Abstract
Abstract
In 1979, under pressure from Congress, the National Science Foundation (NSF) founded the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). Initially conceived as a means to foster scientific competitiveness in states that had not historically won many federal research dollars, EPSCoR has evolved into a program that fosters science-based economic development, an extension of the best science paradigm on which NSF and EPSCoR were founded. This article traces the evolution of EPSCoR, showing why state governments have had rational incentives to use EPSCoR to serve an economic development agenda, examining how the institutions erected to govern it inadvertently allowed EPSCoR states to incorporate economic development as a motivating force, and documenting the increasing economic development orientation of successful EPSCoR proposals and programs. The article concludes with some observations on the potential trade-offs between best science and economic development and offers some suggestions for further research.
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