First Application of Dimensions of Innovation to NASA Center Innovation Fund Project Portfolio
- Paper number
IAC-17,D3,4,11,x40765
- Year
2017
- Abstract
Internal research and development efforts are a core way for an institution to explore new solutions, develop expertise, and provide creative stimulation to a technical workforce. NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s ("“STMD"”) early stage technology development programs is the Center Innovation Fund ("“CIF"”), which serves the role of an internal research and development funding mechanism. The CIF program provides each NASA Center resources for small (~\$$100K in time and procurement) early stage (TRL $<$ 3) technology development projects across the NASA Centers. Each year about 120 new projects start, with about 20 projects continuing from the previous year, depending on the Center. A challenge in administering the program is determining which activities are truly “innovative” and advancing the bleeding edge of technology, versus engineering development work, which is best suited to other programs. The authors set out to create a metric for innovation that could be used for programmatic decision making. The metric is based on several qualitative dimensions that can be assessed by a reviewer to generate a quantitative score. The dimensions are: ingenuity, potential impact, and outcome. The product of ingenuity and potential impact serve as the measure of innovativeness, while outcome is a functional completeness score of a project. Each project can be scored and scores from multiple reviewers compiled to get a perspective on the innovative qualities of a group, and their anticipated effectiveness at completing the project. The first trial applications of this process, Dimensions of Innovation, was applied to the project proposals from the FY2017 CIF selections, and evaluations were conducted on the FY2016 projects for comparison. The FY2017 selections showed great variation in opinion, but appear to indicate potential in identifying which projects may have breakout potential. This paper provides a review of the development of the evaluation process, the criteria for review, the implementation of Version 1.0 of the Dimensions of Innovation, and a discussion of the impact on early stage research that may from application of these criteria in project selection and assessment.- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)