Science Article: DATA CHECK: Tracking first jobs to measure the impact of research funding

Newly minted Ph.D.s from two of flagship universities in the Midwest are more likely to end up working in California than in their home states, according to a recent study in Science. The ability to track geographic mobility is just one of the many applications of a new database focused on how public spending on research fosters innovation. For government officials, such results bring them one step closer to their goal of setting national research policy based on evidence rather than anecdote. For researchers in the fledgling field of the science of science policy, the results point to the potential value of an unprecedented blending of university administrative records with employment and earnings data collected for the U.S. Census Bureau that is now available at the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.


DATA CHECK: Tracking first jobs to measure the impact of research funding
Mervis, J.
Science (AAAS), Vol. 351 Issue 6271 – 2016: 328 - 328

10.1126/science.351.6271.328

How to engineer the unexpected

From ABC-RN's Future Tense program of 20 October 2015:

Serendipity, generally thought of as accidental good fortune, has long been a staple of popular science. The notion of fortuitous discovery still has strong appeal, but could it encourage innovation? Antony Funnell meets researchers who not only believe in serendipity, but are actively trying to engineer it.

"...search has become so effective over the past decade that it has completely overshadowed the value of browsing and exploring: 'I think there really is a bias towards supporting search,' he says, 'and it has meant that supporting serendipity when finding information has been relatively neglected.'"

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/creating-innovation-through-serendipity/6868960