Contents: (1) What are the Different Kinds of Prizes?; (2) What is the Status of Federally-Funded Innovation Inducement Prizes?: DoD Wearable Power Prize; DARPA Grand Challenges; DoE Grand Challenges; Progressive Auto. X PRIZE; Amer. Le Mans Series Green Challenge Race; NASA Centennial Challenges: Astronaut Glove Challenge; General Aviation Technology; Lunar Regolith Excavation Challenge; Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge; Power Beaming and Tether; Lunar Oxygen Production or MoonROx; NASA Assessment of Program; Future Competitions; Biomed. Advanced R&D Authority Project BioShield; (3) What Policy Options Might Members of Congress Consider?: Create New Prizes; Modify Current Prize Programs.

Following a congressional directive in its FY 2006 Appropriations Act, the National Science Foundation asked the STEP Board to "propose a plan for administering prizes to individuals or teams that achieve novel solutions to specified social or research needs or capitalize on recognized research opportunities." A committee under the STEP Board concluded that an ambitious program of innovation inducement prize contests would be a sound investment in strengthening the infrastructure for U.S. innovation and that NSF, although inexperienced, is well suited to designing an experimental program that could add substantially to understanding regarding the appropriate goals of such contests, the motivations of participants and sponsors, and the rules and conditions that contribute to successful contests. The committee recommends that NSF start off with a series of small-scale prizes ($200K - $2M) in diverse areas while beginning to plan for much more ambitious contests ($3M-$30M) that would address significant economic or social challenges and be conducted over several years. The report addresses many of the generic issues that arise in administering innovation prize contests (types of contests, eligibility to participate, disposition of intellectual property rights, and decisions regarding awards) and explores 7 research and technology fields that might lend themselves to prize contests.

Electricity, supplied reliably and affordably, is foundational to the U.S. economy and is utterly indispensable to modern society. However, emissions resulting from many forms of electricity generation create environmental risks that could have significant negative economic, security, and human health consequences. Large-scale installation of cleaner power generation has been generally hampered because greener technologies are more expensive than the technologies that currently produce most of our power. Rather than trade affordability and reliability for low emissions, is there a way to balance all three? The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Energy Technologies considers how to speed up innovations that would dramatically improve the performance and lower the cost of currently available technologies while also developing new advanced cleaner energy technologies. According to this report, there is an opportunity for the United States to continue to lead in the pursuit of increasingly clean, more efficient electricity through innovation in advanced technologies. The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Energy Technologies makes the case that America's advantagesâ€"world-class universities and national laboratories, a vibrant private sector, and innovative states, cities, and regions that are free to experiment with a variety of public policy approachesâ€"position the United States to create and lead a new clean energy revolution. This study focuses on five paths to accelerate the market adoption of increasing clean energy and efficiency technologies: (1) expanding the portfolio of cleaner energy technology options; (2) leveraging the advantages of energy efficiency; (3) facilitating the development of increasing clean technologies, including renewables, nuclear, and cleaner fossil; (4) improving the existing technologies, systems, and infrastructure; and (5) leveling the playing field for cleaner energy technologies. The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Energy Technologies is a call for leadership to transform the United States energy sector in order to both mitigate the risks of greenhouse gas and other pollutants and to spur future economic growth. This study's focus on science, technology, and economic policy makes it a valuable resource to guide support that produces innovation to meet energy challenges now and for the future.

The economics of intellectual property and R&D incentives explained in a balanced, accessible mixture of institutional details and theory.

ÔThe recent renaissance in the use of prizes to spur innovation and extraordinary novel performance warrants close attention. Luciano Kay does so through a series of compelling case studies which shows the potential of prizes, the range of factors that influence their performance and the importance of understanding their non-pecuniary dimensions, even when there is a substantial purse. This is an important contribution to the innovation literature.Õ Ð David J. Teece, University of California, Berkeley, US ÔIn the last decade innovation prizes have caught the imagination of policy makers and rich donors alike; those who actually care about the process and outcome of prizes and not only the hype, would do well to read LucianoÕs new book.Õ Ð Dan (Danny) Breznitz, Georgia Institute of Technology, US Inducement prizes Ð in which cash rewards are offered to motivate the attainment of specific targets Ð have long been used to stimulate scientific discovery and technology research and development. This volume presents an empirical investigation of the effect of these prizes on innovation. In this in-depth study, Luciano Kay focuses on three recent cases of prize competitions in the aerospace industry: the Google Lunar X Prize, the Ansari X Prize and the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. Using a combination of real-time and historical analysis based on personal interviews, workplace visits and questionnaire and document data analysis, the author examines the particular dynamics of the prize phenomenon and offers a comprehensive discussion of the potential of prizes to induce innovation. This fascinating volume also sets out a systematic method to studying prize incentives, offering a concrete innovation model and case study design approach that will prove highly useful to further research efforts in the field. Scholars, policymakers and corporate officials interested in incentives for innovation and the practical implementation of prize competitions will find this an invaluable resource. Potential prize sponsors and entrepreneurs, professionals and other individuals or organizations interested in participating in such competitions will also find much of interest in this groundbreaking book.

In a world where advanced knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is readily available, U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode. A comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas. This congressionally requested report by a pre-eminent committee makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that federal policy-makers should take to create high-quality jobs and focus new science and technology efforts on meeting the nation's needs, especially in the area of clean, affordable energy: 1) Increase America's talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education; 2) Sustain and strengthen the nation's commitment to long-term basic research; 3) Develop, recruit, and retain top students, scientists, and engineers from both the U.S. and abroad; and 4) Ensure that the United States is the premier place in the world for innovation. Some actions will involve changing existing laws, while others will require financial support that would come from reallocating existing budgets or increasing them. Rising Above the Gathering Storm will be of great interest to federal and state government agencies, educators and schools, public decision makers, research sponsors, regulatory analysts, and scholars.

Pres. Obama’s Innovation Strategy builds on over $100 billion of Recovery Act funds that support innovation, support for educ., infrastructure and others and novel regulatory and exec. order initiatives. It seeks to harness the ingenuity of the Amer. people and a dynamic private sector to ensure that the next expansion is more solid, broad-based, and beneficial than previous ones. The strategy focuses on critical areas where balanced gov’t. policies can lay the foundation for innovation that leads to quality jobs and shared prosperity: (1) Invest in the Building Blocks of Amer. Innovation; (2) Promote Competitive Markets that Spur Productive Entrepreneurship; (3) Catalyze Breakthroughs for National Priorities. Illus. This is a print on demand publication.