Date Added: Dec 2009
Innovation is recognized as being a driving force contributing to United States competitiveness. Yet the current empirical understanding of the innovation ecosystem is insufficient to guide decision makers. A growing understanding of innovation and new cyber-enabled capacities to collect and integrate data about individuals and organizations offer expanded potential for scientists, policy-makers and organizations themselves to understand the way in which innovation contributes to key national priorities such as the generation of new knowledge, and the creation of new jobs, income and wealth. New cyber-enabled advances in confidentiality protection also now make possible the analysis of sensitive data without revealing individual identities - so that researchers can generalize and replicate scientific results.