TY  - JOUR
AU  - Stephan, Paula
TI  - The Endless Frontier:  Reaping what Bush Sowed?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 19687
PY  - 2013
Y2  - November 2013
DO  - 10.3386/w19687
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w19687
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w19687.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Paula Stephan
Department of Economics
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Georgia State University
Box 3992
Atlanta, GA 30302-3992
Tel: 404/413-0160
Fax: 404/413-0145
E-Mail: pstephan@gsu.edu
M1  - published as Paula Stephan. "The Endless Frontier: Reaping What Bush Sowed?," in Adam B. Jaffe and Benjamin F. Jones, editors, "The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy" University of Chicago Press (2015)

M3  - presented at "The Changing Frontier:", August 2-3, 2013
AB  - I examine and document how the Endless Frontier changed the research landscape at universities and how universities responded to the initiative.  I show that the agencies it established and funded initially recruited research proposals from faculty and applications from students for fellowships and scholarships.  By the 1960s the tables had begun to turn and universities had begun to push for more resources from the federal government for research, support for faculty salary and research assistants and higher indirect costs. The process transformed the relationship between universities and federal funders; it also transformed the relationship between universities and faculty.  The university research system that has grown and evolved faces a number of challenges that threaten the health of universities and the research enterprise and have implications for discovery and innovation.  Five are discussed in the closing section. They are (1) a proclivity on the part of faculty and funding agencies to be risk averse; (2) the tendency to produce more PhDs than the market for research positions demands; (3) a heavy concentration of research in the biomedical sciences; (4) a continued expansion on the part of universities that may place universities at increased financial risk and (5) a flat or declining amount of federal funds for research.
ER  -