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MIT Science Policy Review

Federal R&D funding: the bedrock of national innovation

Rebecca Mandt † , Kushal Seetharam † , Chung Hon Michael Cheng *

Edited by Jack Reid and Anthony Tabet

Full Report | Aug. 20, 2020

† These authors contributed equally.

* Email: [email protected]

DOI: 10.38105/spr.n463z4t1u8

• Federal research and development (R&D) funding has significantly declined as a share of GDP for several decades.
• We argue that federal R&D funding is the bedrock of national innovation and plays an irreplaceable role in steering scientific progress towards the betterment of society.
• We propose tailored communication efforts to galvanize long-term public support for federal investment in R&D.

Article Summary

The U.S. government’s financial commitment to scientific research has significantly declined in the past few decades. Recent research has also revealed a lack of public awareness of the importance of federal research and development (R&D) funding; only one in four Americans believe that the government’s role in science is indispensable. In this paper, we argue that federal funding provides the bedrock for the U.S.’s innovation infrastructure while guiding the national research agenda to benefit society. We first examine which projects the federal government chooses to fund, concluding that federally-funded R&D focuses heavily on use-inspired basic research and supporting work which is in line with the missions of federal agencies, missions that prioritize societal needs. Next, we examine how federal science funding uniquely addresses market failures of private sector R&D while catalyzing innovation more broadly. We close by proposing specific tailored communication strategies to galvanize public excitement about science, thereby mustering sustained public support for federal R&D funding.

Introduction

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade, not because [it is] easy, but because [it is] hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win. President John F. Kennedy, 1962

When President John F. Kennedy proclaimed these now-famous words at Rice University in Houston, Texas, in 1962, the United States was lagging behind in the Space Race [1]—the Soviet Union was first to launch a satellite into orbit and first to launch a human into space. However, unfazed in the face of adversity and the seemingly impossible, the United States doubled down on its commitment to this massive and heroic endeavor, mobilizing the nation’s top talent and succeeding in sending a human to the moon for the first time in human history by 1969, a mere seven years after Kennedy’s speech.

The Space Race, in a sense, marked the pinnacle of a golden age in American science and technology, from the technological superiority that helped the Allies win World War II to the advent of computing and the Internet that revolutionized the entire world, and in 2020, the footprint of American science pervades every corner of the globe. This golden age brought the U.S. not only unparalleled prestige but also incredible prosperity.

America’s prosperity and success have been underwritten in no small part by its technological leadership [2]. And as America loses ground in the global race in technological innovation, this position, along with the prosperity and security America has enjoyed, are at stake [3, 4]. In an increasingly competitive global environment, federal support of scientific research—research that pays dividends decades into the future—is all-the-more fundamental to the U.S.’s current and future economic success [5].

American progress in an array of key research areas—e.g. photonics, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology—areas that would generate the yet-unimagined technologies and industries of the future decades from now, threatens to lag behind that of other countries [5]. Put another way, compared to other countries, we are not investing enough in our own country’s future, threatening economic prosperity and job creation decades down the line. The federal government’s failure to aggressively invest in scientific research is already exacting a cost: research projects in universities across the country are being shut down because of funding cuts [6]. The ramifications of these present cuts will be felt for decades to come [3].

This paper diagnoses the current problem with insufficient federal research funding and lays out the unique role of the federal government in the national scientific research enterprise. In particular, we first highlight the importance of federal funding in facilitating innovation and then outline the reasons for and results of insufficient federal research funding. The federal government sets national priorities for scientific and technological progress, addresses market failures concerning high-risk, public-good research endeavors, and “crowds in” human and capital resources to R&D, both public and private, creating a virtuous, self-reinforcing cycle of greater investment in research and innovation. We conclude that U.S. federal R&D expenditures should be greatly expanded in order to sustain the economic prosperity and social well-being of America and its people. Furthermore, we recognize the necessity of galvanizing political will through policy advocacy and public engagement to safeguard future support for federal R&D.

The Faltering of Federal Research Funding

After World War II, the federal government began prioritizing funding for R&D, propelling the United States into a position of global leadership in innovation and technology [7]. In current dollars, federal R&D funding grew from \$2.8 billion in 1953 to \$127.2 billion in 2018. However, over the last decade, federal support for R&D has been relatively flat, and from 2011-2014, funding actually fell for three consecutive years [7] (Fig. 1a). The past few years have seen a bolstering of bipartisan support for the federal research budget [8] (Fig. 1a), but this recent trend cannot be taken for granted. Under the presidential budget request for FY2021, federal research funding would be cut by 9% overall [9]. Additionally, in recent years, trends in R&D funding have been largely driven by overall trends in discretionary funding, which compared to mandatory, or entitlement spending, has represented a dwindling share of the federal budget [8]. Appropriators will face tough choices in the next two fiscal years, in the face of limited room for increased spending under the discretionary spending caps. This pressure will undoubtedly be exacerbated by the ongoing global economic recession caused by COVID-19 [9, 10].

Figure 1: Trends in federally-funded research and development (R&D) funding over time. (A) Total amount of federal R&D funding in billions of dollars. (B) R&D intensity, given as the percentage of federal R&D expenditures as share of total gross domestic product (GDP). All amounts are in current U.S. dollars. Source: National Science Board, National Science Foundation, 2020, Research and Development: U.S. Trends and International Comparisons, Science and Engineering Indicators 2020, NSB-2020-3, Alexandria, VA. Available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20203/.

One important metric for assessing a country’s investment in R&D and innovative capacity is “R&D intensity,” or the percentage of R&D expenditures as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) [8]. In the United States, federal R&D intensity has had an overall downward trend since the Space Race of the 1950s and 60s [11], declining from a high of 1.86% in 1986 to 0.62% in 2017 (Fig. 1b). By this less optimistic measure, the U.S. government has actually greatly deprioritized the importance it places on research innovation in recent decades.

One frequently discussed repercussion of the recent stagnation of federal R&D funding is that America’s position as the world’s uncontested technology and innovation powerhouse has been steadily slipping. The most recent NSF Science and Engineering Indicators report showed that as of 2017, the United States still leads the world in total R&D spending (both public and private expenditures) [12]. However, the U.S.’s share of global R&D has declined from 69% during the post-WWII period to 37% in 2000 to 27.7% in 2017 [7, 13]. Globally, comparing the growth rate of total R&D expenditure from 2000-2017, the U.S. lags behind several other countries, including China, South Korea, India, and Germany [12]. The potential technological, economic, and national security implications of the loss of U.S. dominance in research and innovation has been extensively reviewed elsewhere [4, 14].

Another impact of recent trends in R&D funding is a dramatic shift in who is sponsoring research. While federal R&D has seen a period of recent stagnation, this has been offset by rapid increase in R&D by the private sector. Before the 1980s, the federal government funded the majority of R&D, whereas since the 1980s, private funding has dominated. As of 2017, around 70% of R&D expenditures were funded by businesses [8, 11] (Fig. 2). The ramifications of this trend are not immediately obvious; indeed, in a recent public opinion survey of adults in the United States, only one in four people believes that the federal government’s role in science is essential [15], indicating a belief that the private sector could replace the function of the federal government in R&D. However, in this paper, we contend that the federal government is uniquely situated to undertake cutting-edge scientific initiatives, and to guide the research agenda to address societal needs that the private sector would otherwise ignore. We also discuss how the federal government “crowds-in” funding from other sources, and invests in infrastructure and human resources upon which the rest of the scientific enterprise relies.

Figure 2: The private sector has overtaken the federal government in research development (R&D) spending. (A) Total R&D expenditures by funding source, in billions of dollars. (B) Percentage of total US R&D funding from the federal government, businesses, and other sources. All amounts are in current U.S. dollars. Source: National Science Board, National Science Foundation, 2020, Research and Development: U.S. Trends and International Comparisons, Science and Engineering Indicators 2020, NSB-2020-3, Alexandria, VA. Available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20203/.

Critical Roles of the Federal Government

The federal government is critical to both the progress of national R&D and tying this progress to societal needs. In this section, we introduce the taxonomy of R&D categories and discuss each of the roles of the federal government in detail. Specifically, the federal government funds research that serves broad public priorities, addresses market failures by funding research that the private sector does not and cannot, and generates virtuous cycles that encourage public and private sectors alike to further invest in research and innovation.

Classification of R&D

The government often classifies research into three categories: basic research, applied research, and development (see Fig. 3 for official definitions). This linear model of innovation wherein knowledge is generated from basic research, then expanded towards some practical use in applied research, and finally formalized into some technology during development only captures the first role of federal funding which is to address the lack of industry support of fundamental research. This model was enshrined in modern science policy by Vannevar Bush’s report Science, the Endless Frontier . Bush was the Dean of the MIT School of Engineering and head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War II; his report is widely seen has having defined America’s post-WWII research enterprise [16]. This linear model of innovation is increasingly understood to be overly simplistic [17]. Even Bush noted in his report that there is no strict line between basic and applied research.

Figure 3: Comparing the type of research that the federal government and businesses fund. The table gives the definitions of basic, applied, and experimental development used by the National Science Foundation and National Science Board in the 2020 Science Indicators report. The pie charts show how much federal and private sector funding is devoted to each of these research categories. Source: National Science Board, National Science Foundation, 2020, Science and Engineering Indicators 2020: The State of U.S. Science and Engineering, NSB-2020-1, Alexandria, VA. Available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20201/.

The problem, however, is not just an ambiguous boundary between basic and applied work, but also the idea that the generation of fundamental knowledge of nature is strictly correlated with a purity of intent free of practical considerations. Indeed, there is a misconception that basic research corresponds to “pure” research [18]. A more realistic categorization of research uses the criteria of whether or not its intent is to generate fundamental knowledge and whether or not there was some practical motivation behind the work; such a categorization encapsulates both roles of federal research which are to support fundamental research and guide innovation toward societal needs. These criteria are not redundant, and “basic” research that generates knowledge can also be motivated by use. Donald Stokes, a renowned political scientist and previous dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, gives a more nuanced model in which research is split into four quadrants based on these two criteria of knowledge generation and use (Fig. 4) [19, 20]. Canonical examples of the quadrants would be Niels Bohr’s work on atomic structure which was motivated purely by a quest for understanding without use, Thomas Edison’s pursuit of electrical lighting which was motivated purely by use without a desire for fundamental knowledge, and Louis Pasteur’s work on germ theory which was motivated by both the desire for knowledge and practical use. The fourth quadrant of work which is motivated neither by practical use nor fundamental knowledge consists, for example, of taxonomic or classificatory research and tinkering projects [19].

Figure 4: Quadrant model of federal R&D funding. Funding sources are categorized by proximity to application and contribution to fundamental understanding.

This quadrant model also better captures the complex relationship between science and technological innovation. Knowledge generated from scientific inquiry can certainly lead to new and improved technologies, however, the invention of some piece of technology often motivates basic research to investigate the natural phenomenon underpinning the device. A modern example is the complicated web connecting high-temperature superconductivity, magnets in MRI machines, nuclear fusion reactors, and efforts to design quantum computers and simulators; these seemingly disparate fields of science and technology have intimately connected motivations that flow back and forth between fundamental science and societally relevant technologies.

Funding Public Priorities

The intent to connect the government’s R&D expenditure to societal needs has been expressed by administrations across the political spectrum [21, 22]. The role of federal funding in supporting fundamental research and in addressing societal needs can thus be accommodated by framing the U.S. government’s approach to science through the lens of use-inspired research. Such a compact meshes naturally with the missions of agencies which disperse federal funds and makes it more natural to justify public investment of science broadly, including investment in pure undirected research through its support of use-inspired research, motivated by an application, and ultimately technological progress [19]. The majority of federal R&D funding is distributed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Defense (DoD), and Department of Energy (DOE), with over 60% of funds going to university-based academics, who are the primary contributors of fundamental research [23]. These agencies have a variety of different missions that address different societal needs. For example, the NIH’s mission is to improve human health through the scientific understanding of disease and health, the NSF’s mission includes general scientific learning and discovery, DARPA (part of the DoD) focuses on technologies related to national security, and ARPA-E (part of the DOE) focuses on energy technologies. In line with their driving purposes, these agencies fund a spectrum of research across the various quadrants in Stokes’s model (Fig. 4).

We see, however, that the overall portfolio of federal funding broadly centers around the quadrant of use-inspired basic research, with support in adjacent quadrants providing the healthy environment required for such use-inspired research to thrive; the complex interplay between science and technology means that research in one quadrant often depends on progress in others. When the “use” in the use-inspired research is contextualized towards societal needs through the missions of government agencies, the use-inspired research becomes societally relevant research. The federal government’s broad focus on societally relevant research does not hinder academic freedom at the project level; government funding agencies keep broad societally relevant use cases in mind when forming their grant portfolio, but scientists undertaking research through individual grants still have the leeway to be undirected in their intent. In this way, there is a notion of national welfare underpinning public research funding while scientists remain largely uninfluenced by this context in their pursuit of knowledge. Such a compact between science and the government gives a stronger argument for funding science than the pure notion of science as a public good. Federal R&D funding therefore plays the critical role of generating research relevant to public priorities such as healthcare and a clean environment which are at the core of the missions of federal agencies. As will be discussed in the following sections, this research not only provides the bedrock upon which industry R&D is done, but also creates a “crowd-in” effect by which other parts of the national innovation infrastructure invest in areas related to these public priorities.

Addressing Market Failures

Unlike the private sector, the federal government is uniquely suited to guide national innovation toward public priorities, such as healthcare, clean energy, and infrastructure, that market incentives ignore [24]. The government has a role in two different types of market failure. The first is a true market failure where fundamental research underlying new technologies is not funded by the private sector due to the risk-reward profile and timeline to commercial relevance. The second is that regardless of how efficient the market is, an incrementally progressing economy does not always align with pressing societal needs or generate optimal societal outcomes.

Private firms’ and industries’ goal to maximize profit from an R&D investment often results in the financing of short-term, low-risk technologies. This is especially true in areas where the foundational research is mostly complete and the bulk of the remaining work is in short-term development. It follows that U.S. industries tend to spend about 80% of their R&D investments on technological development and only 20% on foundational research, which are longer-term, riskier (although arguably cheaper) investments [8]. This trend towards “short-termism” has become increasingly predominant in industry with more and more investment going into development rather than research [25]. As less and less research is being done in the private sector, companies are increasingly relying on work done at academic institutions funded by the federal government. For example, almost 90% of high-impact research papers authored by corporations were written in collaboration with scientists at academic and government labs [26]. The amount of corporate patents that rely on work done elsewhere has also increased dramatically; almost a third of all patents filed in recent years cite federally-supported research. The patents that cite federally-supported research were also found to be of greater substance and novelty on average [27].

While the reliance of the private sector on research produced elsewhere is not problematic a priori , this model only works when federal funding is available to provide these long-term, risky investments into basic and applied research. For example, the U.S. shale gas boom relied heavily on federal funding through the scientific research performed at the Gas Research Institute and the geologic mapping technology developed at Sandia National Labs [24]. This is an example of the federal funding addressing a true market failure by derisking private sector R&D.

The market by itself, however, is often blind to environmental concerns and the long-run societal and economic impact of pressing issues like climate change. Such societal issues are the purview of the federal government, which can use federal funding and other policies to catalyze national innovation towards clean energy technologies and climate resilience. Other examples of public priorities where the government has a pivotal role include developing new antibiotics and understanding the effects of opioids [28]–[30]. Federal research funding is therefore critical both by supporting fundamental research that the private sector is not incentivized to invest in, as well as by providing leadership in targeting societally critical issues. Below, we give two case studies demonstrating these roles.

Case study 1: A canonical example of the government’s role in laying the foundation for innovative technology is the Internet. While the concept of a wireless telecommunications system was around as far back as the early 1900s when Nikola Tesla coined the term “World Wireless System,” the first working prototype of such a network was created by the Department of Defense under the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) [31]. The goal of “ARPANET,” as it was named, was to create a secure telecommunications system that could distribute information wirelessly in the case of an attack [32]. ARPANET incorporated many key innovations including the concept of “packet switching”—breaking an electronic message into smaller packages that can be transmitted to a new location and re-assembled. The initial network had host computers connected via phone lines to “interface message processors”—the predecessor to the modern-day router [32]. Over the next 20 years, ARPA-funded researchers continued to develop advanced communication protocols and to expand ARPANET into a broader “network of networks” [31, 33]. In addition to the role of ARPA, another federal agency, the National Science Foundation (NSF), was also essential in providing networking services and high-end computing power to universities across the county. These NSF-supported supercomputing centers developed many advances in web applications, including the first freely accessible web browser, which was the basis of modern browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator [34]. While the Internet as it is known today cannot be credited to any single organization, the role of government research in laying the foundation is undeniable. It is difficult to imagine that such an expansive project involving years of research and coordination across multiple institutes could have been undertaken without its involvement [35].

Case study 2: A good example of the mismatch of public and private objectives can be seen in the development of new antibiotics to keep ahead of rising bacterial resistance to pre-existing drugs. Antimicrobial resistance is widely recognized as one of the greatest threats of the 21st century [36]. Widespread use of antibiotics has led to the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria that no longer respond to currently used treatment methods. Thus, there is a critical need to produce new antibiotics. In spite of this, there has actually been a decrease in the number of new antibiotics being developed and approved since the 1980s, and many large pharmaceutical companies have downsized or eliminated their antibiotic discovery programs [37, 38]. This is because there are several barriers that limit the profitability of new antibiotics, often leading to a poor return on investment. Unlike drugs for chronic conditions, antibiotics are typically taken for a short period of time. New antibiotics entering the market face competition from cheaper generics, and are often reserved as drugs of last resort [39]. Even if an antibiotic is successful, there is always a danger that resistance to the new drug will emerge, so it may only be effective for a limited window of time.

Given the high risk associated with bringing any new drug to market and limited ability to recoup investments, it is understandable that this is a priority that the private sector will not address on its own. Thus, several government agencies have stepped in to fill the gap. For example, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has contributed $1.1 billion since 2010, advancing nine new antibiotics to clinical development, three of which have already been approved [29]. BARDA and several other Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies have also awarded grants and facilitated public-private partnerships to incentivize the development of new drug candidates [39, 40]. It is clear that without continued federal involvement, there would exist few solutions against a post-antibiotic world where millions die each year from bacterial infections that were once easily treatable [36].

Virtuous Cycles of Federal Funding

In addition to directly supporting research related to public priorities, federal investment also produces a domino effect in resource commitment, inducing investment from non-federal sources such as the private and philanthropic sectors into R&D related to broad societal objectives [41]. A multitude of studies have found that government investment in R&D increases private investment and effort (see, for example, [42]). Analysis done by Lanahan et al. in 2016 estimated that every 1% increase in federal research funding leads to a 0.468% increase in industry research investment, a 0.411% increase in nonprofit research investment, and a 0.217% increase in state and local research funding, cumulatively more than doubling the initial federal investment [41]. This positive feedback effect generally holds true across different disciplines including life sciences, physical sciences, and engineering. We therefore see that federal funding has an effect of “crowding-in” R&D investment from non-federal sources rather than crowding them out, as is sometimes erroneously assumed. As federal R&D investments are typically made in line with the missions of federal agencies which are in line with public priorities, increasing federal funding would lead the entire national R&D infrastructure to move more in step with societal needs and public benefits rather than purely market considerations. Additionally, federally-supported research is much more likely to be publicly disclosed compared to private sector R&D, and is therefore more likely to catalyze other innovations [23]. For example, as previously discussed, advances in supercomputing, and even the invention of the web browser, were built upon research done on computationally modeling black hole collisions [43]. As another example, fundamental physics research studying the movement of atoms led to the invention of molecular resonance imaging (MRI), a medical technology that helps save countless lives today [44, 45].

Federal R&D expenditure is also responsible for both the education and training of scientists and engineers who move into the broader workforce as well as the physical infrastructure that often forms the kernel for regional hubs of technological innovation [46]. A core part of the NSF’s mission, for example, is supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and the broader development of the human capital pipeline for national R&D [23]. The agency is also tasked with maintenance of large-scale research infrastructure such as facilities for materials research and fabrication, high-performance computing facilities, and particle accelerators, out of which technologies underlying countless start-ups and private sector innovations have been born [47]. The work done by university research centers and national labs, both of which are primarily funded by the federal government, also end up attracting technology incubators, start-ups, and a larger industry presence [3]. Therefore, federal funding is often responsible for the key centers around which technology hubs form and lead to regional economic growth; examples include Silicon Valley in California; Boston, Massachusetts; the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina; the Boulder-Denver corridor in Colorado; and Madison, Wisconsin. In addition to its indirect role in forming such innovation hubs, the federal government often takes a direct role in creating infrastructure critical to future private sector R&D including advanced manufacturing, high-performance computing, and smart cities [48]. Federal funding, therefore, plays two major roles: it spurs the general pace of national innovation forward, and it guides the national innovation ecosystem towards societal priorities. Both of these tasks are accomplished by utilizing the “crowd-in” effect of federal R&D investments, the training of the STEM workforce, the tendency for technology hubs to form around academic and federal research centers, and the types of R&D infrastructure the government catalyzes.

In this paper, we have shown that federal investment in R&D is stagnant at best and, by some measures, declining. We also provide theoretical context and case studies illustrating why federal funding is uniquely important to creating innovations in research that benefit the public good. Here, we provide proposals for how to translate this message to the public in order to effect political change. We recognize that these proposals alone will not be sufficient if the goal is to bolster federal research funding; such an endeavor will certainly require a broad array of approaches, including the utilization of professional advocacy efforts and a discussion of the budgetary mechanisms that could be used to increase or reallocate federal discretionary funds. However, in this section, we focus on public advocacy as a necessary and often overlooked strategy that can safeguard grassroots political support for federal funding into the future.

This focus on public engagement is particularly salient in light of an increasingly visible “science – public divide,” a phenomenon whereby growing segments of the public are embracing views that are contrary to scientific consensus, such as the anti-vaccine movement [49]. The current COVID-19 epidemic also highlights how failures in communication can have important public health consequences [50]. Evidence to be discussed below indicates that while public support for science is still generally strong, Americans are somewhat disconnected from the world of science itself. There are dire consequences caused by rifts between “elite, ivory-tower scientists” and “everyone else.” Science is a collective national and societal endeavor, and only by keeping it so can there be sustained public support for science. The discussion that follows lays out recommendations for safeguarding the close, symbiotic relationship between the scientific community and the general public.

As we have discussed, the federal government plays an integral role in translating scientific research into technologies and solutions that impact our everyday lives. We believe that this is an important message to convey to both policymakers and the public to galvanize support for federal R&D funding. The American public must understand that America’s scientific and technological breakthroughs are not merely badges of national prestige; they have material impacts on our standard of living and our national security. While most Americans agree that the federal government should fund scientific research, less than half support increasing federal R&D funding [51]. This issue is likely compounded by the fact that the majority of Americans overestimate the amount of government spending that is devoted to scientific research relative to other priorities [52]. Additionally, in a public survey from 2011, when adults in the U.S. were asked the question “Which one of the following domestic programs would you be willing to cut government spending in order to reduce the federal deficit?”, scientific research was at the top of the list [53].

By reframing the discussion around the role of federal R&D funding, we hope to change public opinion. Recent public survey data from the organization ScienceCounts, an organization dedicated to increasing public awareness and support for scientific research, examined the type of science that Americans believe various institutions do best. According to ScienceCounts, the American public believes that the private sector is best at creating new processes and products and driving economic growth. By contrast, Americans believe that universities, which are largely federally-funded, are best at discovering how things work [54]. This survey data suggests that Americans are unaware of how many federal dollars go towards use-inspired research, and how integral federal funding is to the accomplishment of public priorities, the pursuit of innovative moonshot initiatives, and the R&D ecosystem as a whole. Even if the public is not explicitly aware of the linear model of scientific research, it seems to largely view research progress through this lens. We believe that this finding helps to explain why only one in four people believe government funding of scientific research is essential [15].

The good news is that Americans have an overall positive view of science and are optimistic about how science can be used to improve society. Almost all (92%) of the public agreed that science and technology create “more opportunities for the next generation” [51]. Importantly, one of the major findings of the ScienceCounts research is that the primary association that people have with science is hope—a powerful brand that can and should be utilized by science advocates [15].

The above review of public perceptions of science suggests an enormous opportunity. If the public can be persuaded that federal R&D funding is uniquely important to actualize those aspirational hopes that science promises, this would go a long way towards increasing public engagement and support for federally-funded science. We believe that citizen-level involvement is a powerful and under-recognized strategy for enacting political change. Here, we outline three steps necessary to achieve this public advocacy goal.

1) Identifying specific scientific outcomes the public prioritizes. It is wonderful news that people so strongly associate scientific research with hope, but what exactly is it that people are hoping for? In a pilot digital marketing-based study, ScienceCounts found that general messages of hope do not work, finding that “in the absence of a clear benefit, the promise of science becomes weak and generic, losing much of its appeal” [53]. We propose conducting research to better understand what exactly it is the public values and cares about most. What diseases do people most want to see cured? What environmental concerns do people believe are most pressing? What advances in computing and information technology are people most excited about? Are these values uniform, or are there differences among various segments of the population? Such information would empower science advocates to effectively cater their efforts, and to draw concrete connections to how science can benefit people personally and improve their daily lives.

2) Developing and supporting effective public communication efforts in the scientific community. Once science advocates identify what specific messages will resonate with the public, they need to consider how to most effectively convey them. Research suggests that piquing people’s interest and curiosity should be a key goal of science communication [55], with one study noting that people’s level of scientific interest influences how much they support public research funding [56]. There is also a growing body of literature on the power of narrative storytelling for communicating science. Contextualizing messages within a narrative helps audiences comprehend and recall information, fosters interest and emotional connection, and when done well, is a very effective way to persuade audiences [57]–[59]. Thus, we propose that science advocates work to develop compelling narrative describing examples of scientific discoveries that have had a positive impact on people’s lives. An example would be the Golden Goose Awards, which highlight scientific research that seems strange or obscure, but which has reaped unexpected societal benefits [60]. In order to convey these messages to the public, stakeholders—namely scientists and the science-interested public—need to be trained in how to communicate effectively. Survey data suggests that there is a high level of willingness and interest among scientists to engage with the public [61, 62]. There has also been an increase in graduate-level training and professional development opportunities in science communication [63]. We believe that such opportunities for training should continue to be expanded. However, several studies have reported that lack of institutional support remains a barrier to engagement efforts [63, 64]. Thus we also propose that university leaders should place higher value on science communication. Funding agencies could also facilitate this by providing incentives for scientific grant holders to participate in public communication efforts.

3) Mobilizing the public as advocates to safeguard the American research enterprise. As it stands, scientists are not very visible to the public eye. A 2019 survey by Research!America found that only 20% of Americans can name a living scientist [65].¹ By increasing the amount of engagement that scientists have with the public, scientific stakeholders can energize and excite people about the benefits of scientific research. This matters because the public are also constituents. A report from the Congressional Management Foundation found that, perhaps contrary to popular perception, interactions with constituents have considerable influence on policymakers’ decisions [66]. By pairing scientific communication with a call for increased support of federal research funding, we can thus galvanize a largely-untapped base of grassroots political support for this important issue. We certainly believe that direct advocacy by scientists and scientific societies to policymakers is important, and we expect that the above recommendations about communication will apply to policymakers as much as the general public. Concretely, there are many different forms that these efforts can take, from local grassroots outreach events to nation-wide advertising and public relations campaigns. Ultimately, we contend that we can increase the power of our advocacy by mobilizing broader segments of the general public to also speak up and be a voice for science.

¹ We recognize that the current COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased the visibility of science both in the United States and worldwide. Certainly, scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx have become household names in recent months. It will certainly be interesting to see how this impacts the perception and support of science broadly over a longer time-span, although such a discussion is beyond the scope of this article.

As the world continues on a path of ever-more-rapid technological change, we believe that it is critical for the United States to remain a leader in progressing science, technology, and innovation to improve the human condition and to expand the frontiers of discovery. People have long looked to scientific and technological advances to improve their way of life, and to create solutions that address pressing societal needs. Especially in an era of increasingly prevalent public health and climate crises, it is critical that we restore the integrity of our national innovation infrastructure

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Rebecca J. Chmiel for her contributions and thoughtful discussions.

Mandt, R., Seetharam, K. & Cheng, C. H. M. Federal R&D funding: the bedrock of national innovation. MIT Science Policy Review 1 , 44-54 (2020).

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Rebecca Mandt

Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA

Kushal Seetharam

Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Chung Hon Michael Cheng

Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

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How Is Industry Sponsored Research Different from Government or Foundation Sponsored Research?

We’ve previously explored how and why industry might want to sponsor academic research and how industry and academia can work together. In this post we’ll discuss how industry sponsored research is different from government or foundation sponsored research.

We’ve used the simplified Innovation Life Cycle graphic below to show that academia and industry tend to focus on different ends of this life cycle. The graphic highlights the sweet spot where an academic researcher’s work can help an industry partner solve a particular research problem to help move a research idea to product development and commercialization.

This same framework is helpful to understand how industry sponsorship of academic research is different from government or foundation sponsorship of academic research. It’s important to remember that industry is generally looking to develop a product or service that it can profitably sell to its customers in a relatively short time. Industry is less likely, therefore, to invest in fundamental or basic research that may take a long time to translate into a product or may represent more research or financial risk than the company may be comfortable taking. As a result, industry tends to invest its research dollars in applied or translational research leading to commercialization that allows innovations to advance from the academic laboratory to products that are available to benefit society.

Government agencies and foundations often have a different funding role to play in the innovation life cycle. Government and foundation investments are typically not focused on creating a commercial product for profit, but rather on solving a fundamental research problem that commercial entities are not structured or financially motivated to solve. Government agencies and foundations tend to sponsor basic research but may also sponsor applied research to solve a societal problem that might not lead to a commercially viable product.

These very real differences —i n where in the innovation life cycle industry tends to invest their research dollars versus where governments and foundations tend to invest, and why they tend to invest their research dollars — lead to very different approaches in working with academia. These differences are highlighted below.

The differences between sponsored research with industry versus governments and foundations can be found both in the process of developing these projects and in the agreements for the projects. The agreements put in place for industry-sponsored research versus government- or foundation-sponsored research are structured with an understanding of the different types of research being funded and the goals and objectives of these different sponsors. Learn more below about the unique processes associated with each type of sponsor.

Government and Foundation Research Funding Process

Government or foundation agreements are commonly referred to as grants and usually award all funds at the beginning of the project. The process typically begins with a request for proposals (RFP) based around advancing a specific body of research or achieving breakthrough research goals. Researchers respond to these RFPs with their proposals and based on the merits of the proposal may be awarded funding for their research in a competitive process. These are typically basic research projects based around exploration and discovery, with an understanding that the research may not successfully achieve the proposed aims but will nonetheless create and advance valuable knowledge and understanding for the greater good.

The terms of the grant agreement are typically known at the time that the proposal is developed and allow little, if any, deviation from a standard agreement. It is generally understood — given the nature of the exploratory or discovery research of these projects — that the aims or timing of the grant may need to be amended as more knowledge about the research is gained.

Industry Funding Process

Industry-sponsored research agreements are typically referred to as contracts. Certain terms may be negotiated around the specific goals and objectives of the research, but should always adhere to the University’s research policies. Certain rights to the research project’s results or intellectual property may be made available to the sponsor so that the sponsor can use them to develop a commercial product.

The industry funding process is much more likely to focus on creating and advancing innovations to create commercial products or services that will be attractive to the company’s customers. These projects are rarely initiated through RFPs and, instead, often come about through direct outreach from the industry sponsor to an academic researcher whose expertise and work they believe will help solve the research problem they have, or from the researcher reaching out to their industry colleagues. These academic and industry researchers may already know each other from their research communities, or may be introduced through industry business development or academic industry engagement organizations. These conversations often lead directly to the creation of a statement or work or project plan, including an associated budget, specifically developed to solve the problem at hand and thereby bypassing the competitive proposal process.

Most importantly, industry contract funding is typically milestone-driven, with an initial, agreed-upon portion of the project funding provided up front to begin the research. Future payments are made once defined project goals or timelines are achieved. If these goals or timelines are not achieved, the industry sponsor may decide to end the project so that they can redeploy these funds to more promising research projects. It is therefore extremely important to carefully create a project plan, budget, and resource timeline that ensures project goals and expectations are met.

Industry-sponsored research and government- or foundation-sponsored research typically serve different purposes at different stages of the innovation lifecycle, and with different sets of expectations for both the researcher and sponsor. Industry-sponsored research generally aims to advance research projects to product development and commercialization and, by doing so, can help move a researcher’s innovations out of the lab to benefit society. BU Industry Engagement has the expertise to help sort through research funding options and opportunities and to create meaningful industry sponsor partnerships that befit both the academic researcher and the industry sponsor. Contact us at [email protected] to learn more.

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The procurement of innovation by the U.S. government

Gaétan de rassenfosse.

1 Chair of Innovation and IP Policy, College of Management of Technology, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

2 MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA, United States of America

3 Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, United States of America

4 Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, Wellington, New Zealand

5 Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

Emilio Raiteri

6 School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands

Associated Data

Data are available from the project website, available at http://www.3pfl.io , and from Zenodo, at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3347118 .

The U.S. government invests more than $50 billion per year in R&D procurement but we know little about the outcomes of these investments. We have traced all the patents arising from government funding since the year 2000. About 1.5 percent of all R&D procurement contracts have led to at least one patent for a total of about 13,000 patents. However, contracts connected to patents account for 36 per cent of overall contract value. The gestation lag from the signing date of the contract to the patent filing is on average 33 months and does not depend on the type of R&D performed. Patents that are produced faster also seem to be more valuable. We find strong decreasing returns to contract size. Conditional on generating at least one patent, a 1-percent increase in the size of an R&D contract is associated with 0.12 percent more patents.

Introduction

The U.S. government invests more than $50 billion per year in R&D procurement and about the same amount in research grants. These amounts represent about two-thirds of all total federal spending in R&D. (Intramural R&D carried out directly by the federal agencies accounts for the rest.) Federal agencies use procurement contracts when they seek to acquire products or services for their own benefit. Grants are instead preferred when an agency seeks to support a public purpose (31 U.S.C. § 6301-04). Despite the sheer size of spending, surprisingly little research has been conducted on government-sponsored R&D.

As government budget for science and innovation is put under pressure, the procurement of innovation deserves greater scrutiny. Broad-based understanding of the effects of this large expenditure on the innovation system requires broad-based information on the overall funding portfolio and its outputs. To facilitate this task, we have traced all the patents arising from procurement contracts and grants active between 2000 and 2013. We have identified the governmental agency and the procurement contract/grant number associated with each patent and matched these to administrative data in order to recover detailed contract and grant-level information. We have also searched for information on the scientific publications that are associated with these records in the form of funding acknowledgement.

The contribution of the present paper is twofold. First, it introduces the 3PFL database (Patents and Publications with a Public Funding Linkage), which contains information on both procurement contracts and research grants. Data are available on Zenodo . Second, it offers an empirical analysis of procurement contracts. The scope of the database differs from the scope of the analysis, owing to the fact that research grants have been studied elsewhere [ 1 – 8 ].

To construct the 3PFL database we take advantage of the U.S. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). The FAR regulates the federal procurement process and stipulates that federal contractors may retain title to inventions made in the performance of work under a Government contract. When the contractor decides to take title to an invention, it should timely file a patent application and grant the Government an irrevocable license to use the invention. To ensure that the government receives the license, the FAR requires the contractor to include in the U.S. patent document a statement acknowledging Government support and reporting information about the funding agency and the contract identification number. Regarding research grants, the Bayh-Dole Act imposes requirements similar to FAR for recipients of federally funded research grants. The grantee seeking patent protection for such inventions shall mention the grant number and the agency that issued the grant in the government interest statement. In September 2006, the U.S. Congress approved the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA). The Act requires federal contract, grant, loan, and other financial assistance awards to be displayed on a searchable, publicly accessible website in order to give the American public access to information on how tax dollars are being spent. The USAspending.gov website was launched in 2007 to comply with the FFATA’s requirements and provides abundant information about federal contracts and grants, including identification numbers. The FAR and FFATA requirements thus allow us to identify federally funded patents and to link them to the associated contract(s) and grant(s). We exploit these legal requirements to construct the 3PFL database.

The database construction involves four main steps. First, a Python script parses the full-text data of all patents granted by the U.S Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) between 2005 and 2015. These data are stored in 52 weekly files per year, available in XML format. The script identifies the patents that contain a government interest statement and extracts contract and grant identifiers from the statement. Second, we match this information with the contract-level and grant-level information recovered from USAspending.gov exploiting the identification numbers. Third, we match the patent numbers with the European Patent Office’s worldwide statistical database (PATSTAT) to recover additional bibliographic information on the funded patents. Finally, by exploiting Clarivate’s Web of Science (WoS) database, we match the contracts from the identified patent-contract pairs, with scientific publications connected to those contracts. In order to do so, we developed a Python script that queries the WoS API. The script searches for the relevant procurement contract and grant identifiers in the acknowledgment section of the scientific publications in the WoS database, published between year 2000 and 2015. The Supporting Information ( S1 File ) provides extensive information on the data collection process and data coverage.

Fig 1 presents an overview of the database. Panel A provides key descriptive statistics. The database contains 20,229 ‘records,’ defined as either a procurement contract (hereinafter a ‘contract’) or a research grant. By design, all these records are associated with at least one patent.

Panel A provides key descriptive statistics about the 3PFL database. Panel B displays the distribution by agency of patents and scientific publications associated with contracts and grants. Panel C reports the distribution of R&D contracts and patents by R&D stage.

About 80 percent of records correspond to grants. The vast majority (90 percent) of contracts that lead to a patent are R&D contracts. Associated with these records are almost 38,000 patents, with about two-thirds coming from grants. To put this figure in perspective, this represents eight to nine business days’ share of the annual patents assigned to all U.S. entities. Patents can acknowledge funding from different sources and a funding source can be associated with more than one patent. Overall, there are about 50,000 such record-patent pairs. Among all these records associated with a patent, 13,330 records were also associated with a scientific publication, and these records are typically grants. There is a total of 387,407 publications for about half a million record-publication pairs. Finally, funding arises from 23 different agencies and is delivered to 2,900 recipients.

Fig 1B provides a breakdown of patent and publication numbers by agency. Patents arising from contracts are mainly associated with the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Energy (DOE). By contrast, patents arising from grants are mainly associated with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Regarding publications, the overwhelming majority of publications connected to contracts in the database come from the DOE whereas HHS accounts for the majority of publications connected to grants.

Because previous research in the area has overwhelmingly focused on research grants, the remainder of this paper focuses primarily on R&D contracts. Policy-makers are increasingly keen to consider innovation procurement as a technology policy tool. Public demand may actively create new markets and increase expected profits from innovation. Procurement contracts may also stimulate innovations by providing firms with the opportunity to experiment free from short-term commercial pressures [ 9 – 11 ]. Sometimes, public agencies have specific needs that are not met with existing products—especially concerning technologies of national security interest [ 12 ]. We know little about innovation procurement, and the 3PFL database provides a unique opportunity to enrich our knowledge on these aspects. The Supporting Information ( S2 File ) provides a systematic comparison between procurement contracts and grants in the 3PFL database. To summarize the main differences, procurement contracts leading to patents are primarily awarded to private companies by the DOD, whereas grants leading to patents are primarily awarded to higher education institutions and non-profit by the HHS and the NSF.

A first order question concerns the proportion of procurement contracts that lead to a patent. Fig 1B provides information on the patent activity at the extensive and the intensive margins. There were a total of 228,389 R&D procurement contracts issued between the years 2000 and 2013; 3,463 of them have led to at least one granted patent and hence appear in the 3PFL database. While this figure corresponds to a mere 1.5 percent of all R&D contracts, contracts connected to patents account for 36 percent of overall value. Applied research contracts are proportionally more likely to lead to a patent than other types of R&D. However, conditional on being associated with a patent, basic research contracts lead to more patents than other types of R&D.

An original insight concerns the time lag between the start date of the procurement contract and the invention date (so-called R&D gestation lag). A large number of patents are filed the year of the start of the contract or in the first few years after the start of the contract ( Fig 2A ), thus exhibiting quite short gestation lags (33 months on average). However, such short R&D gestation lags are not peculiar to R&D procurement projects [ 13 ]. Other patents seem to have a surprisingly long gestation lag; a sizeable number of patents are still filed five years after the start of the contract. However, the majority of these patents arise from DOE contracts covering the running of national labs. In other cases, these patents are associated with renewed contracts and acknowledge the contribution of all contracts in the lineage. Interestingly, more than 1500 patents are filed after the expiration of the contract ( Fig 2B ). This suggests that there is an opportunity with these data to explore the extent and nature of follow-on innovation undertaken by the contracting entities.

See S1 File for additional notes.

A priori, we would expect patents related to basic research to have longer gestation lags than applied research, and a fortiori development research. To test this hypothesis we run an exploratory multivariate regression analysis of the determinants of gestation lag. The analysis is conducted at the patent-contract pair level and focuses on the effect played by the stage of the R&D work for which a given contract was awarded. The information about the stage of a R&D contract is codified in the FPDS data. The contract-patent lag is our dependent variable and is computed as the difference in months between the date of first priority of the patent application and the date of first signing of the public procurement contract. Our main variables of interest in the regression are applied_research , development , commercialization . These binary variables capture the four categories of the R&D stage to which a contract could belong. The category basic_research is omitted from the regression and serves as the reference group. We also control for several contract- and patent-specific characteristics, such as the size and the total length of a contract, whether it was awarded as part of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, and for the scope of the patented invention measured as the number of independent claims. As Table 1 shows, the R&D stages have surprisingly no significant impact on the gestation-lag of a patented invention. Interestingly, SBIR contracts are associated with substantially shorter gestation-lags.

Standard errors in parentheses

* p < 0.1,

** p < 0.05,

*** p < 0.01

The row F -test reports the results of a joint significance test for the R&D stage variables

The dollar amount of a procurement contract is computed by adding all the transactions recorded for a given contract in the time period we consider, i.e., 2000–2013.

An interesting pattern in the data is the fact that patents with shorter gestation lag seem to be more valuable, as assessed with commonly-used patent-based metrics of value such as the number of citations received by the patent [ 14 ]. Table 2 reports the results of a multivariate regression of the number of citations received by a patent in the 5-year time window from the filing date on the gestation lag. As the table shows, the contract-patent lag is negatively associated with the number of citations and this relationship is robust to controlling for several patent- and contract-specific characteristics. This result could signal decreasing returns to R&D, in the sense that the later patents in a contract seem to be less valuable than earlier ones.

The data also allow exploration of the relationship between contract characteristics and the extent of patenting. Panel A of Fig 3 shows the relationships among contract size, contract duration and patenting. Not surprisingly, contracts receiving more total funding tend to span a longer time period. However, the number of patents is only weakly correlated with both size and duration. Some contracts generate a large number of patents (more than 100 patents) but they are all around or above the half billion-dollar mark and associated with the DOE (except for one DOD contract). Table 3 reports the results from a multivariate linear regression model that suggests that, on average, a 1 percent-increase in the size of an R&D contract is associated with 0.12 percent more patents. The length of the contract has a negligible impact on the number of patents produced by a contract—thus, money matters more than time in this context. (A similar analysis run on grants provides similar elasticity estimates, see Table A in S2 File ).

See SI for additional details.

Note: The dollar amount of a procurement contract is computed by adding all the transactions recorded for a given contract in the time-period we consider, i.e., 2000–2013.

The contract_length is computed as the difference in months between the date of first signing of the R&D procurement contract and the date of latest completion in the FPDS data. We consider in the analysis only those contracts for which we could clearly tell, by the structure of the award_id (see S1 File ), that the actual starting date is in the same year as the first transaction we observe in the data.

The data also reveal patterns of overlapping interest across agencies. It is an underappreciated fact that a sizeable share of patents is associated with contracts from more than one agency—roughly 1 in 15 patents. Panel B of Fig 3 reports the interest overlap for patents linked to contracts from two different agencies. It displays the proportional contribution of each of the agencies involved in the development of the patent, based on the size of each contract. NSF and NASA grants most often overlap with DOD funding, whereas HHS grants are mainly associated with DOE funding. Interestingly, such dual funded patents appear to be more valuable than patents funded by a single agency. Table 4 displays the results of a regression analysis and shows that patents jointly funded by two different agencies receive on average 1.02 more citations in a 5-year time window from the filing date than patents acknowledging a single funding source. This figure corresponds to a 50-percent increase in the expected citation rate.

Given that the contract-patent relation can be a many to many relation, the variable cost-per-patent is computed as a fractional count based on the size of the contracts, the number of contracts associated with a patent, and the number of patents associated with a contract.

Finally, the data can also be explored along a geographical dimension. The state of California has the most procurement contracts for the performance of R&D work, attracting more than 15 per cent of the total number of R&D contracts awarded in the study period. It is followed by Virginia (9%), Maryland (8%), Massachusetts (6.5%), and Washington, D.C (6%). As reported in Panel A of Fig 4 , however, the dollar amount of R&D procurement contracts as a share of state GDP suggests a different ranking. Alabama, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Colorado receive the largest share of R&D procurement money relative to the size of their economies. California’s share of new R&D contracts shrunk from 17.3 per cent in 2004 to 12.3 per cent in 2010, but it has the most contracts associated with at least one patent (18% of the total number of contracts linked to a patent), followed by Massachusetts (12%), New York State (5.7%), Texas (4.7%), and Virginia (4.7%). Panel B of Fig 4 shows the distribution of the total number of R&D contracts that are associated with at least one patent by Core-Based Statistical Areas. The CBSA that receives the most contracts connected to patents is the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy area, with over 400 contracts in the reference period. California has four different CBSAs among the ten largest recipients: Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana (284 contracts), San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont (99), San José-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (99), San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos (87). The Washington D.C. area and the New York area attracted 190 and 166 contracts, respectively. As we mentioned, about 1.5 per cent of the R&D procurement contracts are associated with at least one patent, but some states have better performances than others in converting R&D contracts into patents. In particular Connecticut (4.3%), Minnesota (4.2%), New Hampshire (4.1%), Massachusetts (3.1%), and Arizona (3%) have a share of contracts connected to patents that is more than double the national average. California, Colorado, and New York do slightly better than average (1.8–2%), whereas Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C. do substantially worse than average, with a share of contracts connected to patents of 0.7, 0.5, and 0.2 per cent respectively. Geographic proximity to Capitol Hill does not seem to be a guarantee for success.

Panel A reports the distribution of the total dollar amount received for R&D procurement contracts as a percentage of GDP by state. Panel B displays the distribution of total number of R&D contracts that are associated with at least one patent by Core Based Statistical Areas.

This rich new database creates the opportunity for multidimensional micro-level research on the role of government research contracts and grants in facilitating the production of innovation outputs. Possible research includes topics such as the relationships between contract and contractor characteristics and innovation productivity; the quality (e.g., as measured by patent-based metrics) of innovation outputs arising from procurement contracts; and the geographic distribution of government-funded research activity and innovation outputs. Previous research has traced innovation outcomes from specific government projects, programs or institutions, but the 3PFL database offers the opportunity to understand those pieces in a broader context. Given ongoing debates about science and innovation funding, the data create a valuable opportunity to broaden and deepen our understanding of the Science of Science Policy [ 15 ].

Supporting information

The technical appendix describes the construction of the database in details.

This appendix provides a systematic comparison between procurement contracts and grants in the 3PFL database.

Funding Statement

E.R. was supported by Marie Sklodowska-Curie program for the project “Innovative Public Procurement as Innovation Policy” (Action: H2020-MSCA COFUND-2015, Grant Agreement Number: 665667). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Data Availability

• Research Profiles
• Refererences
• Research Proposals

Articles on Research Funding

• Possible Funding Resources
• The Review Process

In this section, we will discuss the following:

• the basic types of research proposals ;
• the purpose of a research proposal ;
• the typical format for a research proposal ; and
• some general suggestions regarding proposal submission

Types of Research Proposals

In all sectors (academe, government, and the private sector), research scientists typically seek and obtain competitive funding for their research projects by writing and submitting research proposals for consideration by the funding source. There are two kinds of research proposals:

Solicited proposals are those that are written and submitted in response to the issuance of a “Request for Proposals” (RFP), a document that identifies a specific research problem of interest to the funding agency for which they are specifically seeking a solution. Interested investigator then submits a “concept” or “white paper” briefly outlining their proposed solution to the problem. If the funding agency or company is interested, they may then request that the investigator submit a full proposal for consideration of funding.

Unsolicited

Unsolicited proposals are those proposals that are submitted by an investigator in response to a “general call” for proposals that is issued by a funding agency or company in a field or area of study.

The majority of funding agencies issue calls for proposals which have firmly established deadlines and for which the format of the proposals is fairly well defined. Thus, it is vitally important at the outset after you have identified a funding source that you obtain all of the relevant information on the specific grant program and its requirements. Today most funding agencies have searchable websites where they post detailed information concerning their grant programs.

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Purpose of a Research Proposal

The purpose of a proposal is to sell your idea to the funding agency. This means that the investigator must convince the funding agency that:

• The problem is significant and worthy of study
• The technical approach is novel and likely to yield results
• The investigator and his/her research team is/are the right group of individuals to carry out and accomplish the work described in the research proposal.

Typical Proposal Format

The title of your proposal should be short, accurate, and clear. A single sentence containing ten or fewer words is best. Don’t use acronyms and technical jargon as your reviewers may not come from your technical specialty. For example, “Web-GURU: Web-based Guide to Research for Undergraduates.”

As in a technical paper, the proposal abstract should “abstract” the project for the reader. It should be a brief (100 – 200 words), tightly worded summary of the project, its objectives, the problem’s significance, the project’s scope, the methods that will be employed, the identity and relevant technical expertise of the research team, and the results that are expected to result. Be sure to write this section last so that its content indeed abstracts your proposal.

Introduction

The introduction section should introduce the research problem, its significance, and the technical approach your work will take to investigate/solve the problem. It should introduce the research team that will carry out the work.

This section should present a concise review of the primary literature relevant to your proposed research efforts. As such it should:

• Cite the key literature sources
• Be up to date
• Critically appraise the literature

The background section should be constructed to inform the reader concerning where your study fits in? It should clearly state why your project should be done? Does your work:

• Take science in a bold new direction?
• Build on the prior work of others (whose?) in the field
• Address flaws in previous work (again, whose?)
• Develop infrastructure (instrumentation, methodology, collaborations) that will take science in exciting new directions

Preliminary Studies

If the project builds on past studies from your laboratory, then you should include a brief section outlining what you have already accomplished and explain how these results relate to the work outlined in the present proposal. If the ideas you are proposing are novel, then it is especially important to include this section and to present evidence supporting the probable success of your project.

Research Methodology

This section should outline your plan of attack. Specific information that should be contained in this section includes information on the research team and its technical expertise as it relates to the project, a realistic timeline, description of the specific experiments that will be accomplished together with alternate plans in case of potential difficulties/challenges. If more than one person will do the work described in the proposal then a division of labor should be provided together with an explanation of why each person is best qualified to do the work described. The timeline should define the length of the project and provide a schedule of who will do what specific tasks approximately when during the project period. Problems always arise in research. Things never go as anticipated. So, it is important to provide the reviewer with enough information to give them confidence that when problems arise, as they inevitably will, that you will be able to handle them in such a way that meaningful science results.

The budget should identify the anticipated cost for everything (salaries, materials, instrumentation, travel costs, etc.) that will be required in order to accomplish the research project. Usually budgets are prepared and submitted as tables with prescribed format. A budget justification typically accompanies the budget request. The budget justification is simply an explanation, item-by-item, stating why you must spend the money requested in order to carry out the experiments planned.

The most important point in preparing a budget is to make sure that you ask for what you really need. Some people underestimate the importance of working through a budget in advance of writing the actual grant proposal. This is really important because most grant programs provide grants with a certain set monetary value. It is critical to ask for the amount you really need because if you don’t ask for what you need you simply won’t be able to do the work and if you can’t carry out your project, it is highly unlikely that you will ever be able to obtain funding from that funding agency again in the near future. At the same time, it is important not to go overboard in padding your budgetary request. A thoughtful budget demonstrates that your project is well conceived and likely to yield quality results. If the reviewers feel that your budget is naïve or over-inflated, that can work against you – your project could be funded at a lower rate or certain items requested might simply be eliminated from the budget by the funding agency – so be sure to think through your budget requests carefully and make sure that all requests are thoughtfully justified.

There are two major components in a budget:

Direct costs are the costs that you incur that are directly attributable to the project. Examples of direct costs include personnel salary, fringe benefits, materials and supplies, major instrumentation, and travel costs. We will briefly examine each of these:

Personnel Salary

An important budget request in most grants is the salary for the personnel who will carry out the research on the project. Salary is usually requested for the principal investigator, postdoctoral students, graduate and undergraduate students. Some funding agencies will provide secretarial support. Academic faculty, who usually receive academic year ( 9-mos typically) salary from their institutions, often supplement their salary (summer salary) by carrying out external research programs.

Fringe Benefits

Fringe benefits refers to the costs incurred by your institution/employer in providing group health insurance, retirement, unemployment, workers compensation, FICA (Medicare), etc. Undergraduate salaries are not normally assessed fringe benefits when the student is supported during the academic year.

Materials and Supplies

Materials and supplies include a wide range of items such as laboratory supplies, chemical reagents, research animals, computer software and supplies, etc.

Major Instrumentation

A purchase is typically identified as major instrumentation rather than materials and supplies when the cost of the instrument exceeds a thousand dollars and when the device has an anticipated lifespan of more than a year. Examples of major instrumentation purchases include laptops (cost typically $2k), UV-vis instruments, desktop centrifuges, etc. When requesting major instrumentation it is important to specify the manufacturer and model of the specific instrument that you wish to purchase and to indicate what if any features this model has that make it uniquely required in order to accomplish your proposed work. If you do require a specific instrument, it is wise to obtain a quotation from the manufacturer. Since it may be six months or more before you begin your project be sure to inquire what the anticipated cost of the instrument will be at the time you anticipate purchasing it (i.e., allow for inflation).

Travel Costs

If you intend to attend a professional meeting in order to present the results of your research, you may include the anticipated cost of traveling to and attending the meeting in your budget request. You may include the cost of a round-trip coach class fare airplane ticket, meeting registration, hotel, ground transportation (taxi, car rental, etc.), and food. Many funding sources place strict limitations on travel so be sure to research this carefully before making your request.

Subcontractor Costs

If you are working on a collaborative project with an investigator at another institution, then you will need to include the costs that they will incur in carrying out the proposed work. Your collaborator is viewed as a subcontractor in terms of the grant proposal. Their institution may assess its own indirect costs and those will also need to be included in your budget request to the funding agency.

Indirect costs on the other hand are the facilities and administrative costs that are incurred by your institution/employer in support of your research activities. These include These are typically assessed as a percentage of the direct costs for the project. Indirect costs are often assessed on either a modified total direct costs basis (MTDC) or a total direct costs basis (TDC). MTDC rates do not include the costs of major instrumentation, student tuition, or subcontractors in the total for the direct costs on which the indirect costs are assessed while TDC includes all costs when assessing the indirect costs for the project. The MTDC and TDC rates are set by your institution so be sure to check with them to determine what the current rates are.

Curriculum Vitae for Principal Investigators

Most funding agencies require the principal investigator(s) to include some form of curriculum vitae. Curriculum vitae are the academic-version (extended) of a resume. They provide useful information on the education, technical expertise, and research productivity of the principal investigator. In an effort to ensure the brevity and uniformity of the information provided, many funding agencies require that this information be provided according to a specific format. Be sure to include only the information requested. Do not embellish your accomplishments.

This ancillary section should be used only to provide secondary information that is relevant to the research project. For example, if you are collaborating with another investigator, it is appropriate to obtain a letter from him/her indicating his/her willingness to collaborate and detailing what specific support (personnel, equipment, research materials, results, etc.) they are willing to provide for the research project. Some funding programs do not allow investigators to submit appendices so be sure to find out in advance whether or not you can submit supporting materials and what if any limitations there may be concerning these materials (content, page limits, etc.).

Human Subjects

If your project involves experimentation on either animals or people, you will need to obtain approval for your project through your institution’s office of Institutional Compliance.

General Suggestions

• Don’t be afraid to ask your advisor or other scientists if you can read copies of their successfully funded proposals.
• There is no substitute for a good idea. This means the idea should be important and technically sound. If the idea is of interest to you, it is likely going to be of interest to others. Your job is to clearly make the case that this is work worth funding by the particular funding agency and program to which you have applied. In terms of the work being technically sound, make sure that you research it before you begin writing. This may mean doing some preliminary experiments in order to obtain data that clearly demonstrate that your ideas will work. This is particularly important if your ideas are truly novel.
• Before you begin writing, map out your project. Identify the key experiments you will need to do. Determine who and what you will need in order to carry out these experiments and figure out how much it will cost to do the actual work (i.e., work out the budget). Be sure that the anticipated cost of your project fits the scope of the funding agency’s program.
• Read the application instructions thoroughly and follow them carefully. If you have any questions telephone or e-mail and ask. Don’t make any implicit assumptions about your reviewers including their technical expertise, what they know about you and your work, the conditions under which they will read your proposal, etc. If you don’t follow the directions, don’t be surprised if your proposal is returned to you un-reviewed.
• Write your proposal to address all of the review criteria of the grant program.
• Start writing your proposal well in advance of the deadline for submission.
• Presentation and written expression count. Think about the reviewer’s workload (see “ The Review Process ”) Don’t use a lot of technical jargon. Write simply and clearly. Use the spell checker and grammar checker. Don’t fault the reviewer’s for equating a poorly written and poorly proofed proposal with evidence of a sloppy scientist likely incapable of carrying out a quality project if funded.
• Ask your advisor, a friend, and/or colleague to review your proposal (be sure to provide them with a copy of the funding agency’s review criteria) before submitting it and when you receive their feedback modify your proposal accordingly.
• If your proposal is not funded, seek feedback. Don’t take the rejection of your proposal personally. Learn from it! Modify your proposal accordingly, and resubmit it. Perseverance is everything when it comes to research funding – just about everyone has at some point submitted a proposal that didn’t get funded.

Expert Tips on Performing Effective Project Management in Government

By Kate Eby | October 29, 2020 (updated September 15, 2023)

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In government agencies, strong project management helps ensure that government programs are effective and cost-efficient for taxpayers. This article includes tips and expert advice on performing effective government project management.

Include on this page, you’ll find the role of project management in government , examples of successful implementation of project management in government organizations , a roadmap for assessing your agency's PM performance (and how to improve it), and tips on overcoming challenges within government to achieve strong project management . 

The Role of Project Management in Government

While government workers have used project management in project-based work for 50 years, they have increasingly used PM to drive public sector work forward in recent decades. Today, project management is used in all sectors and levels of government.

Below are some details about project work and project management within government agencies:

• Many people, including congressional leaders, political appointees, government workers, and citizens, advocate for improved and more efficient government operations. Most government improvement initiatives use project management to improve government operations.
• Many government projects today must deliver value in a limited amount of time and with limited resources, due to cutbacks in funding for various government agencies.
• Government agencies increasingly employ the principles of project management . But like all organizations, they still often waste significant money on inefficient project work. The Project Management Institute’s 2020 Pulse of the Profession report found that all organizations, including government organizations, waste 11.4 percent of each dollar invested in projects through poor performance — that’s $114 million for every $1 billion invested.

• Government agencies are outsourcing more work to private contractors, which requires government workers to manage the contractors, along with government employees, to move projects forward.
• Government organizations want to use effective project management to demonstrate their own value and viability.
• Project management provides a framework for better customer service, which is increasingly important within government agencies.
• As in private industry, government organizations need to give the public around-the-clock secure access to data, which requires more efficient work.

Senapathy says people wrongly perceive that good project management isn’t as important in government because it isn’t profit-driven, unlike private industry. “It is a misconception that project management is necessary only where profitability matters,” he says. “The government has similar responsibilities to the taxpayer. For every tax dollar that’s paid, you are accountable. The deal is everyone is eventually accountable. There is no free lunch.”

In fact, Senapathy says, “I think it is even more critical for the government to be invested in project management than private enterprise. Government projects are subjected to microscopic scrutiny from individual citizens in informal forums to formal congressional hearings.”

Stephen Townsend, Director, Network Programs, for the Project Management Institute , says the government must deliver value for its citizens, just as corporations do for shareholders. “That value can be through national security, roads, and infrastructure or service programs,” he says. “A strong project management discipline helps government deliver the right solutions efficiently and effectively.”

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Benefits of Government Project Management

Here are some additional benefits of good project management for government operations:

• It provides insights into whether a project is worth taking on. “If the project has little likelihood to succeed or represents a highly risky venture, a good business case and review process can stop agencies from making poor investments,” says Townsend.
• It puts in place structures that enable teams to do work consistently across all projects and throughout the organization.
• It increases efficiency in responding to disasters or disturbances, including a pandemic. “In terms of the pandemic, having a consistent organization process allows for a seamless integration of work,” says Senapathy. “What if project management didn’t exist? The government entities and employees would all be scrambling.” Project management work and philosophies “allow us not to be reactive but proactive,” Senapathy says. “This pandemic has been the single biggest example of how quickly this country can respond ... Project management can do brilliant things.”
• It helps avoid the reinvention of project tools and techniques for each project that you take on.
• It provides workers with access to past data, past work, and best practices in project management, which helps ensure more consistent and better project execution.
• It monitors whether project deliverables are completed (and on time).
• It helps employees understand their responsibilities in completing the work.
• It helps project teams and leaders report on progress to agency and government leaders.
• It offers a structured proving ground for new project management strategies.
• It allows agencies to better adapt to new technologies, because they become part of structured project management.
• Project work can affect a range of stakeholders, including many outside the government agency doing the work. Good project management allows workers to better communicate with those stakeholders and address concerns.
• It allows people to better understand effective ways to solve problems.

Challenges of Government Project Management

Workers will encounter a number of challenges to managing government projects, including poor support from government leaders, government rules that impede the work, and limited money for worker training.

Here are some challenges to good government project management:

• Limited Knowledge about Project Management Principles: For years, government agencies inconsistently used standard project management principles in their work. Today, more government workers understand project management, but many senior managers still have limited knowledge that can affect how they deploy project management.
• Poor Institutional Support: Because of limited knowledge, leaders of government agencies may not understand the value of project management. This means many agencies offer little financial support or other resources.  
• Instability of Sponsorship: Government tends to experience high turnover in agency leadership, and elections can bring in newly elected leaders to oversee these agencies. All of this change can hinder progress on government projects.

• Agency Employees Dispersed Geographically: Some government agencies have employees in a number of geographically separate offices, which can make overseeing a PM team more difficult. (This may be more common in government than in the private sector.) 
• Government Hiring and Employment Policies: To complete a project, team leaders may rely on specialists drawn from different areas within an agency or with other agencies. Government hiring and employment policies can make that difficult.
• Less Effective Collaboration within Agencies and Departments: It’s not unusual to have structures within private companies that impede collaboration, but that tendency is more pronounced within and among government agencies. “The interplay between various departments is much more synchronous in private industry than in government,” says Senapathy. “The interplay doesn’t work as efficiently [in government].”
• Overall Bureaucratic Environment: Even beyond identifiable rules and regulations, government agencies often operate in an environment where written and unwritten rules dominate all processes. This means they are often resistant to change or quick action on problems.
• Employees Who Don’t Understand or Use Project Management Lexicon: Project management training allows workers to understand common language pertaining to effective project management. Government employees can be ignorant of or resistant to that language. “Integrating modern project management lexicon into an established culture of business language that has been in use for decades presents unique challenges of organizational change management,” says Senapathy.
• Incremental Thinking Is the Norm: Governmental agencies often only accept slow or incremental change, if any at all.
• Ingrained Processes and Tools: Governments often lack the drive that exists in many private companies to continuously innovate to improve their tools and processes.
• Minimal Funds for Training: Government agencies might have limited funds to train leaders in project management. Those funds often are also the first to be cut when budgets need to be pared down. “Prioritizing training for program management roles across several leadership levels and multiple business lines may be a significant challenge since the education-related budget is one of the earliest victims of belt-tightening,” says Senapathy.

How Good Project Management Can Bring Positive Change in Government

Good project management can do more than bring about successful projects. It can change how government works, increase flexibility, and engender a culture of innovation within government agencies.

Here are some significant ways that project management can change government agencies:

• Project Management Can Be a Lever of Change: Many government agencies are change-averse. Good project management inherently brings about positive change. Team members should recognize their potential role as change agents.
• Project Management Increases Flexibility: As mentioned above, government agencies often operate within bureaucratic, inflexible environments. But good project management should allow agency leaders and employees to make needed adjustments in how they plan and execute work.
• Project Management Fosters Innovation: Government agencies are increasingly looking for ways to better serve the public. Much of that government innovation springs from project management. An example is a new employee incentive program in the federal government called Securing Americans Value and Efficiency ( SAVE ). The program rewards employees who come up with ideas that improve efficiencies and save money.

How to Implement a Project Management Culture in Government

It can be challenging to implement a project management culture in government. But, management leaders can do it — they just have to focus on everything from education and training to the development of methodologies to appropriate oversight.

First, federal agencies should be aware of job candidates with a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute. The certification recognizes a level of knowledge and expertise in project management. Many project managers, in private industry and government, have that certification.

ESI International, a Virginia-based project management training company, has identified several other steps to implement project management within a government organization, including the following:

• Education and Training: Proper worker education and training provide the foundation for the cultural changes that can foster good project management.
• Maturity and Capability Assessments: Organizations must assess and understand their strengths and weaknesses in doing project management work. They should also make improvements where needed.
• Methodology Development: Leaders must create and follow consistent methodologies that guide how workers tackle a project. Doing so can help workers avoid having to reinvent processes and tools for every project.
• Project Execution Support: Organizations must support project managers in the work on actual projects. This might include hiring experienced coaches and mentors who can transfer their knowledge to workers so that they help projects succeed.
• Center of Competence: A centralized office can provide strategic oversight to projects throughout a government agency. It can also provide project management expertise and support.
• Strategic Oversight: Top leaders in an organization must stay involved in the organization’s project management process. They can make sure the organization’s projects align the organization’s overall goals.

What Is Earned Value Management in Project Management?

Earned value management is a method that tracks how much work has been accomplished on a project and how much of the budget has been spent on a project at any point.

Earned value management is an important part of project management in government and often required in federal government projects. The Department of Defense and NASA has used earned value management since the 1960s.

Using this method, PMs track total project work finished, along with hours and money spent on a project. They can then compare that to the total project budget. That allows team members to assess whether they are ahead of or behind schedule. And it allows them to assess whether they are over or under budget in their spending.

“Earned value management is one of the higher-emphasized areas in all of government project management,” says Ramirez. “That’s how you get visibility into what’s going on.”

A Program Management Framework to Help Guide Federal Technology Purchases

In 2015, the Project Manage Institute published a white paper that offers guidance and a framework for how federal agencies can use project management to improve the way they buy new or modify existing computer systems. You can read more about the PMI Standards Framework . 

Common Project Management Frameworks

Regulations, guidelines, and certifications for federal government.

In 2016, the federal government approved a law to improve project management in federal work, established other regulations governing project management, and has created a special certification for government managers who prove their competence in project management. All of these are detailed below.

Program Management Improvement Accountability Act

In December 2016, President Obama signed into law the Program Management Improvement Accountability Act (PMIAA). In June 2018, the federal Office of Management and Budget issued Memorandum M-18-19 that established the federal government’s initial guidance to federal agencies in implementing the law. The law aims to ensure that federal workers use proven practices in managing programs and projects throughout the federal government. It achieves the following, among other goals:

• Sets up a framework to improve policy, staffing, and training in program and project management
• Ensures that management leaders conduct reviews of programs and projects to make sure they are well-managed 
• Coordinates the development of policies and processes to continually improve project and program management

Project management leaders make a distinction between management of projects and programs. In this context, a project is a defined amount of work that an organization’s employees do to create or modify a product or service. A program is a group of related projects and operational activities. Managers coordinate these projects and activities to provide more overall benefit than if employees had managed them separately.

Procurement Regulations in Project Management

The federal government mandates certain actions in project management when it involves purchasing assets for the government, including buying or modifying computer technology. Regulations include the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act.

The Federal Acquisition Certification for Program and Project Managers

The federal government has established a special certification through which federal managers can prove their competence in program and project management. The certification is called the Federal Acquisition Certification for Program and Project Managers (FAC-P/PM). The certification is recognized by all federal agencies, except for the Department of Defense.

The certification focuses on essential competencies needed for program and project managers.

It offers three levels of certification:

• Entry/Apprentice: This level means the person has the ability to manage low-risk and simple projects.
• Midlevel/Journeyman: This means the person has the ability to manage projects with low- or moderate-level risks. The person also can apply basic management practices to projects.
• Senior/Expert: This person can manage and evaluate moderate to high-risk programs and projects. The person has significant knowledge and experience in project management practices.

California Project Management Recommendations for State Workers

Some states offer specific guidance about project management to state employees. The California Project Management Office, for example, has created a 461-page document providing a framework for project management in California state agencies. The document provides guidance and insights on project management methods. You can read the official documentation for more information.

Examples of Successful Government PM Implementation

Local, state, and federal government agencies have used project management to successfully complete tens of thousands of projects. Here are just a few examples:

• Michigan Office of Project Management: The state of Michigan’s information technology projects were often behind schedule, over budget, or both. To change that, the state created an Office of Project Management and built an infrastructure that helped establish a project management culture with state workers. Then leaders built a project management support structure to help all state government agencies, which allowed the state to integrate project management into much of the state’s daily business activities. To learn more about the project, visit “ Implementing a project management culture in a government organization .”
• New Orleans VA Hospital: In 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands of buildings in New Orleans, Louisiana. Among those buildings was a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital complex where doctors and other medical providers trained medical students, conducted medical research, and served 40,000 military families. In 2006, Congress approved funding for a replacement complex of buildings that would encompass 1.6 million square feet. From the beginning, project leaders focused intently on understanding risks to the project, listening to stakeholders, and preventing inefficient changes in scope. They finished the three phases of the hospital complex on time, and the project’s final cost was 14 percent under budget. To learn more, visit “ Department of Veterans Affairs Realizes Benefits through Improved Healthcare for Veterans .” 
• Department of Justice Website: By 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice website included more than 450,000 web pages, documents, and files. Lawyers, law enforcement officials, and many other citizens valued the information provided. But more than 100 offices of the department needed to maintain their own sections of the website using a wide range of processes and technologies. The website was becoming a huge burden to maintain. The Department of Justice’s project team decided to use a Scrum Agile methodology to rebuild the website in increments. The first job in the project was to build a website content management system and launch one section of the website. Eventually, there would be 120 sections in 12 major version releases. The incremental approach allowed website users to provide feedback on the first release, which became input on making changes in the second and later releases. Each release provided users with more functions, and each took less time to finish. To learn more, visit “ Case Study: Agile Government and the Department of Justice .”

Best Practices and Expert Tips for Effective Government Project Management

Experts offer a number of recommendations that can help leaders and workers to perform effective project management. Tips include requiring the buy-in of top organization leaders, understanding risks at the beginning of the project, and employing a mix of strategies.

Here are some additional expert recommendations and tips:

• Seek Top Leadership Buy-In for the Structure and Strategies: Organization leaders need to understand the principles of good project management and approve the overall strategies to get projects done. Without that, financial and other support for the work will be tentative and can be abandoned at any time. Support from organization leaders will also translate into more support from employees throughout the organization. “The buy-in (for the project and processes) should start at the top and not at the bottom,” says Senapathy, from the Project Management Training Institute. “The government needs to emphasize the discipline of project management from the top down,” says Ramirez, from the Institute for Neuro & Behavioral Project Management. “And it has to be a focused area — just as focused as safety, cost management, the production of the technical product you’re delivering or building.”
• Think about and Listen to All Stakeholders That the Project Might Affect: A wide range of people might be affected by a project — beyond one agency and even beyond the end-users. It’s important to understand everyone who might be affected and how they might react to the work. “Stakeholders represent any individual or group who is affected by or perceives themselves as affected by the project and its outputs,” says Townsend, with the Project Management Institute. “Stakeholders can affect every aspect of a project, including its plans, costs, and schedule. Understanding who the stakeholders are, how to engage with them, and how to balance potential conflicts among them is important.”
• Create a Plan and Provide Clear Direction Before You Start: If you’re using Agile methodologies to move forward a project, planning will likely be different from other project management methods. In any case, you need to set broad goals and make sure your team understands those goals. “Starting too early can mean that goals are unclear or misunderstood (and) key requirements get missed,” says Townsend. “Good, upfront planning with regular reviews of the plan through the project lifecycle can make a big difference in success rates.”
• Monitor Progress Well: Especially in more traditional project management, it’s imperative that the team monitors benchmarks, deadlines, and progress.
• Made Quick Adjustments Based on Monitoring:  Your team must quickly make adjustments if your monitoring shows missed benchmarks or deadlines or other issues. This is especially true in government projects that could involve large budgets. “The sooner you catch things, the better you are in preventing (problems) and the draining away of millions of dollars,” Senapathy says.
• Be Selective: Don’t try to perform a wide range of projects that affect many agency operations all at once. Pick projects, and get leadership buy-in, that can improve operations in a specific area. That way you don’t cause chaos throughout your organization.
• Envision Your Success: Envision and articulate a path toward the project result and what that result will look like. You can do that in part through setting down the scope of the project.
• Make Sure Your Project Provides What the Intended Beneficiary Needs: “Most important, good project management ensures that the result meets the needs of its intended beneficiaries,” says Townsend. “If a result is produced quickly with all of the promised features but fails to meet the needs of the people who will use that result, the project has failed.”
• Bring Together Your “A-Team”: Pick some of your organization’s brightest minds to be part of the project team — even if their job description doesn’t suggest they fit. The brightest minds can envision bigger goals and foster real innovation.
• Integrate Employee Development and Career Goals with Project Management: Employees will respond more intently to project work when their job descriptions and rewards are influenced by their project management work. “There’s got to be motivation from individuals to take greater responsibility” for project success, Senapthy says.
• Think about Behavioral Economics and the Science of Human Behavior: Progress on any human work must take into account how humans make decisions, says Ramirez, from Institute for Neuro & Behavioral Project Management.  “We don’t focus enough on the behavioral piece,” he says. “Progress in the government, private sector, or any organization is going to be slower when you do not incorporate the human factors that go into it.” That means organizations must think about why people make the decisions they do, including financial incentives, job security, and agreeing with superiors.
• Know the Risks Involved in Your Project: At the outset of every project, project leaders and team members need to assess the risks and challenges inherent to the project. From there, make adjustments or take other measures to deal with those risks. “Risk management considers factors that can negatively or positively impact a project and its results,” says Townsend. “Some risks can derail projects while others may enable teams to accelerate or increase value delivery. Good risk management keeps those threats and opportunities visible throughout the project so the team can mitigate risks and take advantage of opportunities. ”Ramirez says some risk analysis doesn’t go far enough in acknowledging human factors, however. This includes a disincentive to acknowledge risks in some areas, like how a risk might affect their jobs, or the opinions and views or their superiors in the agency.  “There are many incentives to avoid considering additional risks,” Ramirez says. Those disincentives must be dealt with and considered by project leaders, he says.
• Start Small, and Scale Up: If your agency is just starting to deploy formal project management, start with a smaller project. Testing the process on a smaller or shorter-term project will allow team members to understand and tweak processes before moving on to a bigger project.
• Be Nimble and Willing to Employ a Mix of Strategies: “A real-life project needs to be nimble,” says Senapathy. That might mean that project leaders use a traditional project management framework, like Waterfall, for one portion of the project, and then use an Agile-based Scrum framework for another portion. “Keep the processes flexible,” he says. (To learn more about different project management methodologies, visit “ What's the Difference? Agile vs Scrum vs Waterfall vs Kanban. ”) “In general, since projects never fall into a theoretical bucket of a framework, it is perfectly fine to mix and match traditional and agile methodologies to gain maximum performance from available budget and schedule,” says Senapathy.

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FAC Number: 2024-03 Effective Date: 02/23/2024

Part 35 - Research and Development Contracting

35.000 scope of part., 35.001 definitions., 35.002 general., 35.003 policy., 35.004 publicizing requirements and expanding research and development sources., 35.005 work statement., 35.006 contracting methods and contract type., 35.007 solicitations., 35.008 evaluation for award., 35.009 subcontracting research and development effort., 35.010 scientific and technical reports., 35.011 data., 35.012 patent rights., 35.013 insurance., 35.014 government property and title., 35.015 contracts for research with educational institutions and nonprofit organizations., 35.016 broad agency announcement., 35.017 federally funded research and development centers., 35.017-1 sponsoring agreements., 35.017-2 establishing or changing an ffrdc., 35.017-3 using an ffrdc., 35.017-4 reviewing ffrdc’s., 35.017-5 terminating an ffrdc., 35.017-6 master list of ffrdc’s., 35.017-7 limitation on the creation of new ffrdc’s..

(a) This part prescribes policies and procedures of special application to research and development (R&D) contracting .

(b) R&D integral to acquisition of major systems is covered in part  34 . Independent research and development (IR&D) is covered at 31.205-18 .

Applied research means the effort that (a) normally follows basic research , but may not be severable from the related basic research ; (b) attempts to determine and exploit the potential of scientific discoveries or improvements in technology, materials, processes, methods, devices, or techniques; and (c) attempts to advance the state of the art. When being used by contractors in cost principle applications, this term does not include efforts whose principal aim is the design, development , or testing of specific items or services to be considered for sale; these efforts are within the definition of " development ," given below.

Development , as used in this part, means the systematic use of scientific and technical knowledge in the design, development , testing, or evaluation of a potential new product or service (or of an improvement in an existing product or service) to meet specific performance requirements or objectives. It includes the functions of design engineering, prototyping, and engineering testing; it excludes subcontracted technical effort that is for the sole purpose of developing an additional source for an existing product.

Recoupment , as used in this part, means the recovery by the Government of Government-funded nonrecurring costs from contractors that sell, lease, or license the resulting products or technology to buyers other than the Federal Government.

The primary purpose of contracted R&D programs is to advance scientific and technical knowledge and apply that knowledge to the extent necessary to achieve agency and national goals. Unlike contracts for supplies and services, most R&D contracts are directed toward objectives for which the work or methods cannot be precisely described in advance. It is difficult to judge the probabilities of success or required effort for technical approaches, some of which offer little or no early assurance of full success. The contracting process shall be used to encourage the best sources from the scientific and industrial community to become involved in the program and must provide an environment in which the work can be pursued with reasonable flexibility and minimum administrative burden.

(a) Use of contracts. Contracts shall be used only when the principal purpose is the acquisition of supplies or services for the direct benefit or use of the Federal Government. Grants or cooperative agreements should be used when the principal purpose of the transaction is to stimulate or support research and development for another public purpose.

(b) Cost sharing . Cost sharing policies (which are not otherwise required by law) under Government contracts shall be in accordance with 16.303 , 42.707 (a) and agency procedures.

(c) Recoupment . Recoupment not otherwise required by law shall be in accordance with agency procedures.

(a) In order to obtain a broad base of the best contractor sources from the scientific and industrial community, agencies must , in addition to following the requirements of part  5 , continually search for and develop information on sources (including small business concerns) competent to perform R&D work. These efforts should include-

(1) Early identification and publication of agency R&D needs and requirements, including publicizing through the Governmentwide point of entry (GPE ) (see part  5 );

(2) Cooperation among technical personnel, contracting officers , and Government small business personnel early in the acquisition process; and

(3) Providing agency R&D points of contact for potential sources.

(b) See subpart  9.7 for information regarding R&D pools and subpart  9.6 for teaming arrangements.

(a) A clear and complete work statement concerning the area of exploration (for basic research ) or the end objectives (for development and applied research ) is essential. The work statement should allow contractors freedom to exercise innovation and creativity. Work statements must be individually tailored by technical and contracting personnel to attain the desired degree of flexibility for contractor creativity and the objectives of the R&D.

(b) In basic research the emphasis is on achieving specified objectives and knowledge rather than on achieving predetermined end results prescribed in a statement of specific performance characteristics. This emphasis applies particularly during the early or conceptual phases of the R&D effort.

(c) In reviewing work statements, contracting officers should ensure that language suitable for a level-of-effort approach, which requires the furnishing of technical effort and a report on the results, is not intermingled with language suitable for a task-completion approach, which often requires the development of a tangible end item designed to achieve specific performance characteristics. The wording of the work statement should also be consistent with the type and form of contract to be negotiated (see 16.207 and 16.306 (d)). For example, the work statement for a cost-reimbursement contract promising the contractor’s best efforts for a fixed term would be phrased differently than a work statement for a cost-reimbursement completion contract promising the contractor’s best efforts for a defined task. Differences between work statements for fixed-price contracts and cost-reimbursement contracts should be even clearer.

(d) In preparing work statements, technical and contracting personnel shall consider and, as appropriate, provide in the solicitation -

(1) A statement of the area of exploration, tasks to be performed, and objectives of the research or development effort;

(2) Background information helpful to a clear understanding of the objective or requirement ( e.g., any known phenomena, techniques, methodology, or results of related work);

(3) Information on factors such as personnel, environment, and interfaces that may constrain the results of the effort;

(4) Reporting requirements and information on any additional items that the contractor is required to furnish (at specified intervals) as the work progresses;

(5) The type and form of contract contemplated by the Government and, for level-of-effort work statements, an estimate of applicable professional and technical effort involved; and

(6) Any other considerations peculiar to the work to be performed; for example, any design-to-cost requirements.

(a) In R&D acquisitions , the precise specifications necessary for sealed bidding are generally not available, thus making negotiation necessary. However, the use of negotiation in R&D contracting does not change the obligation to comply with part  6 .

(b) Selecting the appropriate contract type is the responsibility of the contracting officer . However, because of the importance of technical considerations in R&D, the choice of contract type should be made after obtaining the recommendations of technical personnel. Although the Government ordinarily prefers fixed-price arrangements in contracting , this preference applies in R&D contracting only to the extent that goals, objectives, specifications, and cost estimates are sufficient to permit such a preference. The precision with which the goals, performance objectives, and specifications for the work can be defined will largely determine the type of contract employed. The contract type must be selected to fit the work required.

(c) Because the absence of precise specifications and difficulties in estimating costs with accuracy (resulting in a lack of confidence in cost estimates) normally precludes using fixed-price contracting for R&D, the use of cost-reimbursement contracts is usually appropriate (see subpart  16.3 ). The nature of development work often requires a cost-reimbursement completion arrangement (see 16.306 (d)). When the use of cost and performance incentives is desirable and practicable, fixed-price incentive and cost-plus-incentive-fee contracts should be considered in that order of preference.

(d) When levels of effort can be specified in advance, a short-duration fixed-price contract may be useful for developing system design concepts, resolving potential problems, and reducing Government risks. Fixed-price contracting may also be used in minor projects when the objectives of the research are well defined and there is sufficient confidence in the cost estimate for price negotiations. (See 16.207 .)

(e) Projects having production requirements as a follow-on to R&D efforts normally should progress from cost-reimbursement contracts to fixed-price contracts as designs become more firmly established, risks are reduced, and production tooling, equipment, and processes are developed and proven. When possible, a final commitment to undertake specific product development and testing should be avoided until-

(1) Preliminary exploration and studies have indicated a high degree of probability that development is feasible and

(2) The Government has determined both its minimum requirements and desired objectives for product performance and schedule completion.

(a) The submission and subsequent evaluation of an inordinate number of R&D proposals from sources lacking appropriate qualifications is costly and time-consuming to both industry and the Government. Therefore, contracting officers should initially distribute solicitations only to sources technically qualified to perform research or development in the specific field of science or technology involved. Cognizant technical personnel should recommend potential sources that appear qualified, as a result of-

(1) Present and past performance of similar work;

(2) Professional stature and reputation;

(3) Relative position in a particular field of endeavor;

(4) Ability to acquire and retain the professional and technical capability, including facilities, required to perform the work; and

(5) Other relevant factors.

(b) Proposals generally shall be solicited from technically qualified sources, including sources that become known as a result of synopses or other means of publicizing requirements. If it is not practicable to initially solicit all apparently qualified sources, only a reasonable number need be solicited. In the interest of competition, contracting officers shall furnish copies of the solicitation to other apparently qualified sources.

(c) Solicitations shall require offerors to describe their technical and management approach, identify technical uncertainties, and make specific proposals for the resolution of any uncertainties. The solicitation should require offerors to include in the proposal any planned subcontracting of scientific or technical work (see 35.009 ).

(d) Solicitations may require that proposals be organized so that the technical portions can be efficiently evaluated by technical personnel (see 15.204-5 (b)). Solicitation and evaluation of proposals should be planned to minimize offerors ’ and Government expense.

(e) R&D solicitations should contain evaluation factors to be used to determine the most technically competent (see 15.304 ), such as-

(1) The offeror ’s understanding of the scope of the work;

(2) The approach proposed to accomplish the scientific and technical objectives of the contract or the merit of the ideas or concepts proposed;

(3) The availability and competence of experienced engineering, scientific, or other technical personnel;

(4) The offeror ’s experience;

(5) Pertinent novel ideas in the specific branch of science and technology involved; and

(6) The availability, from any source, of necessary research, test, laboratory, or shop facilities.

(f) In addition to evaluation factors for technical competence, the contracting officer shall consider, as appropriate, management capability (including cost management techniques), experience and past performance , subcontracting practices, and any other significant evaluation criteria ( e.g., unrealistically low cost estimates in proposals for cost-reimbursement or fixed-price incentive contracts). Although cost or price is not normally the controlling factor in selecting a contractor to perform R&D, it should not be disregarded in arriving at a selection that best satisfies the Government’s requirement at a fair and reasonable cost.

(g) The contracting officer should ensure that potential offerors fully understand the details of the work, especially the Government interpretation of the work statement. If the effort is complex, the contracting officer should provide potential offerors an opportunity to comment on the details of the requirements as contained in the work statement, the contract Schedule, and any related specifications. This may be done at a preproposal conference (see 15.201 ).

(h) If it is appropriate to do so, solicitations should permit offerors to propose an alternative contract type (see 16.103 ).

(i) In circumstances when a concern has a new idea or product to discuss that incorporates the results of independent R&D work funded by the concern in the private sector and is of interest to the Government, there should be no hesitancy to discuss it; however, the concern should be warned that the Government will not be obligated by the discussion. Under such circumstances, it may be appropriate to negotiate directly with the concern without competition. Also, see subpart  15.6 concerning unsolicited proposals .

(j) The Government may issue an exploratory request to determine the existence of ideas or prior work in a specific field of research. Any such request shall clearly state that it does not impose any obligation on the Government or signify a firm intention to enter into a contract.

(a) Generally, an R&D contract should be awarded to that organization, including any educational institution, that proposes the best ideas or concepts and has the highest competence in the specific field of science or technology involved. However, an award should not be made to obtain capabilities that exceed those needed for successful performance of the work.

(b) In R&D contracting , precise specifications are ordinarily not available. The contracting officer should therefore take special care in reviewing the solicitation evaluation factors to assure that they are properly presented and consistent with the solicitation .

(c) When a small business concern would otherwise be selected for award but is considered not responsible, the SBA Certificate of Competency procedure shall be followed (see subpart  19.6 ).

(d) The contracting officer should use the procedures in subpart  15.5 to notify and debrief offerors .

(e) It is important to evaluate a proposed contractor’s cost or price estimate, not only to determine whether the estimate is reasonable but also to provide valuable insight into the offeror ’s understanding of the project, perception of risks, and ability to organize and perform the work. Cost or price analysis, as appropriate (see 15.404-1 (c)), is a useful tool.

Since the selection of R&D contractors is substantially based on the best scientific and technological sources, it is important that the contractor not subcontract technical or scientific work without the contracting officer ’s advance knowledge. During the negotiation of a cost-reimbursement R&D contract, the contracting officer shall obtain complete information concerning the contractor’s plans for subcontracting any portion of the experimental, research, or development effort (see also 35.007 (c)). Also, when negotiating a fixed-price contract, the contracting officer should evaluate this information and may obtain an agreement that protects the Government’s interests. The clause at 52.244-2 , Subcontracts, prescribed for certain types of contracts at 44.204 (a), requires the contracting officer ’s prior approval for the placement of certain subcontracts.

(a) R&D contracts shall require contractors to furnish scientific and technical reports, consistent with the objectives of the effort involved, as a permanent record of the work accomplished under the contract.

(b) Agencies should make R&D contract results available to other Government activities and the private sector. Contracting officers shall follow agency regulations regarding such matters as national security, protection of data, and new-technology dissemination policy. Reports should be sent to the-

National Technical Information Service (NTIS) 5285 Port Royal Road Springfield, VA 22161.

When agencies require that completed reports be covered by a report documentation page, Standard Form (SF) 298 , Report Documentation Page, the contractor should submit a copy with the report.

(a) R&D contracts shall specify the technical data to be delivered under the contract, since the data clauses required by part  27 do not require the delivery of any such data.

(b) In planning a developmental program when subsequent production contracts are contemplated, consideration should be given to the need and time required to obtain a technical package (plans, drawings, specifications, and other descriptive information) that can be used to achieve competition in production contracts. In some situations, the developmental contractor may be in the best position to produce such a technical package.

For a discussion of patent rights, see agency regulations and part  27 .

Nonprofit, educational, or State institutions performing cost-reimbursement contracts often do not carry insurance . They may claim immunity from liability for torts, or, as State institutions, they may be prohibited by State law from expending funds for insurance . When this is the case, see 28.311 for appropriate clause coverage.

(a) The requirements in part  45 for establishing and maintaining control over Government property apply to all R&D contracts.

(b) In implementing 31 U.S.C.6306 , and unless an agency head provides otherwise, the policies in paragraphs (1) through (4) following, regarding title to equipment (and other tangible personal property ) purchased by the contractor using Government funds provided for the conduct of basic or applied scientific research, apply to contracts with nonprofit institutions of higher education and nonprofit organizations whose primary purpose is the conduct of scientific research:

(1) If the contractor obtains the contracting officer ’s advance approval, the contractor shall automatically acquire and retain title to any item of equipment costing less than $5,000 (or a lesser amount established by agency regulations) acquired on a reimbursable basis.

(2) If purchased equipment costs $5,000 (or a lesser amount established by agency regulations) or more, and as the parties specifically agree in the contract, title may -

(i) Vest in the contractor upon acquisition without further obligation to the Government;

(ii) Vest in the contractor, subject to the Government’s right to direct transfer of the title to the Government or to a third party within 12 months after the contract’s completion or termination (transfer of title to the Government or third party shall not be the basis for any claim by the contractor); or

(iii) Vest in the Government, if the contracting officer determines that vesting of title in the contractor would not further the objectives of the agency’s research program.

(3) If title to equipment is vested in the contractor, depreciation , amortization, or use charges are not allowable with respect to that equipment under any existing or future Government contract or subcontract.

(4) If the contract is performed at a Government installation and there is a continuing need for the equipment following contract completion, title need not be transferred to the contractor.

(c) The absence of an agreement covering title to equipment acquired by the contractor with Government funds that cost $1,000 or more does not limit an agency’s right to act to vest title in a contractor as authorized by 31 U.S.C.6306 .

(1) Vesting title under paragraph (b) of this section is subject to civil rights legislation, 42 U.S.C.2000d . Before title is vested, the contractor must agree that-

No person in the United States or its outlying areas shall , on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise subjected to discrimination under this contemplated financial assistance ( title to equipment ).

(2) By signing the contract, the contractor accepts and agrees to comply with this requirement.

(e) The policies in paragraphs (b)(1) through (b)(3) and paragraph (d) of this section are implemented in the Government Property clauses.

(a) General.

(1) When the R&D work is not defined precisely and the contract states only a period during which work is conducted (that is, a specific time for achievement of results is not required), research contracts with educational institutions and nonprofit organizations shall -

(i) State that the contractor bears primary responsibility for the research;

(A) The name of the principal investigator (or project leader), if the decision to contract is based on that particular individual’s research effort and management capabilities; and

(B) The contractor’s estimate of the amount of time that individual will devote to the work;

(iii) Provide that the named individual shall be closely involved and continuously responsible for the conduct of the work;

(iv) Provide that the contractor must obtain the contracting officer ’s approval to change the principal investigator (or project leader);

(v) Require that the contractor advise the contracting officer if the principal investigator (or project leader) will, or plans to, devote substantially less effort to the work than anticipated; and

(vi) Require that the contractor obtain the contracting officer ’s approval to change the phenomenon under study, the stated objectives of the research, or the methodology.

(2) If a research contract does provide precise objectives or a specific date for achievement of results, the contracting officer may include in the contract the requirements set forth in paragraph (a)(1) of this section, if it is necessary for the Government to exercise oversight and approval over the avenues of approach, methods, or schedule of work.

(b) Basic agreements.

(1) A basic agreement should be negotiated if the number of contracts warrants such an agreement (see 16.702 ). Basic agreements should be reviewed and updated at least annually.

(2) To promote uniformity and consistency in dealing with educational institutions and nonprofit organizations, agencies are encouraged to use basic agreements of other agencies.

(a) General. This paragraph prescribes procedures for the use of the broad agency announcement (BAA) with Peer or Scientific Review (see 6.102 (d)(2)) for the acquisition of basic and applied research and that part of development not related to the development of a specific system or hardware procurement . BAA’s may be used by agencies to fulfill their requirements for scientific study and experimentation directed toward advancing the state-of-the-art or increasing knowledge or understanding rather than focusing on a specific system or hardware solution. The BAA technique shall only be used when meaningful proposals with varying technical/scientific approaches can be reasonably anticipated.

(b) The BAA, together with any supporting documents, shall -

(1) Describe the agency’s research interest, either for an individual program requirement or for broadly defined areas of interest covering the full range of the agency’s requirements;

(2) Describe the criteria for selecting the proposals, their relative importance, and the method of evaluation;

(3) Specify the period of time during which proposals submitted in response to the BAA will be accepted; and

(4) Contain instructions for the preparation and submission of proposals.

(c) The availability of the BAA must be publicized through the Governmentwide point of entry (GPE ) and, if authorized pursuant to subpart  5.5 , may also be published in noted scientific, technical, or engineering periodicals. The notice must be published no less frequently than annually.

(d) Proposals received as a result of the BAA shall be evaluated in accordance with evaluation criteria specified therein through a peer or scientific review process. Written evaluation reports on individual proposals will be necessary but proposals need not be evaluated against each other since they are not submitted in accordance with a common work statement.

(e) The primary basis for selecting proposals for acceptance shall be technical, importance to agency programs, and fund availability. Cost realism and reasonableness shall also be considered to the extent appropriate.

(f) Synopsis under subpart  5.2 , Synopses of Proposed Contract Actions, of individual contract actions based upon proposals received under the BAA is not required. The notice published pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section fulfills the synopsis requirement.

(a) Policy.

(1) This section sets forth Federal policy regarding the establishment, use, review, and termination of Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC’s ) and related sponsoring agreements.

(2) An FFRDC meets some special long-term research or development need which cannot be met as effectively by existing in-house or contractor resources. FFRDC’s enable agencies to use private sector resources to accomplish tasks that are integral to the mission and operation of the sponsoring agency. An FFRDC, in order to discharge its responsibilities to the sponsoring agency, has access, beyond that which is common to the normal contractual relationship, to Government and supplier data, including sensitive and proprietary data, and to employees and installations equipment and real property. The FFRDC is required to conduct its business in a manner befitting its special relationship with the Government, to operate in the public interest with objectivity and independence, to be free from organizational conflicts of interest, and to have full disclosure of its affairs to the sponsoring agency. It is not the Government’s intent that an FFRDC use its privileged information or access to installations equipment and real property to compete with the private sector. However, an FFRDC may perform work for other than the sponsoring agency under the Economy Act, or other applicable legislation, when the work is not otherwise available from the private sector.

(3) FFRDC’s are operated, managed, and/or administered by either a university or consortium of universities, other not-for-profit or nonprofit organization, or an industrial firm, as an autonomous organization or as an identifiable separate operating unit of a parent organization.

(4) Long-term relationships between the Government and FFRDC’s are encouraged in order to provide the continuity that will attract high-quality personnel to the FFRDC. This relationship should be of a type to encourage the FFRDC to maintain currency in its field(s) of expertise, maintain its objectivity and independence, preserve its familiarity with the needs of its sponsor (s), and provide a quick response capability.

(b) Definitions. As used in this section-

Nonsponsor means any other organization, in or outside of the Federal Government, which funds specific work to be performed by the FFRDC and is not a party to the sponsoring agreement.

Primary sponsor means the lead agency responsible for managing, administering, or monitoring overall use of the FFRDC under a multiple sponsorship agreement.

Sponsor means the executive agency which manages, administers, monitors, funds, and is responsible for the overall use of an FFRDC. Multiple agency sponsorship is possible as long as one agency agrees to act as the " primary sponsor ." In the event of multiple sponsors , " sponsor " refers to the primary sponsor .

(a) In order to facilitate a long-term relationship between the Government and an FFRDC, establish the FFRDC’s mission, and ensure a periodic reevaluation of the FFRDC, a written agreement of sponsorship between the Government and the FFRDC shall be prepared when the FFRDC is established. The sponsoring agreement may take various forms; it may be included in a contract between the Government and the FFRDC, or in another legal instrument under which an FFRDC accomplishes effort, or it may be in a separate written agreement. Notwithstanding its form, the sponsoring agreement shall be clearly designated as such by the sponsor .

(b) While the specific content of any sponsoring agreement will vary depending on the situation, the agreement shall contain, as a minimum, the requirements of paragraph (c) of this subsection. The requirements for, and the contents of, sponsoring agreements may be as further specified in sponsoring agencies’ policies and procedures.

(c) As a minimum, the following requirements must be addressed in either a sponsoring agreement or sponsoring agencies’ policies and procedures:

(1) A statement of the purpose and mission of the FFRDC.

(2) Provisions for the orderly termination or nonrenewal of the agreement, disposal of assets, and settlement of liabilities. The responsibility for capitalization of an FFRDC must be defined in such a manner that ownership of assets may be readily and equitably determined upon termination of the FFRDC’s relationship with its sponsor (s).

(3) A provision for the identification of retained earnings (reserves) and the development of a plan for their use and disposition.

(4) A prohibition against the FFRDC competing with any non-FFRDC concern in response to a Federal agency request for proposal for other than the operation of an FFRDC. This prohibition is not required to be applied to any parent organization or other subsidiary of the parent organization in its non-FFRDC operations. Requests for information, qualifications or capabilities can be answered unless otherwise restricted by the sponsor .

(5) A delineation of whether or not the FFRDC may accept work from other than the sponsor (s). If nonsponsor work can be accepted, a delineation of the procedures to be followed, along with any limitations as to the nonsponsors from which work can be accepted (other Federal agencies , State or local governments, nonprofit or profit organizations, etc.).

(d) The sponsoring agreement or sponsoring agencies’ policies and procedures may also contain, as appropriate, other provisions, such as identification of-

(1) Any cost elements which will require advance agreement if cost-type contracts are used; and

(2) Considerations which will affect negotiation of fees where payment of fees is determined by the sponsor (s) to be appropriate.

(e) The term of the agreement will not exceed 5 years, but can be renewed, as a result of periodic review, in increments not to exceed 5 years.

To establish an FFRDC, or change its basic purpose and mission, the sponsor shall ensure the following:

(a) Existing alternative sources for satisfying agency requirements cannot effectively meet the special research or development needs.

(b) The notices required for publication (see 5.205 (b)) are placed as required.

(c) There is sufficient Government expertise available to adequately and objectively evaluate the work to be performed by the FFRDC.

(d) The Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Washington, DC 20506, is notified.

(e) Controls are established to ensure that the costs of the services being provided to the Government are reasonable.

(f) The basic purpose and mission of the FFRDC is stated clearly enough to enable differentiation between work which should be performed by the FFRDC and that which should be performed by non-FFRDC’s.

(g) A reasonable continuity in the level of support to the FFRDC is maintained, consistent with the agency’s need for the FFRDC and the terms of the sponsoring agreement.

(h) The FFRDC is operated, managed, or administered by an autonomous organization or as an identifiably separate operating unit of a parent organization, and is required to operate in the public interest, free from organizational conflict of interest , and to disclose its affairs (as an FFRDC) to the primary sponsor .

(i) Quantity production or manufacturing is not performed unless authorized by legislation.

(j) Approval is received from the head of the sponsoring agency.

(a) All work placed with the FFRDC must be within the purpose, mission, general scope of effort, or special competency of the FFRDC.

(b) Where the use of the FFRDC by a nonsponsor is permitted by the sponsor , the sponsor shall be responsible for compliance with paragraph (a) of this subsection.

(1) The nonsponsoring agency shall provide the documentation required by 17.503 (e) to the sponsoring agency.

(2) When a D&F is required pursuant to 17.502-2 (c), the nonsponsoring agency shall prepare the D&F and provide the documentation required by 17.503 (e) to the sponsoring agency.

(3) When permitted by the sponsor , a Federal agency may contract directly with the FFRDC, in which case that Federal agency is responsible for compliance with part 6 .

(a) The sponsor , prior to extending the contract or agreement with an FFRDC, shall conduct a comprehensive review of the use and need for the FFRDC. The review will be coordinated with any co- sponsors and may be performed in conjunction with the budget process. If the sponsor determines that its sponsorship is no longer appropriate, it shall apprise other agencies which use the FFRDC of the determination and afford them an opportunity to assume sponsorship.

(b) Approval to continue or terminate the sponsorship shall rest with the head of the sponsoring agency. This determination shall be based upon the results of the review conducted in accordance with paragraph (c) of this subsection.

(c) An FFRDC review should include the following:

(1) An examination of the sponsor ’s special technical needs and mission requirements that are performed by the FFRDC to determine if and at what level they continue to exist.

(2) Consideration of alternative sources to meet the sponsor ’s needs.

(3) An assessment of the efficiency and effectiveness of the FFRDC in meeting the sponsor ’s needs, including the FFRDC’s ability to maintain its objectivity, independence, quick response capability, currency in its field(s) of expertise, and familiarity with the needs of its sponsor .

(4) An assessment of the adequacy of the FFRDC management in ensuring a cost-effective operation.

(5) A determination that the criteria for establishing the FFRDC continue to be satisfied and that the sponsoring agreement is in compliance with 35.017-1 .

When a sponsor ’s need for the FFRDC no longer exists, the sponsorship may be transferred to one or more Government agencies, if appropriately justified. If the FFRDC is not transferred to another Government agency, it shall be phased out.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) maintains a master Government list of FFRDC’s. Primary sponsors will provide information on each FFRDC, including sponsoring agreements, mission statements, funding data, and type of R&D being performed, to the NSF upon its request for such information.

Pursuant to 10 U.S.C. 4126 , the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Air Force, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration may not obligate or expend amounts appropriated to the Department of Defense for purposes of operating an FFRDC that was not in existence before June 2, 1986, until—

(a) The head of the agency submits to Congress a report with respect to such center that describes the purpose, mission, and general scope of effort of the center; and

(b) A period of 60 days, beginning on the date such report is received by Congress, has elapsed.

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Types of Research – Explained with Examples

• By DiscoverPhDs
• October 2, 2020

Types of Research

Research is about using established methods to investigate a problem or question in detail with the aim of generating new knowledge about it.

It is a vital tool for scientific advancement because it allows researchers to prove or refute hypotheses based on clearly defined parameters, environments and assumptions. Due to this, it enables us to confidently contribute to knowledge as it allows research to be verified and replicated.

Knowing the types of research and what each of them focuses on will allow you to better plan your project, utilises the most appropriate methodologies and techniques and better communicate your findings to other researchers and supervisors.

Classification of Types of Research

There are various types of research that are classified according to their objective, depth of study, analysed data, time required to study the phenomenon and other factors. It’s important to note that a research project will not be limited to one type of research, but will likely use several.

According to its Purpose

Theoretical research.

Theoretical research, also referred to as pure or basic research, focuses on generating knowledge , regardless of its practical application. Here, data collection is used to generate new general concepts for a better understanding of a particular field or to answer a theoretical research question.

Results of this kind are usually oriented towards the formulation of theories and are usually based on documentary analysis, the development of mathematical formulas and the reflection of high-level researchers.

Applied Research

Here, the goal is to find strategies that can be used to address a specific research problem. Applied research draws on theory to generate practical scientific knowledge, and its use is very common in STEM fields such as engineering, computer science and medicine.

This type of research is subdivided into two types:

• Technological applied research : looks towards improving efficiency in a particular productive sector through the improvement of processes or machinery related to said productive processes.
• Scientific applied research : has predictive purposes. Through this type of research design, we can measure certain variables to predict behaviours useful to the goods and services sector, such as consumption patterns and viability of commercial projects.

According to your Depth of Scope

Exploratory research.

Exploratory research is used for the preliminary investigation of a subject that is not yet well understood or sufficiently researched. It serves to establish a frame of reference and a hypothesis from which an in-depth study can be developed that will enable conclusive results to be generated.

Because exploratory research is based on the study of little-studied phenomena, it relies less on theory and more on the collection of data to identify patterns that explain these phenomena.

Descriptive Research

The primary objective of descriptive research is to define the characteristics of a particular phenomenon without necessarily investigating the causes that produce it.

In this type of research, the researcher must take particular care not to intervene in the observed object or phenomenon, as its behaviour may change if an external factor is involved.

Explanatory Research

Explanatory research is the most common type of research method and is responsible for establishing cause-and-effect relationships that allow generalisations to be extended to similar realities. It is closely related to descriptive research, although it provides additional information about the observed object and its interactions with the environment.

Correlational Research

The purpose of this type of scientific research is to identify the relationship between two or more variables. A correlational study aims to determine whether a variable changes, how much the other elements of the observed system change.

According to the Type of Data Used

Qualitative research.

Qualitative methods are often used in the social sciences to collect, compare and interpret information, has a linguistic-semiotic basis and is used in techniques such as discourse analysis, interviews, surveys, records and participant observations.

In order to use statistical methods to validate their results, the observations collected must be evaluated numerically. Qualitative research, however, tends to be subjective, since not all data can be fully controlled. Therefore, this type of research design is better suited to extracting meaning from an event or phenomenon (the ‘why’) than its cause (the ‘how’).

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research study delves into a phenomena through quantitative data collection and using mathematical, statistical and computer-aided tools to measure them . This allows generalised conclusions to be projected over time.

According to the Degree of Manipulation of Variables

Experimental research.

It is about designing or replicating a phenomenon whose variables are manipulated under strictly controlled conditions in order to identify or discover its effect on another independent variable or object. The phenomenon to be studied is measured through study and control groups, and according to the guidelines of the scientific method.

Non-Experimental Research

Also known as an observational study, it focuses on the analysis of a phenomenon in its natural context. As such, the researcher does not intervene directly, but limits their involvement to measuring the variables required for the study. Due to its observational nature, it is often used in descriptive research.

Quasi-Experimental Research

It controls only some variables of the phenomenon under investigation and is therefore not entirely experimental. In this case, the study and the focus group cannot be randomly selected, but are chosen from existing groups or populations . This is to ensure the collected data is relevant and that the knowledge, perspectives and opinions of the population can be incorporated into the study.

According to the Type of Inference

Deductive investigation.

In this type of research, reality is explained by general laws that point to certain conclusions; conclusions are expected to be part of the premise of the research problem and considered correct if the premise is valid and the inductive method is applied correctly.

Inductive Research

In this type of research, knowledge is generated from an observation to achieve a generalisation. It is based on the collection of specific data to develop new theories.

Hypothetical-Deductive Investigation

It is based on observing reality to make a hypothesis, then use deduction to obtain a conclusion and finally verify or reject it through experience.

According to the Time in Which it is Carried Out

Longitudinal study (also referred to as diachronic research).

It is the monitoring of the same event, individual or group over a defined period of time. It aims to track changes in a number of variables and see how they evolve over time. It is often used in medical, psychological and social areas .

Cross-Sectional Study (also referred to as Synchronous Research)

Cross-sectional research design is used to observe phenomena, an individual or a group of research subjects at a given time.

According to The Sources of Information

Primary research.

This fundamental research type is defined by the fact that the data is collected directly from the source, that is, it consists of primary, first-hand information.

Secondary research

Unlike primary research, secondary research is developed with information from secondary sources, which are generally based on scientific literature and other documents compiled by another researcher.

According to How the Data is Obtained

Documentary (cabinet).

Documentary research, or secondary sources, is based on a systematic review of existing sources of information on a particular subject. This type of scientific research is commonly used when undertaking literature reviews or producing a case study.

Field research study involves the direct collection of information at the location where the observed phenomenon occurs.

From Laboratory

Laboratory research is carried out in a controlled environment in order to isolate a dependent variable and establish its relationship with other variables through scientific methods.

Mixed-Method: Documentary, Field and/or Laboratory

Mixed research methodologies combine results from both secondary (documentary) sources and primary sources through field or laboratory research.

In this post you’ll learn what the significance of the study means, why it’s important, where and how to write one in your paper or thesis with an example.

Learning how to effectively collaborate with others is an important skill for anyone in academia to develop.

This post explains the difference between the journal paper status of In Review and Under Review.

Join thousands of other students and stay up to date with the latest PhD programmes, funding opportunities and advice.

Browse PhDs Now

The answer is simple: there is no age limit for doing a PhD; in fact, the oldest known person to have gained a PhD in the UK was 95 years old.

This post explains where and how to write the list of figures in your thesis or dissertation.

Aaron’s now writing up his PhD thesis at the University of Birmingham. His research has investigated the Impact and Mitigation of Wavefront Distortions in Precision Interferometry.

Dr Nikolov gained his PhD in the area of Anthropology of Architecture from UCL in 2020. He is a video journalist working with Mashable and advises PhDs consider options outside of academia.

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