Federal Advisory Group on “Investing in Innovation”
Various public and private organizations have attempted to tackle the dispute between policymakers over the federal role in technology development. A new document from a bipartisan federal advisory commission, the Competitiveness Policy Council (CPC), addresses a shortfall in the language of the debate. “When the political debate divides the world of `R&D’ into basic scientific research on the one side, and lumps everything else - basic technology research, applied research and development - together on the other side, a huge and vitally important area is omitted,” the report says. “This is the world of need-driven, creative research on new kinds of materials, new processes or ways of exploring and measuring, and new ways of doing and making things.” The authors see this area of basic technology research - research into “the tools, materials, processes and systems” - as complementary to basic scientific research and appropriate for government support.
This 27-page interim report, entitled “Investing in Innovation” (April 24), was drafted by a five-person steering committee of the CPC, and based largely on a November 1995 policy conference held jointly by the CPC and the Harvard Science, Technology and Public Policy Program. As have similar studies, it emphasizes the importance of a bipartisan consensus on “the nature and scope of government investment in and promotion of innovation.... Continuing the current policy impasse,” the paper says, will “deny Americans the full fruits of its creative talents...[and] handicap the nation as it competes throughout the world.”
The CPC paper stresses the usefulness of public-private partnerships, encourages experimentation, and urges a greater state and regional role in federal technology activities. It cites many current federal programs, both to illustrate what works, and to provide suggestions for improvements. Six principles are described to guide federal technology policy:
Principle 1. Encourage Private Innovation. “One important federal role should be to foster an economic climate which favors private investment in R&D, and the effective and innovative use and absorption of technology by firms and organizations. Wherever possible, pursuit of technology policy should favor the use of market mechanisms...”
Principle 2. Emphasize Basic Technology Research. “R&D agencies should receive strong support for their investments in basic technology research as well as in basic science.”
Principle 3. Make Better Use of Available Technology. “Technology can only be effective when people can use it,” the report notes. Small and medium-sized businesses, in particular, “need access to all available technology.”
Principle 4. Use All Policy Tools, Not Just R&D Support. “Every industry is different,” the report warns, and “a `one size fits all’ technology policy is almost certain to be unsuccessful.” Government must use its full range of mechanisms, including tax incentives, regulatory reform, standards, and intellectual property rights as well as direct federal funding of R&D.
Principle 5. Leverage Globalization of Innovation. “U.S. technology policy,” according to the report, “must encourage and facilitate globalization and transnational collaboration.” The government can assist by taking “an active role in defining the forms of transnational technological cooperation.”
Principle 6. Improve Government Effectiveness. The report lauds America’s pluralistic system of sources of support and performers: “Pluralism works because the outcomes of technological innovation cannot be predicted; they can only be discovered through real-world trials of competing ideas.” It encourages “intentional experiments” and warns that “policy experiments have to be tried for a sufficiently long time...in order to be judged.” It cautions Congress to be “an active, but patient and sophisticated, participant” in these experiments.
The text of the report, “Investing in Innovation,” can be found on the Web at: http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/iip/techproj/home.html
