National Computer Graphics Association and the Youden Prize for best expository paper in the statistics journal Technometrics. He has served on the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Research Council and has been vice-chair of the board of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS). In addition to authoring journal articles, the original SYSTAT computer program and manuals, and patents in visualization and distributed analytic computing, he is the author (with Grant Blank and Chris Gruber) of Desktop Data Analysis with SYSTAT and The Grammar of Graphics. He has an A.B. degree from Harvard University, an S.T.B. degree from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. degree in psychology from Yale University.

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Developing Science, Technology, and Innovation Indicators for the Future

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Developing Science, Technology, and Innovation Indicators for the Future

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Featured publication

Capturing Change in Science, Technology, and Innovation: Improving Indicators to Inform Policy

Description

Collaborators

Committee

Sponsors

Staff

Major units and sub-units

Contact

Provide feedback

Request materials

More like this

Modernizing Mathematics Education for Grades 9-14

Health Care Financing to Improve Availability of Affordable Contraception: Identifying Promising Practices

Review of Methods in the Report on Carcinogens Handbook

Transportation Research Board Executive Office

National Cooperative Highway Research Program

Modernizing Mathematics Education for Grades 9-14

Future Directions for Social and Behavioral Science Methodologies in the Next Decade: A Workshop

Macroeconomic Implications of Decarbonization Policies and Actions: A Workshop

Ensuring the Quality, Credibility, and Relevance of U.S. Homeland Security Statistics