During World War II, the U.S. government's Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) undertook one of the largest public investments in applied R&D in U.S. history, entering into thousands of contracts with firms and universities to perform research essential to the war effort. Using...

This paper identifies the degree to which scientists are willing to change the direction of their work in exchange for resources. Data from the National Institutes of Health are used to estimate how scientists respond to targeted funding opportunities. Inducing a scientist to change their...

Research which explores unchartered waters has a high potential for major impact but also carries a higher uncertainty of having impact. Such explorative research is often described as taking a novel approach. This study examines the complex relationship between pursuing a novel approach and...

The study focuses on the characteristics of the Greek research and innovation system, and explores its potential role in raising competitiveness. Despite the progress achieved in recent years, the domestic research and innovation system is still characterised by weaknesses, which undermine its...

Concern exists that public funding of science is increasingly risk averse. Funders have addressed this concern by soliciting the submission of high-risk research to either regular or specially designed programs. Little evidence, however, has been gathered to examine the extent to which such...

Innovation policy can be a crucial component of governments' responses to crises. Because speed is a paramount objective, crisis innovation may also require different policy tools than innovation policy in non-crisis times, raising distinct questions and tradeoffs. In this paper, we survey the...

World War II was one of the most acute emergencies in U.S. history, and the first where the mobilization of science and technology was a major part of the government response. The U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) led a major research effort to develop technologies and...

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers, researchers, and journalists have made comparisons to World War II. In 1940, a group of top U.S. science administrators organized a major coordinated research effort to support the Allied war effort, including significant investments in...

We introduce new historical administrative data identifying U.S. government-funded patents since the early twentieth century. In addition to the funding agency, the data report whether the government has title to the patent ("title" patents) or funded a patent assigned to a private organization...

This paper analyses the nature of knowledge spillovers from research and development (R&D) in the field of liquid crystal display technology by estimating the impact of inventors' changing organizational and collaborative affiliations on the probability of citations in US patents filed between...