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Assessment is a fundamentally elastic activity. We often work at two points on a spectrum of possible combinations of scope and level of scrutiny:
• Large, in-depth, 5-9 month “benchmarks” that explore big topics and answer broad questions.
• Rapid, 1-3 month snapshot “surveys” that look at select aspects of a field and address specific questions.
In both cases we make use of open-source information such as scientific literature, IP databases, and targeted web searches. Equally, perhaps more, valuable is our incorporation of specific feedback from experts in the field: leading researchers, developers, users / customers, regulators, investors, and others. Oftentimes the most interesting information about a burgeoning field is what is not written down.
Our goal is to capture the intellectual climate for a field, to synthesize the market intelligence, technical detail and the various other aspects that ultimately inform success and effect.
Examples of past assessments include fields as broad as personalized medicine or therapeutic prospects for RNAi, and as narrow as approaches for dairy contamination testing or mercury emissions monitoring.