Direct and Spillover Effects of ATP-Funded Photonics Technologies

5. ConclusionsFrom our comparative case analysis of Displaytech and Uniax, we conclude that:• ATP funding creates national value and, given high uncertainty, supports projects withmarket spillover potential and accelerates development and commercialization oftechnology.• With regard to currently measurable economic value, market spillover value significantlydominates knowledge spillover value.• Key spillover value-enhancing mechanisms include: larger market scale; unique enablingcapabilities; lower price elasticities; closer social ties and technological similarity; highprofileresearchers and a collaborative university culture; advancing complementarytechnologies; and the resources and absorptive capacity of large firms.• The time-to-market in the cases studied was more than six years, quite consistent withATP’s target time horizons. Interim niches other than the main target markets sustainedcash flow. Consistent with ATP’s goals, the cases exhibited high-risk, high-uncertaintytechnologies.• High uncertainty extends beyond the proposed new technologies themselves, so evaluationmethodologies may be further improved by considering dynamic complementarytechnologies and dynamic application areas as well.• Patent citations are a noisy proxy for measuring actual knowledge spillover.• Universities dominate publication citations, but corporate publication citations appear tobe better than patent citations as an indicator of actual knowledge spillovers.• The rate of publication citations might be a useful and readily obtainable a priori metricfor evaluating project proposals, as an indicator of knowledge spillover potential from thescientific work, and also, tentatively, as a rough quality proxy for the firm’s potential forattracting capital investment.• Identification of dynamic defender technologies is feasible and methodologically easierthan using static displaced technologies—although both approaches are empiricalcounterfactual exercises. The dynamic defender methodology is less likely to overestimatesocial value (particularly where emerging strong competition increases price elasticities,thus limiting market spillover value).Conclusions 87