Forecasting the Utility of Air Force Applied Research Efforts

摘要

The question of how to allocate resources to research efforts is a pervasive one. Industrial enterprises, educational institutions, and government agencies are all faced with making decisions about such allocation. A moderate amount of attention has been given to the subject for application to industrial sponsorship of research; the criterion for selection of a research effort has in each case been future financial gain to the enterprise. While the criterion is an excellent one for industry, it is of no value to the planning of government-sponsored research, because financial gain is not an objective of government. There is no available measure of the utility of the results of such research (if they are achieved) before the efforts are begun. In particular, there is no measure of the relative values of individual research efforts in two or more diverse fields of research such as aerodynamics and electronics. It is to the possible means of measuring utility for proposed government-sponsored applied research that this study is directed.