THE SCIFLIES INNOVATION MODEL: CITIZEN TO SCIENTISTS MICRO FUNDING NETWORK FOR ACCELERATED DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION POLICY FEEDBACK COUPLING

New sources of capital and information flow are of continual interest in the research and development sector. The SciFlies innovation acceleration model is a new cyber-based science research funding infrastructure effort seeking to build innovation capacity. The tangible elements of this model are: 1) to create a new source of public funding for scientific innovation through microinvestments by the general population, bringing a transformative event into the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) space; and 2) to create a framework for public input and feedback into government science and innovation policy management. The SciFlies Network enables, for the first time in over 50 years, the first new source of funds into the R&D field beyond the traditional three funding sources: industrial R&D, government granting agencies, and foundation granting agencies. The new funding source will fill in the gap in seed project funding sources and enable greater discovery and proof-of-concept experimentation in the research community, as well as provide gap funding opportunities to help enhance innovation and technology translational activities. This cyber infrastructure can enhance discovery and innovation by bringing people and resources together across institutional, geographical, and cultural boundaries. The cyber social forum can enable connected people to directly fund and accelerate science and technology research projects selected online by citizen donors. A key aspect of the social network is the maintenance of profiles of scientists, and relationships between science researchers and donor-citizens to help foster greater public involvement in science research dynamics. An additional element of the network is a secondary feedback model overlay between the network and innovation policy makers. This overlay provides a pathway for investment activities to be mined for trends that can be fed directly back into technology forecasting and planning research within industry and government. A long-term outcome of this effort will be to elevate the profile of STEM within the US. Scaling this project to global accelerated discovery networks will occur through innovation diffusion.