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Transformative Potential

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Abstract

Identifying and supporting high-risk and high pay-off research has been one of the major concerns of science policy as well as individual scientists and their institutions. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has been concerned about identifying and funding transformative research for decades. The U.S. is not the only country that is experiencing the sense of urgency like the Gathering Storm we discussed at the beginning of the book. Research Councils UK (RCUK) considers high potential, high impact research as adventurous, speculative, innovative, exciting, creative, radical, groundbreaking, precedence setting, unconventional, visionary, challenging, ambitious, uncertain, mould-breaking or revolutionary (RCUK 2006). The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) defined the concept of risk based on unconventionality and an uncertainty of results (NSERC 2003).

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© 2011 Higher Education Press, Beijing and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Chen, C. (2011). Transformative Potential. In: Turning Points. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19160-2_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19160-2_8

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