Progress on the vision laid out in the Science of Science Policy Roadmap requires a move to system level thinking and analysis in the study of technology development. This contribution builds on the insight that this move should be discussed explicitly as it will be a change in practice for the academic community and building a system level infrastructure will encounter foreseeable problems.

As the Roadmap details, agencies have in the past approached outcome measurement individually so a variety of approaches obtain. The interagency task group hopes to move agencies toward a more coordinated approach. A national data infrastructure that could handle the heterogeneity between fields and technologies would be a powerful support for agency coordination. In addition, it would allow agency programs to be comparatively assessed within the broader national context. Therefore, it is worthwhile to think through the practical basis of systemic infrastructure in order to foresee the challenges that lie ahead.