Eric Welch
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Mail code: 3720Campus: Dtphx
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Eric W. Welch is a professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University where he teaches science and technology policy, organization theory, institutional design, and network theory and analysis. He received his doctorate from the Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs where he specialized in science and technology policy and environmental policy and administration. Professor Welch currently directs the Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Studies (C-STEPS) at ASU. He is a Senior Global Futures Scientist in ASU's Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and an affiliated faculty member in the the ASU Center for Organization Research and Design, the ASU Sweete Center for Sustainable Food Systems and the ASU School for the Future of Innovation and Society.
His primary research interests include science and technology policy, university innovation and commercialization, science communication and organizational adaptation to climate change, women and underrepresented minorities in science, and advances in communication and information technologies. Welch has 20 years of experience evaluating large multi-institution, interdisciplinary research projects in which he provides formative and summative assessments for research design and institutionalization, distributed network collaboration structures, integration of diversity, workforce development and knowledge production. His primary focus on these projects has been to assist research programs to enhance capacity development for competitive research at the jurisdiction level, primarily for the NSF EPSCoR program.
He is currently leading or co-leading several National Science Founcation-funded multi-institutional projects including 1) Globalization of the scientific workforce; 2) Framing and assessing academic research excellence and competitiveness (AREC Framework) for teams, institutions and jurisdictions; 3) Regulation of science; 4) Social innovations of team science during the pandemic; and 5) Data sharing and collaboration. Welch is also the director of the Scientist Panel Opinion Survey (SciOPS) a science expertise opinion aggregator designed to bring greater communication and close knowledge gaps between science and society. Welch has received funding for previous research projects from NSF, NIH, USGS, USAID BFS, USDA NIFA, UN FAO and others.
Professor Welch has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, refereed proceedings and book chapters. He has recently published two books: one on evaluating the societal impacts of broadband technology and one on the state of the art of digital government and governance. His most recent academic work is visible at google scholar and research gate. He has published in journals such as Social Science and Humanities (Nature), Social Networks, Global Food Security, Research Policy, Science and Public Policy, OMICS, New Phytologist, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Biobanking and Biopreservation, Business Strategy and the Environment, Environmental Management, Journal of Technology Transfer and Technovation. He has also recently published outside of academia including for the CCAFS program on farmer networks and climate smart technologies, the UN FAO on the implications of digital sequence information on the International Plant Treaty, and the global governance of research and development.
- Ph.D. Public Administration, Syracuse University 1997
- M.A. International Studies, University of Oregon 1991
- M.A. Asian Studies, University of Oregon 1991
- B.A. History, University of Washington 1985
