Science, Technology, and Environment Policy Lab

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Networks in Science

The STE Policy Lab conducts network based evaluations of NSF Centers and also applies network analysis to research on the development and evolution of scientific networks and the contributions that network dynamics have on science outcomes and on scientists careers.

Collaborative Networks in Science

 

Women in Science and Engineering:
Network Access, Participation, and Career Outcomes

Funded by the National Science Foundation (Grant# REC-0529642)

Co-PIs: Dr. Julia Melkers, Dr. Eric Welch

Dates: 2005-2008

This multi-year project addresses the research question: How and why do networks make a difference in the career outcomes of women in STEM careers? We define a network to be a web of formal and informal relationships among members that allows the exchange of resources, information, and activities. In the first part of the study, we will collect and analyze survey data from a national random sample of men and women in post doctoral, assistant professor, and associate professor positions in six fields that vary by gender composition. The analysis will focus on the relationships among network access, network participation, and career outcomes. The research will carefully define career outcomes in terms of traditional outputs and advancement, but also in other terms such as satisfaction, recognizing that network participation may lead to a complex mixture of benefits and costs. The second phase of the project comprises a “critical mentor” analysis designed to map and measure network structure and participation for selected mentors and their mentees. We will collect qualitative and quantitative data from mentor interviews, an in-depth survey of mentees, citation indexes, and mentor curriculum vitae. Overall, this analysis promises to elicit a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of the network structures and behaviors that contribute to women’s effective access to critical networks that affect career advancement and success.

For more information on this project, visit the project website.

 

R&D Evaluation Using Network Analysis

 

Evaluation of the Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) Engineering Research Center

Funded by the MAE Center, a National Science Foundation EERC

Co-PIs: Dr. Julia Melkers, Dr. Eric Welch

Dates: 2005-2008

The purpose of this study is to conduct an evaluation of the Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) Engineering Research Center. MAE is one of three national earthquake engineering research centers established by the National Science Foundation and its partner institutions and is located in Champaign Illinois. MAE is engaged in core earthquake research, research targeted at stakeholder use, as well as education and outreach initiatives. Over 3.5 years, Professors Melkers and Welch are using qualitative (case study & interview) and quantitative (survey, bibliometric, and social network) methods in order to capture both interim and longer-term outcomes of MAE activities as well as address impacts on key stakeholders, students, and other entities.

 

 

Assessing the LIFE (Learning in Informal and Formal Environments) Center: A Scientific and Technical Human Capital Evaluation Model

Funded by the LIFE Center, a National Science Foundation SLC

Co-PIs: Dr. Elizabeth Corley, Dr. Julia Melkers, Dr. Barry Bozeman, Dr. Jan Youtie

Dates: 2005-2009

Funded by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of Washington and Stanford University, the mission of the LIFE Science of Learning Center is “to understand and advance human learning through a simultaneous focus on implicit, informal and formal learning, thus cultivating generalizable interdisciplinary theories that can guide the design of effective new technologies and learning environments”. Together with colleagues at Arizona State University and Georgia Tech University, Dr. Melkers is conducting an evaluation of the research outcomes of the LIFE Center. The team is specifically interested in gains to research knowledge, preparation of new researchers, and research capacity building.

 

Electronic Government

 

Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society and Participation

Professor Mossberger is completing a co-authored manuscript with Caroline Tolbert and Ramona McNeal on Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society, and Participation. “Digital citizenship,” is the ability to participate in society online, and it facilitates opportunities for knowledge, skills, and participation in the economic and political spheres. This work builds on an earlier book, Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide (Mossberger, Tolbert and Stansbury, Georgetown University Press, 2003), which examined patterns of inequality and the attitudes, needs, and experiences of those left behind. Digital Citizenship extends this previous research by showing the consequences that technology has for political and economic participation, and by connecting these issues to citizenship and equality of opportunity, beyond economic arguments about the positive externalities of technology.

 

 

Diffusion and Impact of E-government

In a forthcoming article in Public Administration Review, Tolbert and Mossberger (2006) explore the effects of e-government use on citizen attitudes toward government more generally. Using two-stage models and Pew survey data, they find that there is a statistically significant relationship between trust in government and use of a local government website. In general, e-government users had positive assessments of all levels of government as being more transparent, responsive, or efficient. The findings are theoretically important for reconciling previous conflicting research on the effects of e-government, and for understanding variations by level of government.

 

Environment

 

National Biosolids Management Study

Co-PIs: Dr. Eric Welch, Dr. Elizabeth Corley

Dates: 2006-present

This study explores environmental practices of public sewage and wastewater treatment facilities, particularly related to their management of biosolids products, especially as they relate to Environmental Management Systems (EMS).  Specifically it seeks to understand: (1) the predictors of voluntary EMS adoption in the public sector, and (2) the effect that EMS adoption has on environmental management practices of public sewage and wastewater treatment facilities.  The study will administer an online web survey of operations or environmental managers who have repsonsibility for the management of biosolids products for their facilities.  A number of wastewater treatment facilities have voluntarily adopted an environmental management system (EMS) offered by the National Biosolids Partnership and other organziations. This study attempts to identify the motivations, barriers, costs and benefits of voluntary environmental activity conducted by public wastewater treatment facilities.

Prior research on voluntary environmental behavior of organizations has focused on private sector polluters.  The adoption, development and deployment of one of the voluntary programs often studied in the private sector -- the environmental management systems (EMS) -- has received substantial attention, while other EMS programs targeted to the public sector have received no attention.  Importantly, the theory developed to explain private sector voluntary behavior does not seem to fit public sector incentive environment.  For example, much of the theory to date has focused on the importance of costs and benefits, market value, access to club goods, and regulatory influence.  Public sector organizations are much less exposed to market incentives and much more exposed to a social and political incentives.  As a result, we believe there are strong possibilities that the voluntary behavior of public sector entities will not easily fit existing behavioral theories.

 
 

Assessing Effectiveness of Alternative Fuel Vehicle Fleet Replacement in Local Government

Co-PIs: Dr. Eric Welch, Dr. Jane Lin

Dates: 2004-present

Although recent legislation and policy has encouraged the use of alternative fuel vehicles in public fleets, full scale AFV adoption is still a new phenomenon. Past studies have examined select aspects of environmental impacts and purchase behavior for specific types of AFVs, a simultaneous comparison of implementation and effectiveness of different fuel types and engine technologies within a single fleet over time has not been undertaken. This project assesses the implementation and effectiveness of an ongoing mandatory AFV fleet replacement policy in DuPage County Forest Preserve (DCFP) in Illinois, which has adopted a self mandate to entirely replace its fleet with AFVs over a 10 year time span. The project is currently supporting three manuscripts: (1) an examination of the environmental and economic costs and benefits of at the half-way point of the policy implementation; (2) an assessment of the internal knowledge development and learning processes that take place when a public agency is tasked with full scale adoption of new technology; and (3) a study of AFV end user behavior. Findings will provide policy makers with detailed dynamic understanding about the cost, benefits, gains, losses, and lessons learned during the process of fleet replacement.

 

Other Projects

 

R&D Investment and Economic Development

PI: Dr. Yonghong Wu

Dates: 2004-present

This project explores how governments foster economic growth through encouraging business investment in research and development (R&D) by innovation policy actions. The conceptual framework is composed of two interrelated processes. One deals with how internal and external innovative outputs contribute to economic performance. The other process focuses on the impact of government innovation policies in stimulating business innovation efforts. As a major step in implementing the framework, two pieces of research have been completed. One of them examines the effectiveness of three major national innovation policies (patent protection, R&D tax incentives, and government R&D subsidies) on business performed and financed R&D. The other one is an across-state assessment on whether state level R&D tax incentives are effective in stimulating additional industrial R&D expenditure in U.S. states. The future research will explore policy-induced R&D investment and innovation-based economic development in a unified framework based on the existing datasets augmented by some additional economic development measurements.

 
 

 

 

 

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