CSIS Report Urges U.S. to Maintain Capacity for Innovation
In a December 10 speech at a colloquium of the University of Maryland Physics Department (see FYI #167), Under Secretary for Technology Mary Good cited a September report by The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS.) CSIS is a private institution which examines international public policy issues, focusing on the next century. Tasked with suggesting “policies that would continue to strengthen the United States for the future,” two CSIS committees, with members from industry, government, academia and nonprofit organizations, produced a 90-page document entitled “Global Innovation/National Competitiveness.”
The report’s major finding is that “in the emerging global environment, the nation’s capacity to innovate will play a dominant, and probably decisive, role” in enhancing the U.S. standard of living. While “capital, technology, ideas, information...move fluidly across national borders,” the report says, “the process, players, and pieces needed to facilitate innovation...do not transfer readily. Because the capacity for innovation cannot be captured or easily re-created, it conveys comparative national advantage.” What comprises a nation’s capacity to innovate? The committees list such elements as support for a diversified portfolio of science and technology; availability of knowledge and an educated, flexible workforce; policies that reward investment in innovation; and collaborations that link R&D performers and users so they can pool information, risks, and costs.
The report warns that partisan disagreement over federal technology policies “leaves the United States in a potentially vulnerable position.” The political process, it says, “has been hard put to define a vision and strategy for future national competitiveness.... We lack the national consensus to distinguish between corporate welfare and the general welfare’ or...to differentiate between unnecessary expenditure and critical investments in the future. Too much effort is spent arguing the pros and cons of programs funded in amounts that constitute round-off error in a $7 trillion economy.”
While acknowledging that some policy areas remain “in profound dispute,” the report specifies three activities that are “critical - and legitimate - areas for federal involvement.” These “essential functions of government” are: support for basic science and laboratory infrastructure; support for science and technology needed to achieve national missions; and support for the nation’s technological infrastructure, including standards, measurement, interfaces, and maintenance of databases and major user facilities. Public-private partnerships, it adds, are cost efficient and promote a synergy that helps “make the infrastructure for innovation greater than the sum of its parts.”
Regarding support for commercial technologies, the committees find that companies and industries “may tend to underinvest in long-term, high-risk technologies” important to innovation. “The disagreement,” they note, “centers not on whether such investments are needed, but on what role the federal government should play to ensure them. The CSIS committees concluded that there is no one size fits all’ approach,” and policies must give the government “the flexibility to experiment.”
The report urges the government to remove the “fiscal, legislative, and regulatory network of disincentives” to create a business climate that rewards investment in technological innovation. It cautions, however, that “incentives for greater industry investment are not sufficient in themselves.” The report recommends in addition that the government promote innovation by encouraging partnering and strategic alliances; providing seed money to help industries benchmark their technologies against the “global state of the art;" creating an “early warning system” to identify when critical technologies are at risk; as well as maintaining infrastructure and user facilities and a diversified science and technology portfolio. Another important federal role, it says, is investing in all levels of education, including workplace transition programs and incentives for lifelong learning.
“There are not now - and are not likely to be - hard-and-fast answers as to what works in an emerging global environment characterized by rapid change,” the report concludes. “Protecting and strengthening the U.S. innovation system demands leadership and strategy, for it is this capacity that will be the dominant factor in sustaining our national quality of life in the coming century.”
“Global Innovation/National Competitiveness” can be purchased from the Center for Strategic and International Studies for $19.95 plus shipping. Ordering instructions for the report (ISBN 0-89206-289-4) are available from Heidi Shinn at 202-775-3119 or http://www.csis.org/html/pubs.html
A summary is available at the above CSIS Web address under “New Publications.”
