Collaborative Research in the United States

Policies and Institutions for Cooperation among Firms

Albert N. Link

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429639104
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: R&D
• Index: Business

In order to understand collaborative research activity in the United States, it is important to understand the contextual environment in which firms pursue a collaborative research strategy. The U.S. environment for formal collaborative research was established through a number of policy initiatives promulgated in the 1980s in response to the widespread productivity slowdown throughout industry that began in the early 1970s and then intensified in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These initiatives include the Bayh–Dole Act of 1980, the Stevenson–Wydler Act of 1980 and its amendments, the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 and its amendments, and the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986.

Collaborative Research in the United States offers a critical and retrospective description of collaborative research activity in the United States in an effort to provide a prospective framework for policymakers to evaluate future policy initiatives to encourage such strategic behavior. The analysis that underlies the policy framework draws from the performance of U.S. firms' experiences, presenting a quantitative foundation for recommendations about future policy initiatives. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students in the fields of critical management studies, strategic management, economics, and public policy.

1 Introduction

A Prefacing Statement

I begin the book by suggesting two key phrases to the reader in the book’s title and subtitle. The phrases are collaborative research and cooperation among firms. In an effort to ensure that all of the readers of this book are on the same page—literally and figuratively—I have chosen to begin the book with two definitions to clarify, and hopefully to illuminate, these two phrases in the title and then to relate these two phrases to the purpose statement of the book. In addition, these two definitions might emphasize not only what the book is about but also what it is not about.

The word collaborate comes from the Latin word collaborare, and it literally means to labor together. According to Merriam-Webster, the word collaborate means “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.” The word cooperate comes from the Latin word cooperari, and it literally means to work with. And again, according to Merriam-Webster, the word cooperate means “to act or work with another or others; to associate with another or others for mutual benefit.” From my perspective, one definition reflects a focus on an intellectual endeavor and the other definition reflects a focus on mutual benefits.

This book is about collaborative research; it is about firms willing to work together or to work with another party (e.g., a public sector agency) in an intellectual endeavor, and their apposite association with one another is for the mutual benefit of all involved and possibly for the common weal. Authors from multiple disciplines have, especially in recent years, emphasized the importance of scientific collaborations. For example, Sonnenwald (2007, p. 643), a notable scholar in the field of information science, noted:

Scientific collaboration is increasing in frequency and importance. It has the potential to solve complex scientific problems and promote various political, economic, and social agendas …

And, this same theme was even more recently emphasized by the National Research Council (NRC) in its 2015 report, “Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science.”¹

This book is not about strategic alliances in the general sense; it is focused in the narrow sense on research collaboration in the United States. Strategic alliances between or among firms can relate to many dimensions of a firm’s strategic behavior throughout the production process as well as throughout the research, manufacturing, and marketing processes. More specifically, this book is primarily about research collaboration between and among U.S. firms; its purpose is to offer a retrospective of collaborative research activity in the United States in an effort to provide a prospective framework for policymakers to evaluate future policy initiative and to encourage appropriate strategic cooperative research behavior.² The word primarily in the previous sentence is important because portions of the book also deal with collaborations that involve the public sector (i.e., government organizations at various levels), and these are often called public-private collaborations.

Before discussing the following chapters in the book, I have opted to begin with a brief historical background on collaborations in the United States. My purpose in providing this brief historical background information is for the sake of context—namely, to provide a frame of reference for presently observed research collaborations in the country.

Some Historical Context

Research collaborations are a new phenomenon neither in the United States nor in other countries.³ From a historical perspective, the first scientific society in the United States traces at least to 1683 with the informally formed and organized Boston Philosophical Society. This Society was established to share and advance knowledge in philosophy and natural history, that is, to aid individuals collaborating with one another at an intellectual level.

The first permanently formed and organized society was founded in 1742 in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin. The American Philosophical Society’s function was to encourage the exchange of ideas in all areas of science with those interested individuals in the other colonies. The Society represented an example of a scientific endeavor that linked together “individuals, private societies, governmental bodies, [and] academic institutions …” (UNESCO, 1968, p. 10). The American Philosophical Society is also an example of a collaboration focused at the intellectual level, but the spatial sphere of influence for the collaborations and the collaborators was broader than that of the Boston Philosophical Society.

In the early years of the United States, it was the government that initiated a number of research collaborations, and the nature of those collaborations often took the form of the government defining a need or goal assumed to be for the common weal and then collaborating (i.e., funding the collaboration in most cases) with private individual(s) to meet that need or goal. One might refer to these efforts as public-private research partnerships or public-private collaborations. One of the earliest examples of such a public-private collaboration dates to 1804 when U.S. President Thomas Jefferson recommended and then influenced the U.S. government to support the Lewis and Clark expedition.⁴ The purpose of the expedition was “to advance geographical and other knowledge of the continent by exploring the Missouri River” (UNESCO, 1968, p. 11). The result of this public-private collaboration was, at least from an ex post perspective, the acquisition of new knowledge for the general benefit of all of the citizenry of the nation.

Scientific journals, much like the early societies, were also an early mechanism to facilitate intellectual collaborations. Scientific publications facilitated the sharing of intellectual thoughts and ideas among those in the learned class. The American Journal of Science was first published in 1818 and the American Mechanics Magazine was first published in 1826 (UNESCO, 1968).

In a manner similar to the publicly funded Lewis and Clark expedition, Congress also funded Samuel Morse in 1838 to build an experimental telegraph line between the cities of Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, DC.⁵ While not direct public-private research collaboration for the per se creation of new knowledge, as was the premise behind the Lewis and Clark expedition, the telegraph technology experiment represented a public-private collaboration to demonstrate the feasibility of an infrastructure to support future information-based collaborations.

In addition to the federal government facilitating public-private collaborations, some state governments were doing the same during the mid-1800s. From an educational perspective, many academic institutions were fostering face-to-face collaborations for the exchange of tacit knowledge, especially in areas related to agriculture and engineering. Early examples of these collaborative efforts were the extension activities of the Michigan State Agriculture College (1857) and the Cooper Institute (1859). The Morrill Act, also known as the Land-Grant College Act of 1862 and officially known as “An Act Donating Public Lands to the Several States and Territories which may provide Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts,” facilitated educational collaborations among faculty and among those in the population who were primarily involved in agriculture.^6,7

Another example of an infrastructure to facilitate the exchange of tacit knowledge among collaborating individuals that was focused on national needs was the establishment of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863; this enabling legislation was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. The Academy was originally charged to “investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art” whenever called upon to do so by any department of the government.⁸ The Academy has always been a private, nonprofit organization designed to serve the collective interests of the nation.

Jumping ahead, by decades in fact, a quintessential example of intellectual collaboration, or more specifically the call for intellectual collaboration, might be attributed to Dr. Vannevar Bush. President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to Dr. Bush on November 17, 1944, and in his letter he clearly articulated a role for and the national importance of sharing technical knowledge.⁹ President Roosevelt was referring directly as well as explicitly to federal technology transfer efforts that were to originate from federal research efforts, but he was also referring indirectly as well as implicitly to virtual research collaborations. President Roosevelt wrote¹⁰:

Dear Dr. Bush:

The Office of Scientific Research and Development, of which you are the Director, represents a unique experiment of team-work and cooperation in coordinating scientific research and in applying existing scientific knowledge to the solution of the technical problems paramount in war. Its work has been conducted in the utmost secrecy and carried on without public recognition of any kind; but its tangible results can be found in the communiques coming in from the battlefronts all over the world. Some day the full story of its achievements can be told.

There is, however, no reason why the lessons to be found in this experiment cannot be profitably employed in times of peace. The information, the techniques, and the research experience developed by the Office of Scientific Research and Development and by the thousands of scientists in the universities and in private industry, should be used in the days of peace ahead for the improvement of the national health, the creation of new enterprises bringing new jobs, and the betterment of the national standard of living.

Bush’s June 5, 1945, response to President Roosevelt’s charge was submitted to then President Harry S. Truman.¹¹ In his response, he rephrased a portion of President Roosevelt’s charge in the form of a question, which Bush himself went on to answer the question within the text of Science—the Endless Frontier (Bush, 1945, p. 1). That question was: “What can the Government do now and in the future to aid research activities by public and private organizations?” And Bush’s answer explicitly emphasized the importance of the role of science in the nation (p. 2): “Science offers a largely unexplored hinterland for the pioneer who has the tools for his task.” And for the pioneer, he/she will have to collaborate in a virtual sense with those who created the reservoir of technical knowledge that is relevant in the day. The science of today is a product of the science of yesterday, and the science of tomorrow is a product of the science of today.¹² Building on extant technical knowledge is tantamount to collaborating with the scientific minds of the past.

Overview of the Book

With the above contextual history in mind, the remaining chapters of this book are outlined as follows. Many of the chapters are self-contained narrow descriptions of dimensions of research collaborations in the United States. As I stated above, this book is about firms working with another firm or organization on an intellectual endeavor. Thus, what follows are chapters that are descriptive, in a literal sense, of dimensions of these research associations. In other words, many of the chapters that follow are so-called data chapters that present descriptive information (i.e., statistics). The descriptive analysis is prefaced by relevant legislative initiatives and followed by policy discussions that are based on empirical findings.

In Chapter 2, I discuss what I call the U.S. collaborative research environment. My premise in beginning this book with such a chapter is as follows; for one to understand collaborative research in the United States, one must first understand the contextual environment in which firms pursue a research strategy. The U.S. environment for formal collaborative research was established through a number of policy initiatives promulgated in the late 1970s and early 1980s in response to the widespread productivity slowdown throughout the industrial sector that began in the early 1970s and then intensified in the late 1970s and early 1980s. These initiatives initially included the Bayh–Dole Act of 1980; the Stevenson–Wydler Act of 1980 and its amendments; and the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 and its amendments. Each initiative’s enabling legislation is overviewed in this chapter, and a description of the attendant incentives built into each legislative initiative is highlighted.

In Chapter 3, I describe the various data sources that will be discussed and relied on empirically in later chapters of the book. These data sources are overviewed from an institutional perspective. The first database discussed is the National Research Joint Venture (NRJV) database; the NRJV database is arguably the most complete database available that is related to U.S. research joint ventures. This database was created as an outgrowth of prior funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which created the CORE (COoperative REsearch) database.

The second database is generally referred to within the academic and policy literature as the NRC SBIR database. The NRC of the National Academies, under a Congressional mandate, collected survey data on a representative sample of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project awards for research projects over the time ...