Lundquist College Assistant Professor of Management Lauren Lanahan's proposal, “Emerging Researchers on the Path to Innovation," earned a two-year funding grant in March from the National Science Foundation. The University of Oregon is the lead institution and the University of Southern California is the sub-contract institution.

The research project will examine the impact of federal research and development (R&D) funding on research productivity.

Prior research on this general topic has focused on outcomes of senior researchers and teams. This project will instead direct attention to emerging researchers, specifically U.S. graduate students in the science and engineering academic disciplines. By focusing attention on this overlooked population, this project will expand knowledge about the role of R&D investment on research productivity and enhance understanding of graduate education and training within science and engineering disciplines.

The grant generates greater education and training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students, while decreasing the reporting burden due to the use of public records and third-party databases.

The information gathered will be disseminated through scholarly journals, and the investigators will develop and make available online tutorials regarding data-building activities that will leverage data from third-party sources so that other researchers can expand their own research capabilities.

Additionally, the project also will provide new information and insights that can inform policy making with respect to R&D investments to the management of science and engineering graduate education and training programs.

Lanahan's previous recent research showed how federal funding encourages investments from nonfederal funders.