NASA Virtual Institutes as an Emerging Organizational Form

摘要

This paper describes the NASA virtual institute as an organizational form. This description is largely historical, based on the evolution since 1998 of three virtual institutes operating at the NASA Ames Research Center: the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, and the NASA Aeronautics Research Institute. The enduring characteristics of a virtual institute include a NASA-orientation, geographically and institutionally dispersed teams, multi-disciplinary and methodologically open-minded research, cutting edge collaboration technology and human factors, a focus on the next generation of researchers, and competition leading to cooperation among the teams.