National Research Council of Italy

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the nature of bureaucratization within public research bodies and its relationship to scientific performance, focusing on an Italian case-study. The main finding is that the bureaucratization of the research sector has two dimensions: public research labs have academic bureaucratization since researchers spend an increasing part of their time in administrative matters (i.e., preparing grant applications, managing grants/projects, and so on); whereas universities mainly have administrative bureaucratization generated by the increase over time of administrative staff in comparison with researchers and faculty. In addition, I show that research units with higher bureaucratization have lower scientific performance.

Lung cancer is the second most common type of cancer and it has the highest mortality rate worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolutionary growth of knowledge of radical innovations to treat lung cancer which are generating a revolution in clinical practice. The patterns of these new anticancer drugs are evolving through an allometric process of knowledge growth, driven by scientific and technological advances in genetics, genomics and proteomics as well as by multiplicity of learning mechanisms in clinical research and practice. This study shows that traditional chemotherapy agents seem to have reached the maturity phase in the treatment of advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer because of the introduction of groundbreaking anticancer drugs. The current debate concerns uncertainties about the long-term effects of these radical innovations on carcinogenesis, the high cost of these drugs, and shrinking healthcare budgets. Nevertheless, these innovative treatments generate several benefits in terms of higher survival rate and quality of life. In addition, the structure, characteristics, and properties of the path-breaking technological paradigm to treat lung cancer can lay the foundations for a vital basic scientific framework for effective anticancer treatments in the not-toodistant future.

The purpose of this paper is to conjecture the possible technological determinants underpinning future economic long waves. The foresight is based on prominent forecasting studies of scholars and a leading British company. This research assumes that converging nano-bio-info-cogno technologies are the foundation of 5th and 6th Kondratieff waves, whereas the future technological revolution that may underpin the 7th economic long wave is assumed to be Faster-Than-Light (FTL) Technologies. The positive effects of these next technological revolutions on worldwide economic system are a high increase in productivity, employment rate, consumption and economic growth that lead to longer, happier and healthier living as well as general well-being.

The current convergence of genetics, genomics and nanotechnology is one of the scientific backbones of new technological paradigms that link several technological trajectories in biomedical sciences. The study reported here explores the patterns of some new radical innovations and emerging research fields/technologies in bio-and nano-medicine. Results show that this convergence supports innovative anticancer treatments and emerging research fields/technologies (in diagnostics and therapeutics) that have been generating a revolution in clinical practice. This study also discusses the impetus of these new technological paradigms in medicine on corporate change and on healthcare.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the underlying mechanisms of organisational learning within public research labs. Results of individual cognitive maps and congregate map, based on a critical case study, show inertia in the organisational learning with negative effects on strategic change and scientific performances of the public research institution. Some main causes of this organisational (un)learning are the effects of friction on the intra-organisational communication among researchers and scientific groups driven by hasty restructuring, high bureaucratisation of public bodies, low coordination and incentives of public servants. Some management implications of learning organisation are discussed.

Nowadays technology has to support the competitive advantage of countries and at the same time sustainable economic growth patterns. This paper measures the Net Social Utility of Innovations, by a new technometric approach, which provides the sustainable economic impact of innovations on socio-economic systems. The metrics is applied on the innovation of catalytic converter technology and the results show a positive impact of this innovation on geo-economic environments. This approach can provide main information for prediction and control the patterns of innovations in order to support economic and social planning oriented at sustainable development.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between public and private research expenditures since can provide main information to policy makers to improve the economic performance of country. Data from Eurostat are used. The methodology applies econometric models based on regression analyses. The main results are: public research and development (R&D) expenditure is a complement for private R&D one but the latter has to be higher than the former to be a determinant for productivity growth of countries. These results can be affected by several factors concerning the structure and specificity of National System of Innovation. In addition, this research shows that the composition of public and private magnitude of national investment in research depends on the size and level of country development.

This paper analyses the spatial mobility of technology transfer on the geo-economic space to study the patterns. The primary findings are that technological contacts decline with distance, through damped pulsations from research institutes to adopters, and that 'institutional richness' in the regions influences the technology transfer process. These insights lead to the conclusion that policy makers need to be cognisant of the institutional context of regional environments and level of spatial fiction, when choosing where to locate research institutes, in order to increase the competitiveness of firms and therefore regional economic growth.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current temporal and spatial trajectories in nanotechnology research in order to display the worldwide patterns of scientific domains across main geo-economic players. Current trends of nanotechnology have been growing in chemistry and medicine because of technological applications of new nanomaterials mainly in Chemical Engineering, Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology. In addition, the results show that the laboratories of Europe and North America have intensive scientific collaborations with foreign scholars in nanotechnology studies. This paper can provide vital findings to support new research and innovation policies in order to foster the development of these driving converging technologies for future patterns of economic growth.

This paper analyses the spatial mobility of knowledge and technology transfer and measures the economic impact on the geo-economic space. The data of laboratories operating in different research and technological fields are used. The results show that, when the distance from the source of knowledge (research institute) to users increases, the impact of knowledge and technology transfer decreases with damped pulsations. The magnitude of knowledge and technology transfer shows a high intensity within the industrial district because small businesses are able to acquire externally scientific knowledge, without conducting in-house research, but by interactions with public scientific bodies and adopting both collective rules that act as collective knowledge devices, making collective learning possible, and skilled labor.

Research evaluation of public institutes is important for measuring the performance of the science sector and improving the cost effectiveness and efficiency of public resource allocation. The purpose of this article is to construct a means of classifying publicly-funded R&D institutions and their performance (high or low). The main findings are two research performance functions, created using discriminant analysis with direct and Wilks methods, which have been successfully applied to 200 public research institutes belonging to the Italian National Research Council. The large number of indicators used within the models creates a macro index that produce, as output, the research performance score. The data analysed is from the 2001 period. The results show that 22.5% of public labs fall into the 'high performance institute' bracket and that they have a site larger than 'low performance institutes'. The models are useful tools for decision making within the research bodies and for reducing X-inefficiency.

Nowadays the public R&D laboratories have a fundamental role in countries' development, supporting businesses as they face the technological challenges in the turbulent world scenarios. Measuring the performance of R&D organisations is crucially important to decisions about the level and direction of public funding for research and development. This research considers the public laboratories like systems and develops a mathematical model based on the measurement of R&D activities with k-indices. The score obtained from the research laboratories evaluation (relev) methodology synthesises in single value financial, scientific and technological aspects. It is an indicator, for R&D manager and policy maker, of performance in relation to other research organisations or in a time series. The method is an instrument of strategic planning and can be used for the improvement of individual activities and the overall performance of public R&D bodies.