The environments of U.S. R&D laboratories: political and market influences

Abstract

R&D laboratories in the United States have during the past decade undergone much structural and environmental change. Much of this change has been in response to public policy initiatives and changing markets. One result of the changing environments of R&D laboratories is that traditional sector-based (government, industry, university) classification of laboratories tells us little about their structure and behavior. This study based on survey data derived from 966 U.S. R&D laboratories, develops an ‘environmental input taxonomy,’ based not on sector but on the mix of political and market influence on laboratories. This taxonomy is examined in connection with three central policy issues: amount of cooperative research, red tape and bureaucratization, and laboratory output. Traditonal sector classification accounts well for red tape, but the environmental input taxonomy provides additional insights into laboratories' scientific and technical output and cooperative research.