ATP and the Valley of Death

Traveling the road from basic research to marketable product takes a vehicle that can make many turns, twists, dips, and climbs, much of which takes place in the valley of death. That's the period during which a technology or product of research is too new to market; it shows commercial promise, but more research is needed to validate its apparent potential. Until that research is done, and the potential affirmed, traditional funders of commercial ventures—who generally want to know what t

Written byLarry Hand

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How to navigate this valley of death was one of the topics addressed Feb. 16 during a symposium titled "Bridging the Gap from Scientific Discovery to Economic Growth," at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Professor emeritus Lewis M. Branscomb of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government chaired the session. Among the solutions discussed was the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), established in 1988. ATP has been hotly debated in Congress and highly criticized by many, including opinion writers for The Scientist.¹

Some of the criticism has been that ATP has funded duplicative research and that some of its awards amounted to corporate welfare for the largest of the companies who received them. A National Research Council report (www.nap.edu/catalog/ 10145.html) last year concluded that ATP had been mostly successful but needed improvement. Branscomb, at the AAAS symposium, said the program didn't need to ...

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