Since joining the National Academies in 2001, Dr. Shivakumar has helped to prepare, and disseminate the STEP Board’s research on innovation and entrepreneurship. This portfolio includes a major review of high technology public-private partnerships in the United States, an analysis of the drivers of productivity growth in the New Economy, and a comparative assessment of national innovation policies in a world where advanced research and development is increasingly global. He has also contributed to the National Academies major assessment of the Small Business Innovation Research Program. A political economist by training, Dr. Shivakumar received his doctorate in economics from George Mason University in 1996. His dissertation examined how the formal and informal rules that govern how we choose among public policies themselves emerge and adapt within constraints. Subsequent post doctoral research at Indiana University’s