Government-sponsored Research Research Articles

Dead Rescuers: The Commemoration of Poles Who Lost Their Lives Saving Jews During the Second World War

After their electoral victory in 2015, the Law and Justice party started a counter-revolution in historical policy, intended to undermine critical historiography on the Holocaust. As a result, “dead rescuers,” Poles who lost their lives saving Jews during the Second World War, are commemorated by a host of institutions: a government-sponsored research institute, museums, and the Catholic Church. This commemoration borrows its aesthetics from earlier practices established in Holocaust memory: post-traumatic architecture, lists of victims, and micro-history to boost national pride and defend the good name of Poland abroad. Memory actors receive financial support from the government, becoming a mouthpiece for its reclaiming of the past for ethnonationalist ends.

Is Industry- Versus Government-Sponsored Research a Zero-Sum Game?

Is Industry- Versus Government-Sponsored Research a Zero-Sum Game?

Big Pharma and monopoly capitalism: A long-term view

Are intellectual property rights institutions meant to foster innovative activity or conversely to secure appropriation and profitability? Taking stock of a long-term empirical evidence on the pharmaceutical sector in the US, we can hardly support IPRs intended as an innovation rewarding institution. According to our analysis, pharma patents have constituted legal barriers to protect intellectual monopolies rather than an incentive and a reward to innovative efforts. Patenting strategies appear to be quite aggressive in extending knowledge borders and enlarging the space protected from the possibility of infringement. This is also witnessed by the fact that patent applications are very skewed in the covered trade names and patent thickness expands over time. Conversely, the ratio of patents protecting new drugs approved by the FDA which draw upon government-sponsored research – as such, a mark for quality – falls. Firm-level analysis on profitability confirms strong correlation, restricted to publicly traded pharmaceutical companies, between patent portfolio and profit margins.

Analysis on the Impact of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic on Scientific Research in Universities

Objective: To understand the progress of scientific research during the pandemic, and to analyze comprehensively the factors, in order to better carry out targeted work, and further strengthen the planning of scientific research organizations. Method: We issue questionnaires on mobile phones to colleges and research institutes in the natural sciences. According to the situation of their scientific research teams, each unit selects 5 - 10 faculty members of different research fields, different professional qualifications, different levels and different ages to complete online questionnaires. Being problem-oriented, we select professors, scholars, young instructors and scientific research managers from 6 colleges with different departments and different scientific research scales to conduct the research and discussions. We extract data from scientific research system for macro analysis. The above three methods are complemented and cross-referenced with each other. Results: The scientific research works in colleges and universities are affected widely by the epidemic. The result shows that the experimental process was slow (accounting for 65.78%). The postgraduates were not on duty (accounting for 61.16%), and the limited data of thesis writing appeared detached (accounting for 27.18%). Compared with the same period of the previous two years, the individual applications for government-sponsored research are considered to be basically equal (accounting for 51.46%). Due to the reduction of government financial investments, some major scientific research projects undertaken by enterprises. Conclusion: According to the requirements for epidemic prevention and control, the deployment and planning of the work should be adjusted timely, in order to respond to the actual needs. We must strike a balance between epidemic prevention and control, and scientific research, promote both of them, and grasp development opportunities.

Population, Clinical, and Scientific Impact of National Cancer Institute's National Clinical Trials Network Treatment Studies.

In the United States, the National Cancer Institute National Cancer Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) groups have conducted publicly funded oncology research for 50 years. The combined impact of all adult network group trials has never been systematically examined. We identified randomized, phase III trials from the adult NCTN groups, reported from 1980 onward, with statistically significant findings for ≥ 1 clinical, time-dependent outcomes. In the subset of trials in which the experimental arm improved overall survival, gains in population life-years were estimated by deriving trial-specific hazard functions and hazard ratios to estimate the experimental treatment benefit and then mapping this trial-level benefit onto the US cancer population using registry and life-table data. Scientific impact was based on citation data from Google Scholar. Federal investment costs per life-year gained were estimated. The results were derived through December 31, 2020. One hundred sixty-two trials comprised of 108,334 patients were analyzed, representing 29.8% (162/544) of trials conducted. The most common cancers included breast (34), gynecologic (28), and lung (14). The trials were cited 165,336 times (mean, 62.2 citations/trial/year); 87.7% of trials were cited in cancer care guidelines in favor of the recommended treatment. These studies were estimated to have generated 14.2 million (95% CI, 11.5 to 16.5 million) additional life-years to patients with cancer, with projected gains of 24.1 million (95% CI, 19.7 to 28.2 million) life-years by 2030. The federal investment cost per life-year gained through 2020 was $326 in US dollars. NCTN randomized trials have been widely cited and are routinely included in clinical guidelines. Moreover, their conduct has predicted substantial improvements in overall survival in the United States for patients with oncologic disease, suggesting they have contributed meaningfully to this nation's health. These findings demonstrate the critical role of government-sponsored research in extending the lives of patients with cancer.

The effects of gender diversity in boards of directors on the number of female managers promoted

PurposeThis study elaborates on the process through which gender-diverse boards of directors increase representation of females in management positions. This study draws on the gender spillover effect to examine whether gender diversity on boards of directors significantly influences the number of women promoted to managerial positions. The authors also employ implicit quota theory to examine the interaction effects of female board directors and their related strategies to target female customers as a source of female talent on the promotion numbers of female managers.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw from female manager panel data surveyed and gathered by the Korean Women Development Institute (KWDI), a Korean government-sponsored research institution, for the period 2008–2014. The total sample, comprising 5 biannual waves, includes 906 Korean companies across four wage rates. The authors apply zero-inflated negative binomial regression analyses to examine the effects of gender diversity on board director positions and its interactions with strategies targeting female markets on the number of female managerial promotions.FindingsThe authors find that gender diversity on boards of directors is positively related to the number of female managers promoted. Furthermore, in corporations where gender is not relevant to firms' strategy and decision-making, broader gender diversity increases the number of female managers promoted at lower- but not higher-level positions.Originality/valueThe current study demonstrates the complex role of gender diversity in board director positions in initiating and promoting the career development of female managers. On the one hand, gender diversity in board director positions has spillover effects on women's representation in management positions. On the other hand, female board directors impede the career progress of senior female managers to maintain their status in quotas when the female market is not critical to firms' competitiveness. Therefore, it is crucial to integrate two different concepts about gender diversity—the gender spillover effect and implicit quota theory—that elaborate on the effects of gender diversity in board director positions on female manager promotion numbers.

‘Armed with the necessary background of knowledge’: embedding science scrutiny mechanisms in the UK Parliament

The unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic have intensified the demands placed upon parliamentarians to scrutinize and evaluate evidence-based government proposals, making visible the parliamentary mechanisms that enable them to do so. This paper examines the steps that led two such mechanisms to become embedded in the institution of Parliament during from 1964 to 2001: the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology (a scrutiny and information-gathering body) and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (a legislative science and technology advice body). Drawing on official papers, Hansard records and unpublished archival material, this account complements existing studies of the relationships between government ministers and experts. It highlights how individual members of the all-party Parliamentary and Scientific Committee have influenced institutional change. In so doing it exposes some of the challenges confronting Parliament in the scrutiny of science policy from the mid-twentieth century to today. In particular, it reveals MPs' concerns about their ability to scrutinize science policy in the absence of a select committee on science and technology in the Commons during the 1980s. This shows that parliamentary scrutiny of science was compromised during the very period when the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher set about making major changes to the organization and funding of government-sponsored research in the UK.

Human Resource Practices for Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence From Korean Firms.

Human resource management (HRM) in managing environmental, social, governance (ESG), or corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives has been recently raised. Yet, little attention has been paid to integrating CSR and HRM. Our primary goal was to identify how and whether certain HR practices are critical for developing employee capability to operate in firms with active CSR initiatives. We first examine the impact of external CSR activities on firm-level work outcomes. Moreover, we attempt to identify a choice of particular HR practices that could be aligned with external CSR activities. We then empirically examine how each HR practice interacts with external CSR activities that influence employee retention and labor productivity. Using three longitudinal datasets conducted by the government-sponsored research institution over 154 publicly traded Korean firms for five waves of survey years, the results show that external CSR has a limited impact on employee retention and labor productivity. However, when external CSR activities are combined with a specific set of HR practices, including person-organization fit-based selection, performance-based pay, extensive investment of training and development, and employee suggestion program, the impact of external CSR on employee work outcomes is more substantial. The results indicate that external CSR and a particular set of HR practices as internal CSR can be complementary and generate a positive interaction on creating sustainable human capabilities.

Amending Federal Regulations to Counteract Language Barriers in the Informed Consent Process

Amending Federal Regulations to Counteract Language Barriers in the Informed Consent Process

Big Pharma and Monopoly Capitalism: A Long-Term View

Are IPRs institutions meant to foster innovative activities or conversely to secure appropriation and profitability? Taking stock of a long-term empirical evidence on the pharmaceutical sector in the US, we can hardly support IPRs intended as an innovation rewarding institution. According to our analysis, pharma patents have constituted legal barriers to protect intellectual monopolies rather than an incentive and a reward to innovative efforts. Patenting strategies appear to be quite aggressive in extending knowledge borders and enlarging the space protected from the possibility of infringements. This is also witnessed by the fact that patent applications are very skewed in the covered trade names and patent thickness expands over time. Conversely, the number of patents protecting new drugs approved by the FDA which draw upon government-sponsored research - as such a mark for quality - falls. Firm-level analysis on profitability confirms strong correlation, restricted to listed pharmaceutical firms, between patent portfolio and profit margins.

Generational chronotopes and accounting for unethical medicine: Bill Clinton’s apologies for radiation research and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

ABSTRACT Rhetoricians have theorized about temporality since the Sophists. In this essay, I argue that issues of rhetorical temporality can be understood by turning to the chronotope. I examine Bill Clinton’s rhetoric, which is notable for many reasons, including his two apologies for unethical government-sponsored research. Using his apologies for the government’s radiation research and for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, I map the generational chronotope, which arranges actions, people, and symbols along distinct generational lines to attribute praise and blame. Clinton apologizes for the unethical research but differentiated himself and his audience from previous generations of Americans and their leaders who were responsible for these ethical and scientific failings. While a powerful rhetorical strategy, Clinton’s use of the generational chronotope reinforces whiteness and deflects attention from the endemic nature of racism in America.

Analysis of the Advanced Turbine System Program on Innovation in Natural Gas Technology

This study evaluates the impact of a U.S. government-sponsored research program on advanced natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) innovations in the 1990s. From 1992–2000, the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) partnered with turbine manufacturers General Electric (GE) and Siemens Westinghouse Power Corporation (SWPC) in a cost-sharing partnership called the Advanced Turbine System program to promote efficiency innovations for NGCC technology. Using data from the European Patent Office’s worldwide patent database (PATSTAT), this study evaluates advanced turbine technology innovations by the program participants and their competitors. Using a negative binomial model, this approach shows GE increased the relative quantity of their patents towards the end of the program and afterwards, indicating the program led to more advanced NGCC innovations for GE. SWPC, on the other hand, had higher patent citations for patents filed during the DOE program relative to competitors, indicating SWPC had higher-quality advanced NGCC innovations due to new partnerships from the U.S. DOE program. However, this analysis reveals there was not a lack of this activity taking place before the program started, and that the overall impact of the program appears small based on the patent analysis.

Naturalization and the productivity of foreign-born doctorates

This paper estimates the effect of obtaining US citizenship on individual-level measures of productivity for foreign-born doctoral recipients from US universities. Becoming a US citizen results in the removal of barriers such as access to public sector occupations and to some sources of government-sponsored research funding which are hypothesized to increase the productivity of foreign-born scientists. We utilize panel data from the Survey of Doctoral Recipients from 1993 to 2013 and individual fixed effects models to control for selection bias in the naturalization decision. Our results indicate that becoming a naturalized citizen increases wages and several measures of academic productivity. In support of our argument, we find that foreign-born workers who naturalize are more likely to utilize research funding from a government agency, but not more likely to work for the government post-naturalization.

Feasibility Study of Government-Sponsored Patient Safety Research

Feasibility Study of Government-Sponsored Patient Safety Research

The Dark Side of Wars for Talent and Layoffs: Evidence from Korean Firms †

In this study, we examined the effects of layoffs and wars for talent on firms’ performance. The simultaneous use of layoffs and “war-for-talent” practices has become part of the management strategy for adjusting workforce competencies. We suggest that war-for-talent practices decrease organizational performance when laying people off at the same time. Moreover, we argue that investment in employees’ skill development during the same period as layoffs and a war for talent can enhance organizational sustainability in increasing employee commitment, trust and organizational flexibility. Using a longitudinal survey conducted at over 653 Korean firms by a government-sponsored research institution, the results show that war-for-talent practices do not have a significant impact on firms’ performance. Moreover, our findings indicate a negative relationship between war-for-talent practices and financial performance when conducting layoffs and, as expected, a positive effect of the interaction between a war for talent and layoffs on turnover. Lastly, the results indicate a negative effect on organizational performance in firms pursuing a war for talent is mitigated when investments in employee development are continued during periods of layoffs.

정부출연연구기관의 연구성과 효율성 분석

본 논문은 특정 출연연을 구성하고 있는 연구부서의 효율성 분석을 통해 정책적 의사결정자료를 제시하는데 목적이 있다. 구체적으로 DEA(자료포락분석) 방법론을 통해서 9개 연구부서로 구성되어 있는 K 연구원의 최근 5년간 투입-산출 자료를 중심으로 효율성을 분석하였다. 투입변수는 연구인력과 연구비로 산정하였으며, 산출변수는 논문, 특허(R&D 효율성)와 기술료, 기술이전(R&BD 효율성)으로 구분해서 실시하였다. 각각의 분석 결과 ICT 부서에 대한 상대적 효율성이 낮음을 확인하였으며, 이를 근거로 해당 부서는 효율성 향상을 위한 전략 수립 등의 변화가 필요함을 설명하였다.BR 본 논문은 출연연의 R&D 효율성을 실제 출연연 데이터에 적용하고 검증해 봄으로써 학문적인 성과 외에 현장적용의 실무적 기여를 하였으며, 과기정통부 산하 25개 출연연의 구성이 유사한 바 다른 출연연에도 적용할 수 있는 범용성을 확보하였다.

Will Clean Air Fade Away?

Government-sponsored research and regulations enabled western U.S. states to clean up their air, despite industrial and population growth. Proposed funding cuts could undo this progress.

Estimating Public and Patient Savings From Basic Research—A Study of Optical Coherence Tomography in Managing Antiangiogenic Therapy

To compare patient and Medicare savings from the use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) in guiding therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nvAMD) to the research investments made in developing OCT by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Observational cohort study. Main outcome measures were spending by Medicare as tracked by Current Procedural Terminology codes on intravitreal injections (67028), retinal OCT imaging (92134), and anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) treatment-specific J-codes (J0178, J2778, J9035, J3490, and J3590). These claims were identified from the Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services among fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries from 2012 to 2015; 2008 claims were acquired from the 100% FFS Part B Medicare Claims File. OCT research costs were determined by searching for grants awarded by NIH and NSF from inception to 2015. All costs and savings were discounted by 3% annually and adjusted for inflation to 2015 dollars. From 2008 to 2015, the United States government and nvAMD patients have accrued an estimated savings of $9.0 billion and $2.2 billion, respectively, from the use of OCT to guide personalized anti-VEGF treatment. The $9.0 billion represents a 21-fold return on government investment into developing the technology through NIH and NSF grants. Although an overall cost-benefit ratio of government-sponsored research is difficult to estimate because the benefit may be diffuse and delayed, the investment in OCT over 2 decades has been recouped many times over in just a few years through better personalized therapy.

Technology Transfer: How SMEs Build Relationships to Advance Open Innovation

This study reviews small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) ability to avail themselves of technology transfer through the theoretical lens of open innovation. SMEs have shown to be the greatest source of job growth in both developed and developing countries. However, to remain competitive and become sustainable, SMEs in today’s marketplace need to innovate. Technology transfer can be an advantageous tool in assisting SMEs in their need to innovate. An effective strategy for SMEs to obtain technology transfer is to partner with competitors, suppliers, customers, universities, and government-sponsored research and development programs. This study offers a literature review of peer-reviewed works regarding the impact technology transfer has on SMEs and what barriers they encounter to obtaining technology transfer. This study concluded that there are attributes such as building personal relationships and communication, which allow SMEs to overcome these barriers and successfully partake in technology transfer. This paper advances the study of the theory of open innovation within SMEs by providing greater insight into how to create environments that foster technology transfer. Practitioners will gain an understanding of the barriers which inhibit technology transfer and the attributes required to overcome these barriers.

The structure and change of the research collaboration network in Korea (2000–2011): network analysis of joint patents

This study is to examine the structure, characteristics, and change of a research collaboration network using co-assignee information of joint patents in Korea. The study was conducted in three stages: data collection, network construction, and network analysis. For network analysis, network topological analysis, node centrality analysis, and block modeling were performed in sequence. The analysis results revealed that the network has small-world properties. The results also showed that while government-sponsored research institutes (GRIs) played a role as a hub and bridge in the network in the early 2000s, universities gradually took their place to play a key role as a hub and bridge in the network. In addition, the block modeling analysis indicated that while, in the early 2000s, GRI-centered network density was shown to be high, the network density became concentrated around universities after 2004, and this tendency intensified after 2008. Bearing in mind a lack of empirical studies on inter-organizational research collaboration networks using patent data, this study made an academic contribution by specifically analyzing the structure and change of research collaboration networks by targeting Korea's major innovative actors. From the policy perspective, it provides important implications for figuring out the effects of university---industry---GRI (UIG) collaboration policies implemented so far, and can be of assistance for making evidence-based policies to build up a more effective UIG collaboration network or establish a new national science and technology innovation system.