PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
December 2019
857
SECTOR
INSIGHT:
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gov
E
ducation
and
P
rofessional
D
evelopment
in
the
G
eospatial
I
nformation
S
cience
and
T
echnology
C
ommunity
Robert A. Ryerson, Ph.D., FASPRS
Successful Science in Government:
A Case Study in Remote Sensing
In her TED Talk titled “Government – Investor, Risk-taker,
Innovator.” Dr. Mariana Mazzucato argued that the success
of US tech companies has come from science sponsored or
done by the United States government. (1) An intriguing
question is: what leads to this success in government sci-
ence? The Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS), which
won the 2011 William T. Pecora Award, the highest honor in
the field of remote sensing for an organization, provides an
interesting and useful case study in this regard. Over thirty
former scientists, engineers and business people associated
with CCRS came together to write a history of the organi-
zation over its first forty years and out of that came over 50
lessons learned about what goes into making a successful
science organization in government. (2) The lessons learned
were presented under nine topics and for each of these a few
key points are given here from the case study.
Management and leadership:
Leaders should lead.
Leaders and managers should have a firm grasp of the
science base of the organization. Train staff for advancement
from within. It is easier to teach a scientist how to manage
than to teach a generalist manager how to “do” science. All
projects and programs must be on time, on budget and there
will be no surprises. Every employee must believe that his or
her role is important.
Advisory bodies:
A broadly based (academe, industry,
government) advisory body composed of a number of working
groups should be established at the outset to provide wide rang-
ing advice to government. Evolution and change in advisory
bodies can be expected as the science and its application evolves.
Working with industry, academe and government
agencies:
Mechanisms for technology transfer should be
developed early on. Government should not compete with
industry. Roles for academe and other levels of government
must be carefully considered. One valuable role for govern-
ment is to serve as a beta site for products and services that
are developed by industry.
Identifying opportunities:
Work must contribute to
the needs and priorities of the government and, ideally,
other levels of government, industry and the international
market. Creating positive relationships with the media and
publicizing successes should be a key activity. Opportunities
to contribute to foreign policy, trade and/or international
development should be explored.
Innovation and problem solving:
An R&D organization
must be a safe place for new ideas – risk-taking should be
encouraged. Where possible, projects should be planned to
meet multiple objectives. Build on the verifiable research of
others but do not do “me-too” research (research that simply
proves that someone else was right in their conclusions).
Building research capacity:
Expertise from outside the
country or government jurisdiction may be needed and, if so,
should be hired. A diversity of scientific backgrounds of staff
can lead to a broader range of potential solutions to research
problems. A diversity of cultural and linguistic backgrounds
of staff can lead to a broader range of potential international
markets, as well as a wider range of approaches to scientific
questions. Budgets must be predictable from year to year to
allow for multi-year projects. Capital budgets are easy to cut,
but such cuts may lead to failing infrastructure in the future.
Putting innovation into operation:
The value of a new
technology comes not from its creation, but rather from its
use. There is no one appropriate approach to operationalize
an innovation: various ways may be used including allowing
industry access to scientists through some form of collabo-
rative mechanism (such as an incubator), licensing, or other
transfer mechanisms. Ensure that the required suite of
technology development tools and relationships are available
when and as needed. For example, CCRS had sensor devel-
opment expertise (scientific, engineering, and technological),
test and demonstration capability, applications development
expertise and wide connectivity with government and private
sector players within Canada and abroad to keep its work
relevant and cutting edge. Government agencies should
work with companies that have had success in commercial-
izing R&D – not just those who are expert at writing bids
for government work. Researchers often want a perfect or
near-perfect solution. Even the near-perfect solution is often
too expensive to implement. It follows then that industry (or
users) should be engaged early in the process (ideally at the
beginning) to allow earlier commercialization and early use of
the resulting technology and by so doing, be first to market.
Understanding politics and politicians:
Obtaining
or maintaining financial support for a government program
requires the support and interest of the political level. Link-
ages must be shown between the program and the important
issues and priorities of the day as outlined in the key policy
announcements made by the political level. These issues
may be creating a clean and sustainable environment, job
creation, increased exports, etc. Members of industry and
academe including those active in broadly-based advisory
bodies and working groups can contribute to increased
visibility, awareness and understanding by the political level
through outreach activities, pro-active media coverage, and
meeting with politicians.
International relations:
A world-class organization
must be both outward-looking and highly competitive. Inter-
national activities must benefit the international partners.
Recognizing that science and the markets to apply innova-
tion from science are international, identifying sufficient
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
Vol. 85, No. 12, December 2019, pp. 857–858.
0099-1112/19/857–858
© 2019 American Society for
Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
doi: 10.14358/PERS.85.12.857
