Investing in Innovation: Creating a Research and Innovation Policy That Works

"Technology infrastructure has become the foundation for the 'engine of economic growth' for countries around the world. This study on science and technology policy should be a wake-up call for the United States, where we have taken technological superiority for granted for much too long." -- Mary Good, Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology

Shortly after taking office in 1993, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore called for a shift in American technology policy toward an expansion of public investments in partnerships with private industry, backed up by scientific research in universities and national laboratories. These plans became the center of an ideological struggle between those who believe that the market alone is sufficient to keep American industry innovative and those who are convinced that government must offer industry expanded research support to meet global competition.

The authors of this volume were invited by the Clinton administration to take a hard, nonpartisan look at how successful the new policies have been and to propose ways to make their programs more effective and more likely to attract bipartisan support. The first summary report of the team's recommendations, released in April 1997, was called the "hottest technology policy property on Capitol Hill."

This book, an expansion of that report, offers a new set of technology policy principles. These principles provide guidelines for stimulating technical innovation, shaping public/private partnerships, and establishing criteria for federal investments in research. The authors use the principles to evaluate many federal research programs and to make recommendations for change. This volume will set the terms of the debate over the national research and innovation policy for years to come.

Contributors: R. Darryl Banks, Michael Borrus, Lewis M. Branscomb, Harvey Brooks, Duncan M. Brown, Christopher M. Coburn, Linda R. Cohen, Frank Field, Richard Florida, Jane E. Fountain, David H. Guston, David M. Hart, George R. Heaton, Jr., Christopher T. Hill, John P. Holdren, Adam B. Jaffe, Brian Kahin, James H. Keller, James Neely, Lucien P. Randazzese, Daniel Roos, Philip Shapira, Jay Stowsky, Scott J. Wallsten.

Lewis M. Branscomb is Aetna Professor in Public Policy and Corporate Management, Emeritus, at Harvard University. James H. Keller is Associate Director of the Information Infrastructure Project, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.