Public Policy and Emerging Sources of Technology and Technical Information Available to Industry

As technologies grow in complexity, firms often target their internal R&D resources on core competencies and utilize outside sources for supporting knowledge and technology. Where do firms turn to find such resources? This paper reports the perceptions of technology transfer managers in United States manufacturing firms toward federal and university labs and identifies the types of farms that are better positioned to utilize externally available technological resources. Based on replies from research-intensive companies within the United States, the authors find that larger firms with high research and development (R&D) budgets tend to ascribe greater significance to external sources than do smaller ones. Also, companies spending over $500 million in R&D rank universities the most significant external source of knowledge, followed by V S.-based firms, and then foreign firms.     

Technology Transfer and Public Policy

This article uses events occurring between 1989 and 1994 at the University of California (UC) as a case study to illustrate the consequences to the university of the collision between two powerful public policy agendas for the university: (a) that it maintain its traditional independence, carrying out its roles of teaching and research untainted by the lures and demands of the marketplace, and (b) that it become more active in economic development activities, including the development and sale of its intellectual property and the establishment of companies to exploit university research. The unsuccessful attempts over these five years by the UC to establish a separate nonprofit foundation to manage its considerable portfolio of intellectual property and to form a for-profit company to fund development and start-up efforts have been plagued with controversy. UC's story offers parallels with the experiences of other universities and illustrates an emerging pattern in the responses of higher education to the new pressures on them to be more economically relevant. The lessons from the UC case are valuable for other universities and for policymakers involved in technology transfer activities.     

Conflict, Uncertainty, and the Role of Planning and Analysis in Public Policy Innovation

Innovation by "groping along," in which appointed public officials experiment during program implementation after little, if any, initial planning and analysis, has been promoted as a more accurate model of policy innovation than the rational comprehensive model of policy change. Analysis of two cases of environmental regulatory policy innovation suggests that administrative agencies may be more likely to follow the conventional model of the policy cycle when high levels of conflict are likely to accompany policy initiatives. The cases also suggest, however, that public officials will experiment during the innovation process when they are uncertain about the nature of the problem and the probable impacts of alternative solutions.     

Policy Gridlock in Waste Management

Current federal hazardous and low-level radioactive waste management policies (under conjoint federalism) fail to balance national concerns for consistency with state concerns for equity, discretion, and adequate resources. Congress should expand conjoint federalism to permit states to charge differential fees on imported hazardous waste as it does for low-level radioactive waste. For low-level radioactive waste, clarification of the "take title" issue makes the present framework for state discretion implementable, given sufficient time.     

The prehistory of Cyprus: Problems and prospects

The archaeological record of prehistoric Cyprus is rich, diverse, well-published, and frequently enigmatic. Regarded by many as a bridge between western Asia and the Aegean, Cyprus and its past are frequently seen from scholarly perspectives prevalent in one of those two cultural areas. Its material culture, however, differs radically from that of either area. Apart from the early colonization episodes on the island (perhaps three during the pre-Neolithic and Neolithic), evidence of foreign contact remains limited until the Bronze Age (post-2500 B. C.). This study seeks to present the prehistory of Cyprus from an indigenous perspective, and to examine a series of archaeological problems that foreground Cyprus within its eastern Mediterranean context. The study begins with an overview of time, place, and the nature of fieldwork on the island, continues with a presentation and discussion of several significant issues in Cypriot prehistory (e.g., insularity, colonization, subsistence, regionalism, interaction, social complexity, economic diversity), and concludes with a brief discussion of prospects for the archaeology of Cyprus up to and beyond 2000.     

Nestorian Crosses from Jabal Berri

Two small crosses, one of bronze and the other of mother-of-pearl, from the surface of a site near Jabal Berri in northeastern Saudi Arabia are presented. They are attributed to the Nestorian community of Bet Qatraye which is known from literary sources to have flourished during the Sasanian period.