Bottom-up reforms to open up defense research contracting leads to greater innovation

Since the 1970s, major US defense contractors have become less innovative than their non-defense counterparts. In new research, Sabrina T. Howell, Jason Rathje, John Van Reenen and Jun Wong assess the US Air Force’s recent ‘Open’ bottom-up reform which gives defense contractors more freedom to go beyond technology specifications. They find that winning Open contracts meant firms were more likely to receive venture capital funding and win patents.