There is a growing sense something is amiss with the U.S. innovation system. It’s time for a vigorous initiative to restore belief in innovation’s potential as a force for social and economic progress, for the benefit of America and the world.
When domestic firms collaborate with foreign firms, domestic firms can benefit from knowledge spillovers, which has the potential to improve their performance. This is especially important if the domestic firm is in a developing country, as it allows the firm to “catch up” to world leaders, which boosts economic growth.
There is a growing sense something is amiss with the U.S. innovation system. It’s time for a vigorous initiative to restore belief in innovation’s potential as a force for social and economic progress, for the benefit of America and the world.
When it comes to federal investment in science, the free-marketers’ argument that the private sector can and will do most of the heavy lifting and that government can let federal support for R&D stagnate or even shrink is mistaken.
Defense R&D spending can help to relax credit constraints on innovate sectors, increase profitability of spin-off projects, and foster entrepreneurship.
If Washington wants to show voters that government is doing something more than simply saying no or being ideologically dug in, then lawmakers and the administration should work to advance a set of actionable technology policy measures that would grow the U.S. economy.
Congress should at least double the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program (currently funded at $285 million), but limit the additional funds only for true STEM degrees, rather than fields like psychology, economics, and sociology, which NSF wrongly defines as STEM.
ITIF hosted a discussion on this critical issue. The event featured a keynote address by Simon Tripp of TEConomy Partners, author of the new report “Response and Resilience: Lessons Learned from Global Life Sciences Ecosystems in the COVID-19 Pandemic,” followed by an expert panel of respondents.
Research spending unfortunately is seen by many as an “add-on” rather than an essential economic driver, so it is not prioritized in times of crisis such as the pandemic, even though research is crucial to developing a COVID vaccine.
A report by the tech research company Digital Science found that, in 2019, 500,000 publications or 10 percent of the world’s total, related to the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) outlined by the United Nations.