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EVENT ANALYTICS FOR INNOVATION 399

makers at funding agencies, investors, and entrepre- innovation, particularly innovation outputs. These
neurs to make decisions that lead to more successful metrics are needed, the panel concluded, “to assess
outcomes. the impact of federal, state, and local innovation poli-
cies, such as the amount and direction of federal R&D
Current Innovation Metrics and the Need for funding, support for STEM education at the graduate
New Measures of Innovation level, and regulation of new products and services. In
In 2011, the Committee on National Statistics and addition, having good measures of innovation out-
the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic put facilitates comparison of the United States with
Policy of the National Research Council convened other countries in a key area that promotes economic
the Panel on Developing Science, Technology, and growth” (3). The report also listed a selection of real
Innovation Indicators for the Future and charged the and relevant policy questions for which new metrics
members with assessing the current state of inno- are required to formulate appropriate answers.
vation metrics and preparing recommendations for
future measures of STI. The panel’s 2014 report was Visualization as a Tool for Exploration and
detailed and extensive in both areas, drawing on both Understanding
U.S. and international research (3). The report is Innovation researchers have used diverse visual-
intended to provide guidance to the National Center izations to explore data, derive insights, and present
for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) at the results. Traditional visualizations include these data
U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the study’s types with example applications from innovation
sponsor. research (examples in Figure 1):
NCSES currently produces many statistical • Choropleth maps to show intensity of innova-
measures of innovation inputs, outputs, and long- tion activity by county, state, etc.
term outcomes, including metrics for: research and • Scatterplots and heat maps
development (R&D); national R&D expenditures • Timelines and hierarchies to show intensity of
and performance (by type of industry and source of innovation activity in patent taxonomies
funds); commercial outputs and outcomes; knowl-
edge outputs; STEM education; STEM workforce/ • Networks to show connections among university
or venture capital firms and start-up companies
talent; and organizations/institutions (3).
Traditionally, NCSES and its predecessors have The emergence of tools for new data types offers
used surveys, including the Business R&D and Inno- fresh opportunities for innovation researchers to
vation Survey, to trace the inputs and outputs of the understand event patterns that could guide inter-
innovation system. More recently, alternative data ventions to increase the success of innovation efforts.
sources, including administrative and electronic Current interest in event analytics has been triggered
transaction records, are increasingly available (3). by the growth of electronic health records, which now
Along with these new data sources, widespread and provide online access to tens of millions of patient
low cost computing power has made the use of new histories. These histories reveal patterns of medica-
analytic methods possible, such as network and tem- tion compliance, links between treatments and side
poral analysis. The availability of new tools, including effects, and the relationship between interventions
NodeXL (NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and outcomes (4,5).
and Exploration for Excel https://nodexl.codeplex. Increasing availability of innovation histories
com/) for network analysis and EventFlow (Event- could produce similar benefits by allowing research-
Flow: Visual Analysis of Temporal Event Sequences ers for the first time to study the relationships between
http://hcil.umd.edu/eventflow/) for temporal anal- events in start-up companies and the eventual suc-
ysis, can help innovation researchers develop new cess or failure of those companies. Event analytics
innovation metrics. is a new and growing topic within visual analytics
The panel was unequivocal on its recommen- that combines interactive exploration with statisti-
dation that NCSES should develop new metrics of cal tools to find expected common trajectories and