Star Ratings

Last year, the two primary government agencies that fund scientific research — the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation — invested more than $47 billion in promising projects. Given our sinking economy, taxpayers should reasonably ask: What's the return on that investment?The government last week announced a $1 million multi-agency initiative for evaluating how many new ideas, jobs and medical advances that money has generated. The scheme is called STAR METRICS, or rather less catchily, Science and Technology for America’s Reinvestment: Measuring the Effect of Research on Innovation, Competitiveness and Science.Read more at...SFARI, June 2010.