The framing of opportunity to provoke high risk-taking decisions for radical innovation

A rise of government funding agencies dedicated to radical innovation has occurred in recent years. When launching bold and ambitious programs marked by radical uncertainty and unknowable outcomes, how do innovation-funding organizations deliberately provoke risk-taking behavior in potential applicants? This study focuses on the interplay between risk perception and decision making for deliberate high-risk decisions. We compare the language used in 81 public funding calls and new program solicitations from four US government funding entities, which comprise DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Defense Innovation Unit, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, and ARPA-H. A list of potential signal phrases was derived, indicating a spectrum of corresponding risk levels for an innovation opportunity. A survey with 92 evaluators validated that certain keywords served as provocations to trigger risk taking in the pursuit of transformative breakthroughs and frontier science. Our work contributes to a lexicon of signal phrases for provoking and communicating innovation, especially for far-reaching programs. More broadly, understanding the impact of language on decision making under high-risk conditions can inform national innovation policy and strategy for other funding organizations seeking to induce scientific and technological advancement in the United States and globally.