What drives innovation? Lessons from COVID-19 R&D.

This paper studies the global R&D effort to fight the deadliest diseases. We find: (1) the elasticity of R&D effort with respect to market size is about 1/2 in the cross-section of diseases; (2) given this elasticity, the R&D response to COVID-19 has been 4 to 26 times greater than that implied by its market size; (3) the aggregate short-term elasticity of science and innovation can be very large, as demonstrated by the aggregate flow of clinical trials increasing by 38% in 2020, with limited crowding out of trials for non-COVID diseases; and (4) public institutions and government-led incentives were a key driver of the COVID-19 R&D effort-with public research institutions accounting for 70 percent of all COVID-19 clinical trials globally. Overall, our work suggests that leveraging early-stage incentives, non-monetary incentives, and public institutions may be important for scaling up global innovation.

Engineering serendipity: When does knowledge sharing lead to knowledge production?

RESEARCH SUMMARY: We investigate how knowledge similarity between two individuals is systematically related to the likelihood that a serendipitous encounter results in knowledge production. We conduct a field experiment at a medical research symposium, where we exogenously varied opportunities for face-to-face encounters among 15,817 scientist-pairs. Our data include direct observations of interaction patterns collected using sociometric badges, and detailed, longitudinal data of the scientists' postsymposium publication records over 6 years. We find that interacting scientists acquire more knowledge and coauthor 1.2 more papers when they share some overlapping interests, but cite each other's work between three and seven times less when they are from the same field. Our findings reveal both collaborative and competitive effects of knowledge similarity on knowledge production outcomes. MANAGERIAL SUMMARY: Managers often try to stimulate innovation by encouraging serendipitous interactions between employees, for example by using office space redesigns, conferences and similar events. Are such interventions effective? This article proposes that an effective encounter depends on the degree of common knowledge shared by the individuals. We find that scientists who attend the same conference are more likely to learn from each other and collaborate effectively when they have some common interests, but may view each other competitively when they work in the same field. Hence, when designing opportunities for face-to-face interactions, managers should consider knowledge similarity as a criteria for fostering more productive exchanges.

A Field Experiment on Search Costs and the Formation of Scientific Collaborations.

We present the results of a field experiment conducted at Harvard Medical School to understand the extent to which search costs affect matching among scientific collaborators. We generated exogenous variation in search costs for pairs of potential collaborators by randomly assigning individuals to 90-minute structured information-sharing sessions as part of a grant funding opportunity. We estimate that the treatment increases the probability of grant co-application of a given pair of researchers by 75%. The findings suggest that matching between scientists is subject to considerable frictions, even in the case of geographically-proximate scientists working in the same institutional context.

Access to vaccine technologies in developing countries: Brazil and India.

This study, conducted by visits, interviews, and literature search, analyzes how vaccine manufacturers in Brazil and India access technologies for innovative vaccines: through collaborations with academia and research institutions, technology transfer agreements with multinational corporations, public sector, or developing country organizations, or by importation and finishing of bulk products. Each has advantages and disadvantages in terms of speed, market, and ability to independently produce the product. Most manufacturers visited are very concerned about avoiding patent infringement, which might result in undeveloped or delayed products because of a lack of mastery of the patent landscape. Disregarding the patent picture could also threaten the market of a potential product. Although it is too soon to assess the effects of TRIPS on vaccine technology access in Brazil and India, a good understanding of intellectual property management will be useful. A case study on development of a new combination vaccine illustrates these findings.