There is growing concern that the innovation system's ability to create wealth and attain social benefit is declining in effectiveness. This article explores the reasons for this decline and suggests a structure, the open science partnership, as one mechanism through which to slow down or reverse this decline. The article examines the empirical literature of the last century to document the decline. This literature suggests that the cost of research and innovation is increasing exponentially, that researcher productivity is declining, and, third, that these two phenomea have led to an overall flat or declining level of innovation productivity. The article then turns to three explanations for the decline – the growing complexity of science, a mismatch of incentives, and a balkanization of knowledge. Finally, the article explores the role that open science partnerships – public-private partnerships based on open access publications, open data and materials, and the avoidance of restrictive forms of intellectual property – can play in increasing the efficiency of the innovation system.

人们越来越担心创新体系创造财富和获得社会效益的能力正在下降。本文探讨了这种下降的原因，并提出了一种结构，即开放科学伙伴关系，作为减缓或扭转这种下降的一种机制。本文考察了上个世纪的实证文献来记录这种衰落。该文献表明，研究和创新的成本呈指数级增长，研究人员的生产力正在下降，第三，这两种现象导致创新生产力水平总体持平或下降。然后，文章转向对这种衰落的三种解释——科学日益复杂、激励措施不匹配以及知识的割裂。最后，本文探讨了开放科学伙伴关系——基于开放获取出版物、开放数据和材料以及避免知识产权限制形式的公私伙伴关系——在提高创新体系效率方面可以发挥的作用。