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UNIVERSITIES, INDUSTRY, AND GOVERNMENT: A COMPLEX PARTNERSHIP YIELDING INNOVATION AND LEADERSHIP

Figure 1 illustrates some of the many cases in which fundamental research in IT, conducted in industry and universities, led 10 to 15 years later to the introduction of entirely new product categories that became billion-dollar industries. It also illustrates the complex interplay between industry, universities, and government. The flow of ideas and people— the interaction between university research, industry research, and product development—is amply evident.

Figure 1 updates Figure 4.1 from the 2002 CSTB report Information Technology Research, Innovation, and E-Government.¹ The originally published figure² produced an extraordinary response: it was used in presentations to Congress and to administration decision makers, and it was

1	Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council. 2002. Information Technology Research, Innovation, and E-Government. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.

2	Known informally as the “tire-tracks chart” because of its appearance, the figure was first published in Evolving the High Performance Computing and Communications Initiative to Support the Nation’s Information Infrastructure (3; p. 2).