Depicting Innovations in Information Technology

National Academy Of Sciences, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The very success of the industries that produce information technology and the pervasiveness of their products and services in people?s daily lives frequently obscure the mutually reinforcing roles that industry, government, and academia play in conducting IT research and its translation into new products, services, and industries. This project through the National Academy of Sciences will capture and present for a general audience such phenomena as how much industry builds on government-funded university research, the long incubation periods sometimes needed for research to be translated into major industry activities, the steady work and funding required to get from initial exploration to large-scale commercial deployment, the interdependencies between research advances in different subfields, and the complex nature of the IT research ecology. Because new major IT industries appear on a regular basis and because our understanding of the key industries and their antecedents continues to evolve, the regular updates that this project will provide will ensure that a current picture that includes cutting-edge products and services is available on an ongoing basis. Earlier depictions by the National Academies of these phenomena figure have been used repeatedly in presentations to congressional staff and other decision makers, have been discussed broadly in the research community, and have been used in economic and policy analyses. This project will provide a useful resource to decision makers, researchers, and the general public on the structure of IT research and the roles of industry, academia, and government in innovation and the creation of IT products, services, and industries.