Science and Technology Policy Commons^™

On Patenting Human Organisms Or How The Abortion Wars Feed Into The Ownership Fallacy, Yaniv Heled

Yaniv Heled

The idea of ominous technologies that put human individuals or parts of their bodies under someone else's control has been stirring emotions and terrifying people for centuries. It was a recent offshoot of this idea--the notion of “patenting humans”--that mobilized certain members of Congress to pass legislation prohibiting the issuance of patent claims “directed to or encompassing a human organism.” The values underlying this legislation may well have been agreeable, even admirable. Yet, the actual motivation for it was misguided; its execution, deeply flawed; its potential outcomes, hazardous

This Article reviews the history and background of this prohibition. It fleshes …

Alter Rules Of Liability, Yaniv Heled

Yaniv Heled

No abstract provided.

High Speed Rail: Strategic Information For The Australian Context, Tania Von Der Heidt, Pat Gillett, Chris Hale, Philip Laird, Alex Wardrop, Robert Weatherby, Charles Waingold, Michael Charles, Ian Rossow, Dale Coleman, Bala Ramasokeran, Rocco Zito, Michael Taylor, Adrian Pollock

Dr Philip Laird

No abstract provided.

The Cooperative Mission Of Defense R&D In The U.S.: Detecting Consistency And Change In The Roles Of The Federal Laboratories, Craig Boardman, Branco Ponomariov

Craig Boardman

No abstract provided.

Cooperative Research Centers And Open Innovation: Policies, Strategies, And Organizational Dynamics Of The New Science And Engineering Management, Craig Boardman, Denis Gray, Drew Rivers

Craig Boardman

No abstract provided.

Organizational Capital In Boundary-Spanning Collaborations: Internal And External Approaches To Organizational Structure And Personnel Authority, Craig Boardman

Craig Boardman

Despite a large body of scholarship elucidating mechanisms for aligning participant behaviors with public service goals in boundary-spanning collaborations, the most challenging of these collaborations – those with potential for lacking both common goals and common resources – have received relatively little attention from public management scholars. This study investigates approaches to structure and authority by managers of this sort of collaboration, specifically by the managers of cooperative research centers involving government, industry, and university actors. The findings suggest external approaches to structure and authority when such controls are perceived by managers as valuable for eliciting participant contributions yet difficult …

A Retrospective Of The U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (Nni): Lessons Learned For Coordination Of Federal Scientific And Technical Work At The Nanoscale., Craig Boardman, Barry Bozeman, Catherine Slade

Craig Boardman

No abstract provided.

Academic Faculty Working In University Research Centers: Neither Capitalism's Slaves Nor Teaching Fugitives, Barry Bozeman, Craig Boardman

Craig Boardman

The literature on university-industry interactions is bifurcated, with some authors characterizing these interactions as beneficial to economic development and technology transfer and other authors characterizing them as disruptive and harmful to traditional university missions, especially education. While both views may be correct, the extent to which university-industry interactions affect universities’ traditional research and educational missions remains a question that is largely unaddressed empirically. This study is one of the first to use data to address university-industry interactions from both perspectives. The data combine survey and institutional data to compare academic faculty working in both university research centers and university departments …

Organizational Pathology Compared To What? The Impacts Of Job Characteristics And Career Trajectory On Perceptions Of Organizational Red Tape, Branco Ponomariov, Craig Boardman

Craig Boardman

The original studies of organizational red tape (Waldo 1946, Kaufmann 1977) emphasize that worker perceptions of organizational rules and procedures are dependent on workers’ frames of reference. However, most subsequent study has not accounted sufficiently for how these reference points vary across workers, even if they work in the same or similar organizational context. While the effects of contemporaneous worker attitudes on perceptions of red tape have been considered in numerous studies, unexamined is how perceptions of organizational rules and procedures as red tape are related to workers’ prior work experiences. This seems an important omission, since variable norms and …

Disasters, Lessons Learned, And Fantasy Documents, Thomas Birkland

Thomas A Birkland

This article develops a general theory of why post-disaster ‘lessons learned’ documents are often ‘fantasy documents’. The article describes the political and organizational barriers to effective learning from disasters, and builds on general theory building on learning from extreme events to explain this phenomenon. Fantasy documents are not generally about the ‘real’ causes and solutions to disasters; rather, they are generated to prove that some authoritative actor has ‘done something’ about a disaster. Because it is difficult to test whether learning happened after an extreme event, these post-disaster documents are generally ignored after they are published.

The "Talk" Button, Karl T. Muth

Karl T Muth

This column appeared in the "Humor" section of Chicago Business during the autumn of 2009.

Catching Up With The New Public Service In Theory And Practice: Understanding Workers And Worker Motivation, Craig Boardman, Branco Ponomariov

Craig Boardman

No abstract provided.

Lessons Of Disaster: Policy Change After Catastrophic Events, Thomas Birkland

Thomas A Birkland

Even before the wreckage of a disaster is cleared, one question is foremost in the minds of the public: "What can be done to prevent this from happening again?" Today, news media and policymakers often invoke the "lessons of September 11" and the "lessons of Hurricane Katrina." Certainly, these unexpected events heightened awareness about problems that might have contributed to or worsened the disasters, particularly about gaps in preparation. Inquiries and investigations are made that claim that "lessons" were "learned" from a disaster, leading us to assume that we will be more ready the next time a similar threat looms, …

Resource Security And The Canada-Us Pacific Salmon Dispute, Christopher Gore

Christopher D Gore

No abstract provided.