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An organizational perspective to funding science: Collaborator novelty at DARPA

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  • Colatat, Phech

Abstract

Research funding is known to affect the rate and direction of scientific and inventive activity. Most commonly, this is understood as occurring through the allocation of funds toward certain types of research and by altering the disclosure regime. This paper calls attention to another set of factors that likely also influence scientific and technological outcomes, but has gone largely unexamined: organizational practices at research funding organizations. I explore these factors in a mixed-methods study of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Leveraging 39 interviews of DARPA-funded scientists and program managers, I describe DARPA’s agency-driven approach to research program development and intense interpersonal management style. Next, I investigate the impact of these organizational practices on the behaviors of sponsored researchers, in particular the tendency of scientists to form novel collaborations. Using patent disclosure data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Licensing Office and employing coarsened exact matching to identify a control set of collaborations, I find that DARPA-funded research is at least 6.0 percentage points more likely to involve novel collaborations. A detailed exploration of the novel collaborations presents a picture that is consistent with the paper’s description of collaboration-promoting practices at DARPA. By identifying important organizational practices and examining their impact on scientist behavior, this paper aims to highlight the potential influence of organization practices on scientific and inventive activity.

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  • Colatat, Phech, 2015. "An organizational perspective to funding science: Collaborator novelty at DARPA," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 874-887.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:44:y:2015:i:4:p:874-887
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2015.01.005
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    2. Nugent, Annita & Chan, Ho Fai, 2023. "Outsourcing university research commercialization to a sophisticated technology transfer office: Evidence from Australian universities," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    3. Liu, Shaoshan, 2020. "DARPA: the Differentiator," SocArXiv h43nv, Center for Open Science.
    4. Jörn H. Block & Christian Fisch & Walter Diegel, 2024. "Schumpeterian entrepreneurial digital identity and funding from venture capital firms," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 119-157, February.
    5. Annita Nugent & Ho Fai Chan & Uwe Dulleck, 2022. "Government funding of university-industry collaboration: exploring the impact of targeted funding on university patent activity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 29-73, January.
    6. Qianqian Jin & Hongshu Chen & Ximeng Wang & Tingting Ma & Fei Xiong, 2022. "Exploring funding patterns with word embedding-enhanced organization–topic networks: a case study on big data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5415-5440, September.
    7. Kuan, Jennifer & West, Joel, 2023. "Interfaces, modularity and ecosystem emergence: How DARPA modularized the semiconductor ecosystem," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(8).
    8. Jean Belin & Marianne Guille & Nathalie Lazaric & Valérie Mérindol, 2019. "Defense Firms Adapting to Major Changes in the French R&D Funding System," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 142-158, February.
    9. Pierre Azoulay & Erica Fuchs & Anna P. Goldstein & Michael Kearney, 2018. "Funding Breakthrough Research: Promises and Challenges of the "ARPA Model"," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 19, pages 69-96, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. O'Kane, Conor & Mangematin, Vincent & Zhang, Jing A. & Cunningham, James A., 2020. "How university-based principal investigators shape a hybrid role identity," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).

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