David M. Hart

David M. Hart is a professor of Public Policy, specializing in science and technology policy, in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. 

He serves as a nonresident fellow with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, where he serves as director of the Center for Clean Energy Innovation. Hart served as assistant director for innovation policy, with a focus on advanced manufacturing, at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Executive Office of the President, from July 2011 to August 2012.

Hart has two overlapping areas of specialization. One is technology, science, and innovation policy. He is interested in the sources and implications of discoveries and inventions of all sorts, past and present. The other area is governance, at the regional, national, and global levels. He seeks to understand the processes by which policy makers decide what to do. The two areas come together in research on how states, markets, individuals, and social groups interact to produce decisions about important new technological capabilities.

Hart’s current work focuses on clean energy innovation policy. His books include Unlocking Energy Innovation (MIT Press, co-authored with Richard K. Lester), The Emergence of Entrepreneurship Policy (Cambridge University Press), and Forged Consensus: Science, Technology, and Economic Policy in the U.S., 1929-1953 (Princeton University Press). 

At OSTP, Hart was the lead author of the 2012 National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing (National Science and Technology Council) and contributed to the reports of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership.

View David M. Hart's CV

Areas of Research

• Energy Policy
• Innovation Policy
• Manufacturing Policy
• Science and Technology Policy
• U.S. Politics