Universities and the market for intellectual property in the life sciences

The realms of science and technology in the life sciences are converging through the commercialization of university research. Major changes in the mandate of research universities were facilitated by both federal legislation that has promoted technology transfer, and the increased reliance of business firms on university research and development (R&D). This article discusses the primary factors that are blurring the division of labor between industry and academia in the life sciences, and analyzes the consequences for universities of treating knowledge as intellectual property. Universities’ efforts to enhance the commercial value of life sciences research is causing increased politicization of government research funding, a growing winner-take-all contest between the “have” and “have-not” universities, and subtle but potentially profound changes in the culture of academic research.     

Institutions and intellectual property: The influence of institutional forces on university patenting

Over the past 20 years, the number of patents assigned to universities has increased dramatically. This increase coincided with several policy initiatives, such as the Bayh‐Dole Act of 1980, designed to foster technology transfer between universities and the private sector. This paper examines the effect of such policies using an institutional framework, designed to illustrate how factors both from inside and outside of academia influence the decision to patent university research. We find passage of the Bayh‐Dole Act spurred university patenting, but did not induce additional applied research funding. Thus, Bayh‐Dole fostered technology transfer, but did not result in more applied research at universities. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

TECHNOLOGY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN CHINA: Commercialization Reforms in the Science and Technology Sector

A vital component of China's reforms in the area of science and technology (S&T) activities during the last two decades has been improving the commercial exploitation of technology generated in research institutes. This article analyses the various concepts and measures introduced to guide policies for the commercialization of technology as well as various approaches employed by the Chinese government in the light of theories of market‐pull innovation and public choice.     

Public Engagement for Informing Science and Technology Policy: What Do We Know,What Do We Need to Know,and How Will We Get There?

This article examines social science relevant to public engagements and identifies the challenges to the goal of meaningful public input into science and technology policy. Specifically, when considering “which forms, features, and conditions of public engagement are optimal for what purposes, and why?” we find social science has not clarified matters. We offer a model to guide systematic research that defines and empirically connects variations in features and types of public engagement activities to specifically defined variations in effective processes and outcomes. The specification of models, as we have done, will guide policy makers, practitioners, and the public in determining what kinds of engagement techniques are optimal for what kinds of purposes. Our model is presented to start conversations and inspire research that in the future should help to ensure meaningful public participation that meets the promise of contributing thoughtful societal values and perspectives into governmental policies impacting science and technology research.     

“David Byrne really does love PowerPoint”: art as research on semiotics and semiotic technology

This article presents a reading of David Byrne's Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information, an art work created with MicroSoft's presentation software PowerPoint, as an instance of creative research on semiotics and semiotic technology. It reveals commonalities and differences between Byrne's ideas about PowerPoint and related ideas from linguistics and semiotics, and is intended as a contribution to research on PowerPoint, and on semiotic technologies generally, as well as to efforts aimed at developing criteria for evaluating art as research on semiotics.     

Some aspects of science-based technological promotion

Scientific research car for scientific purposes. As such, scientific research will necessarily be evaluate scientific terms. However, scientific research can also be supported for such nonscientific purposes as economic development, industrialization, education, etc. In that case, evaluation of scientific research will be based on economic, educational, etc., yardsticks. This paper attempts to seek evaluation criteria for the public support of science for the purposes of technological promotion. Such a public investment is shown to be a risky process. The “riskiness” of the process is discussed within the framework of a model of science-based technology and expressed in stochastic terms. A decision-making framework is then developed on the basis of expected utility hypotheses.     

基于ASP.NET的网络课程体系结构和技术研究

本文介绍了ASP.NET的运行机制及其优点,通过阐述现有网络课程的特点和不足,结合ASP.NET先进的动态网页开发技术,提出了基于ASP.NET的网络课程设计架构,并对网络课程功能模块和开发过程中的关键技术进行了详细的分析。     

INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN MICROELECTRONICS

Federal, state and local governments have encouraged university-industry cooperation in recent years through a number of different policies and programs. Industry has increasingly been looking to universities for new ideas, closer collaboration and more timely access to research results. Various levels of government have become increasingly involved in joint funding with industry in new university-industry research centers and institutes. State and local governments spend considerable effort to attract high-technology industry, using university-industry collaborative programs as one incentive. Yet despite the theoretical and policy importance of this topic, it has received little systematic research attention.
This contribution reports the results of a National Science Foundation-funded study investigating technology transfer in microelectronics between Arizona State University located in the Phoenix metropolitan area and surrounding microelectronics firms. The results describe state and local initiatives influencing such technology transfer, how the initial technology transfer contact comes about, how research goals, topics and activities are decided upon, and how resources and funding support is secured. In addition satisfaction from, benefits and costs of, as well as attitudes bout technology transfer are reported.     

Stem Cell Research and Technology in Iran—Window of Opportunity in the Midst of International Tension

This paper aims to explain how the key characteristics of “stem cell research” as an emerging technology facilitate the strategy of an Iranian organization, namely, “the Royan Institute” to learn by interaction and to generate knowledge. It argues that the Royan could take advantage of the window of opportunity that stem cell research and technology had temporarily opened up but its endeavors are now being hampered by unfavorable international factors and weak domestic infrastructure. The article substantiates the case by giving an objective account of networking and gatekeeping in the process of learning/innovation at the Royan and concludes by questioning the continuity of the actual learning strategy in order to sustain the Royan's knowledge production.     

Comparative technology and public policy: The development of the nuclear power reactor in six nations

This essay proposes an analytic framework to compare the development and commercialization of a number of advanced civilian technologies. This framework emphasizes the multiple institutional actors and their objectives that such technology developments manifest and reflect. The construct is then illustrated in the context of the development and diffusion of the nuclear power reactor in six nations. The major policy observations deal with the finding that there are distinct developmental stages; furthermore, government policies had best recognize these stages with their particular requirements, so that policies can be formulated which are appropriate to these conditions.The research for this paper was performed under a grant from the National Science Foundation while the author was a member of the research staff of The Rand Corporation. The views expressed are the author's own and are not necessarily shared by The Rand Corporation, the Solar Energy Research Institute, nor their respective research sponsors.     

Studying social media as semiotic technology: a social semiotic multimodal framework

ABSTRACT

How do we study social media technology? While social semiotics provides an extensive toolkit for analysing multimodal texts and semiotic practices, the study of social media as semiotic technology poses a significant challenge to existing research methodologies. In this article, we present a social semiotic framework that allows us to describe in analytical details the multimodal meaning potentials offered by digital social media technology and connect these to multimodal text-making and semiotic practices while underscoring the role of technology. Our framework is organized around seven interrelated and inherently informed dimensions: (1) multimodality, (2) practice, (3) the social, (4) medium, (5) the material, (6) the historical, and (7) the critical. This framework could pertain to most types of semiotic technologies, but will here be developed for accounting for social media technologies, and its viability will be illustrated with examples from Instagram. By developing this framework, we aim at elaborating the theoretical basis and analytical tools of social semiotics, and thereby contributing to bringing forward increased understanding of how social media technology enables making, enacting and managing meaning.     

Policymaking for emerging technology: the case of earthquake prediction

How does a nation formulate policy for a technology not yet quite “ready” but which may nevertheless have to be used? Earthquake prediction illustrates some of the policy issues relevant to this question. Earthquake prediction is a technology that is still in the research and development (R & D) stage. Yet predictions have been made and can be expected in the future. The question for policymakers is, are the predictions “ready enough” to use - do the risks of doing nothing in response to a scientific prediction exceed those of a false alarm? As earthquake prediction represents an emerging technology, it calls for a developing policy framework. What is the nature of “present” developing policy? How did this policy come to be? How adequate is it? What needs to be done? This article attempts to answer such questions, dealing primarily with U.S. policy, but also drawing on the experience of other nations, particularly Japan.     

Controlling technology by shaping visions

In policy theory, technology assessment is most effective when applied in the early stages of research and development, when changes are easier. This ability depends on the qualities of the given tools. Visions and metaphors enjoy much attention today because they provide an early but sustainable orientation. Understanding their necessarily ambivalent nature, their social function, and their cognitive significance provides the basis for their use in analysis. Working with visions more systematically than we do today can improve the selection of technological alternatives. While the method of assessing future technologies with metaphors will not (and cannot, just like all other technology assessments) forecast subsequent decisions, it provides insights about tomorrow's technologies that can inform today's decisions.     

审视并反思我国高等教育潜在的四种危机——基于iPhone利益分配的视角

通过对iPhone的技术参数、定价、利润分配三个图表的分析,解读了iPhone的传奇现象,揭示了其背后的科技内涵。基于高等教育的科研职能,提出了我国高等教育在科研创新和成效推广中潜在的四种危机。旨在认识并理清它们之间的关系,反思我国目前的高等教育现状,以期对我国高等教育的发展起到启示和借鉴作用,进而加快我们由"中国制造"向"中国创造"迈进的步伐。     

Engaging in Small Talk: Nanotechnology Policy and Dialogue Processes in the UK and Australia

This article discusses the phenomena of nanotechnology, and notes that despite high investment levels for global research and development, the public presently understands neither the implications of this emerging technology nor how it might be best governed. It considers the notion of the public interest and its place in the public policy cycle, and notes some of the specific challenges posed by this new technology. Adopting a comparative jurisdictional approach, this article maps a range of policy and dialogue activities currently underway within the United Kingdom and Australia and concludes that policy dialogue is an essential component of public policy development for all emerging technologies. While the Australian government is currently beginning this process, compared to countries such as the United Kingdom, such efforts here are still embryonic. A fuller engagement in wide‐ranging public debate is suggested as a part of protecting the public interest.     

Undergraduate Research at Two-Year Community Colleges

There is a growing movement in academia that focuses on increased efforts at undergraduate research. Historically, this movement has been driven by faculty in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and has only recently become a focus for social sciences in general and political science in particular. For students to be successful at conducting undergraduate research, they should be exposed to it as soon as they are ready. This requires exposing students to undergraduate research in the freshmen and sophomore years. There is no reason this exposure should be limited to four-year institutions. To that end, a new journal has been created for students in political science and other social science courses at two-year colleges so they can be recognized for their undergraduate research. The Social Science Text and Academic Research (STAR) Journal is a peer/faculty-reviewed journal limited to students at two-year colleges.     

Making Every Vote Count: The Important Role of Managerial Capacity in Achieving Better Election Administration Outcomes

A public agency's capacity to implement policy and achieve valued public outcomes has been a long-running area of research in public administration. Many articles provide theory and empirics regarding the capacity to implement policy, but relatively few examine multiple types of agency capacity within the same analysis. This article develops a model based on the election administration literature in political science and public administration to examine the effects of managerial capacity, financial capacity, and technology on the election management outcome of the residual vote rate in North Carolina election jurisdictions. The results indicate that higher levels of management capacity and technology significantly reduce problems with voting as measured by the residual vote rate. Financial capacity shows a negative association with the residual vote rate but is not significant. The article concludes by discussing how studying election administration provides an important and uniquely good administrative context for developing administrative theory.     

作为技术预见工具的技术路线图及其应用前景

技术预见是有步骤的对科学、技术、经济、环境和社会的远期发展进行探索的过程,其目的是选定可能产生最大经济与社会效益的战略研究领域和新技术,而技术路线图是对某一特定技术领域的未来延伸的看法。技术路线图作为一种战略工具已经广被用于技术预见领域,旨在于提高技术预见活动的影响力和把握未来的能力,更能把握技术发展中的规律性。在科技政策领域,利用技术路线图进行技术预见,可以通过不断修正未来技术发展方向的选择机制,为科技规划等技术预见活动提供了一个整合不同利益共同体观点的平台,能够避免制定科技政策过程中潜在的技术负效应,能够提升科技计划管理过程中的行政能力。     

Innovating Science Policy: Restructuring S&T Policy for the Twenty-first Century1

Over the next twenty years, accelerating scientific and technical developments will spawn immense changes to society that can be both crucially beneficial and tragically destructive. This trend, principally occurring outside of government control, is both helping the United States to improve defense and economic security and producing threats to national security. To deal with these increasingly technical issues, the nation's leadership needs to be armed with considerable scientific and technological acumen. Hence, the United States should explore the creation of a national security science and technology (S&T) strategy that improves: (1) scientific analysis available to decision makers; (2) understanding of the S&T needed to maintain national security; (3) coordination and collaboration among S&T providers; (4) control of dangerous technologies; (5) technology prioritization and acquisition processes; and (6) the dialog on enhancing the application of the products of private sector and foreign research for American national security purposes. Policies that address these issues will have to achieve the difficult balance between government and scientists’ influence over research and development (R&D). This article explores how to better deliver technical advice to high-level decision makers, as a means to better deal with emerging threats that are enabled by the rapid innovation and proliferation of scientific knowledge throughout the world.