New Merit Review - Intro

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There are 13 team members listed in development of the NSF-MRC: John Bruer, Alan Leshner, Louis Lanzerotti, Doug Randall, Diane Souvaine, Thomas Taylor, Ray Bowen, etc.

To the general email address for the National Science Board, I sent the following request for an explanation:

Title: Transformative Research and NSB/MR-11-22 

Good Day,

From what I gather out of the latest NSB report on NSF Merit Review Criteria, neither the team itself nor “stakeholders” identified by SRI included a single specialist in the history of scientific revolutions to inform the report’s definitions & understanding of “transformative”.  As this type is explicitly defined as the highest value, and the top Foundation support priority within the domain of projects “of the highest quality”, such absence seems to warrant explanation.

Substantial knowledge has been gained during the past half-century, making NSB inclusion of vague and naïve preconceptions baffling.  Examples include misconceptions of the creative process, and a definition of TR from NSF-07-032 which fails to meet minimal standards for scoping and explanation properly required of any definition.

From several perspectives, including that of strategic alignment, organizational leadership, and portfolio management, a number of observers remain baffled and are trying to understand what’s going on. 

It seems the history and lessons learned by research into successful transformative concept development has been overlooked and/or avoided since early planning during the 2005 Santa Fe workshops. 

Who might be able to explain why integration of such important knowledge continues to fail? 

Sincere Thanks,
Buck


Comments

Reverend Jim said…
I was rereading your Star Trek by the Minute blogs (just as entertaining the second time through) and I noticed there was no Minute 048? Did this entry ever show up anywhere?

October 15, 2012 at 8:39 AM
BurntSynapse said…
There was a numbering change, since I inappropriately started at minute 1 rather than minute zero as I should have.
October 15, 2012 at 9:22 AM
Reverend Jim said…
I can totally understand if you are unwilling to eviscerate Star Trek: Into Darkness. It would be horrible enough just having to sit through it (something I am unwilling to do). However, you did such a magnificent job with the last movie that it would be a shame to deny your readers the pleasure of seeing you do it again. It was the only good thing about that movie. I hope you can find the time and the intestinal fortitude.

Reverend Jim
July 17, 2013 at 10:33 PM
R. Anthony Steele said…
I have to wonder if there is any intelligence informing most of what government does these days.
April 17, 2015 at 11:52 PM
R. Anthony Steele said…
Wait. I just realized this was a 2012 article. I was thinking (hoping) you had posted something new.

April 17, 2015 at 11:54 PM
R. Anthony Steele said…
Since I'm already posting comments to this article for no reason, I never sent you a link to this article in which I credit you for opening my eyes to the stupidity of most conspiracy theories. http://ranthonysteele.blogspot.com/2014/07/and-now-for-rest-of-story-9-11-version.html

Thanks for the reading recommendation so many years ago.
April 18, 2015 at 12:00 AM
BurntSynapse said…
What I really need at this point is a good structure as I had for Star Trek by the Minute...

I'm working on it though...
April 18, 2015 at 12:00 AM
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