NIST
GCR 02-830
Measuring
the Impact of ATP-Funded Research Consortia on Research Productivity of
Participating Firms
A Framework
Using Both U.S. and Japanese Data
About
the Advanced Technology Program
The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) is a partnership between government
and private industry to conduct high-risk research to develop enabling
technologies that promise significant commercial payoffs and widespread
benefits for the economy. The ATP provides a mechanism for industry
to extend its technological reach and push the envelope beyond what
it otherwise would attempt.
Promising future technologies are the domain of ATP:
-
Enabling
technologies that are essential to the development of future new and
substantially improved projects, processes, and services across diverse
application areas;
-
Technologies
for which there are challenging technical issues standing in the way
of success;
-
Technologies
whose development often involves complex "systems" problems
requiring a collaborative effort by multiple organizations;
-
Technologies
which will go undeveloped and/or proceed too slowly to be competitive
in global markets without ATP.
The ATP funds technical
research, but it does not fund product developmentæthat is the
domain of the company partners. The ATP is industry driven, and that
keeps it grounded in real-world needs. For-profit companies conceive,
propose, co-fund, and execute all of the projects cost-shared by ATP.
Smaller firms working
on single-company projects pay a minimum of all the indirect costs associated
with the project. Large, "Fortune 500" companies participating
as a single company pay at least 60% of total project costs. Joint ventures
pay at least half of total project costs. Single-company projects can
last up to three years; joint ventures can last as long as five years.
Companies of all sizes participate in ATP-funded projects. To date,
more than half of ATP awards have gone to individual small businesses
or to joint ventures led by a small business.
Each project has
specific goals, funding allocations, and completion dates established
at the outset. Projects are monitored and can be terminated for cause
before completion. All projects are selected in rigorous, competitions,
which use peer review to identify those that score highest against technical
and economic criteria.
Contact ATP for
more information:
-
On
the Internet: http://www.atp.nist.gov
-
By
e-mail: atp@nist.gov
-
By
phone: 1-800-ATP-FUND (1-800-287-3863)
- By writing: Advanced
Technology Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology,
100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 4701, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-4701
About
the Authors
Mariko Sakakibara is Associate Professor in the Policy Area
at the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University
of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She received her Ph.D. in Business
Economics and her MBA at Harvard University, where she completed her
dissertation work with Michael Porter and Richard Caves. She received
her Master of Engineering degree in Architectural Engineering from the
University of Tokyo, and her Bachelor of Engineering degree in Architectural
Engineering from Kyoto University. Prior to coming to the United States
as a Fulbright Scholar, she was Deputy Director at the Ministry of International
Trade and Industry, Japan.
Professor Sakakibara's
research interests include innovation, alliances, multinational enterprises,
and national competitiveness. She has been concerned with how firms
obtain competitive advantage through cooperation or competition, and
how they utilize this advantage in overseas activities. She publishes
academic papers at economic and management journals. She is also a co-author
with Michael Porter at Harvard Business School and Hirotaka Takeuchi
at Hitotsubashi University of a book published in 2000, Can Japan Compete?
(Macmillan, London; Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, MA), which was selected
as one of the “Books of the Year” by The Economist in 2000.
She teaches courses in the MBA and Ph.D. programs on strategy and international
business.
Lee Branstetter
is an Associate Professor in the Finance and Economics Division of the
Columbia Business School. He currently serves as the Director of the
International Business Program. Prior to this appointment, Branstetter
was an Assistant Professor of Economics and Director of the East Asian
Studies Program at the University of California at Davis. He received
his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1996 and his B.A.
from Northwestern University in 1991. Professor Branstetter is a faculty
research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Branstetter conducts
research in the fields of international economics and industrial organization.
He also maintains a strong interest in the economic analysis of technological
innovation. His recent research projects have examined Japanese foreign
direct investment, international technology diffusion in Asia, the impact
of changes in Japanese patent law, and technology promotion policy in
the United States and Japan.
Date created: January
24, 2003
Last updated:
April 12, 2005
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