Special issue in Research Policy edited by Prof. Dominique Foray

In this issue, Profs Foray, Mowery and Nelson are publishing an article entitled "Public R&D and social challenges: What lessons from mission R&D programs?"

Article's introduction

Societies today face a number of formidable challenges, many of them global in scope. These include adverse climate change, devastating diseases that are not yet under control, uncontrolled population growth in many low-income countries combined with stagnant or declining populations in many high-income economies, rapid urbanization in low-income economies that places stress on the provision of public services, and others. Although the development of new technologies alone will not solve any of these problems, for some at least the creation and adoption of more effective and appropriate technologies is a necessary part of any solution. It is also evident that market forces alone cannot induce all of the R&D investment that is needed for these solutions, and that government programs to aid in the development and deployment of the relevant technologies are needed.

In response to these challenges, a number of policy experts and policymakers have argued for public R&D programs structured similarly to the U.S. government-sponsored Manhattan Project or Project Apollo.1 Reflecting their focus on the achievement of specific objectives in support of governmental goals, these historic programs are examples of a much broader class of publicly funded programs in “mission-oriented research.” Although the proposals for a “new Manhattan or Apollo project” generally focus on public responses to climate-change challenges, similar mission-oriented initiatives could attract support in responding to other global challenges such as those mentioned earlier.

We have two motives for organizing this special issue of Research Policy on mission oriented public R&D programs. First, we believe Manhattan and Apollo are not the right models for new programs aimed at the challenges we now face. Nevertheless, mission-oriented R&D programs can be of great value if they are well designed to fit the particular challenge and the context. Second, we believe that familiarity with a range of existing mission oriented R&D programs can provide useful guidance for the design of new programs aimed at these challenges. The papers included in this special issue can help provide that familiarity, including an understanding of the factors that have influenced the design and goals of these different programs, and contributed to their successes and failures.

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Research Policy Special Issue Papers

• "Public R&D and social challenges: What lessons from mission R&D programs?" by D. Foray, D.C. Mowery and R.R. Nelson
• "Defense-related R&D as a model for “Grand Challenges” technology policies" by D.C. Mowery
• "Grand missions of agricultural innovation" by B.D. Wright
• "Mission-oriented biomedical research at the NIH" by B.N. Sampat
• "Missions-oriented RD&D institutions in energy between 2000 and 2010: A comparative analysis of China, the United Kingdom, and the
• United States"by L.D. Anadón
• "Public Procurement for Innovation as mission-oriented innovation policy" by C. Edquist and J.M. Zabala-Iturriagagoitia
• "Which policy instruments to induce clean innovating?" by R. Veugelers
• "Grand Innovation Prizes: A theoretical, normative, and empirical evaluation" by F. Murray, S. Stern, G. Campbell and A. MacCormack