Some materials about successful industrial/applied research labs. I recommend all of them. Further recommendations very welcome. Also, does it just seem that their heyday is past, or has something structurally changed?
- Dealers of Lightning. Book about PARC.
- Inside PARC: the 'information' architects (IEEE Spectrum, Oct 1985). Good article about PARC.
- Interview with Bob Taylor (and another), who ran the PARC CS Lab.
- The Idea Factory. The definitive book about Bell Labs. (There should be more...)
- Tuxedo Park. Book about the MIT Rad Lab, among other things.
- MIT's Building 20: "The Magical Incubator". Transcript of a talk about Building 20.
- Funding Breakthrough Research: Promises and Challenges of the “ARPA Model”. An analysis of what the ARPA model is and why it might work.
- The Dream Machine. Book about ARPA, Licklider, and the creation of the internet.
- The Power of the Context. Alan Kay's reflections on ARPA and PARC.
- The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Book about the Manhattan Project.