National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: II PROCEEDINGS: Welcome Remarks
Suggested Citation:"Opening Remarks." National Research Council. 2007. Innovation Policies for the 21st Century: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11852.
×

Opening Remarks

William J. Spencer

SEMATECH, retired


Dr. Spencer expressed his appreciation to Dr. Wessner and joined him in welcoming the participants to the day’s program and in thanking its sponsors. He singled out for thanks both Taffy Kingscott of IBM and Marc Stanley, the head of the Advanced Technology Program at NIST, which is housed at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and acknowledged the contributions of Intel and Sandia. He introduced the symposium, as one of a series that will be organized by the STEP Board over several years. Dr. Spencer posited that a poll of those present would show relatively strong agreement that technology plays an important role in economic growth irrespective of region. He further suggested that there would be fairly uniform agreement that technology is leading to better quality of life, although he noted such dissenting voices as that of Bill McKibben, whose Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age raised questions about germ-cell engineering, and of Bill Joy, the former chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, who had expressed concern about nanorobotics.2

FUNDING INNOVATION: PRIVATE OR PUBLIC?

There would likely be a divergence of opinion, however, if the subject was focused on who should fund science and technology. When it came to long-term research, most of us would probably agree that government should play a major role whether the research is “curiosity driven” or “problem driven”—that is,

2

See William McKibben, Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2003, and William Joy, “Why the Future Does Not Need Us,” Wired, 8.04, April 2000.

Suggested Citation:"Opening Remarks." National Research Council. 2007. Innovation Policies for the 21st Century: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11852.
×

whether it dealt with things like string theory or quantum gravity that explain the universe, or with such questions as why some individuals have genes that are susceptible to disease and others do not. But when it comes to who should fund the innovations coming out of this long-term research, said Dr. Spencer, “I suspect the opinions would be more divergent.” The purpose of the day’s symposium, and of any follow-on meetings for which STEP might obtain the resources, was to try to gather facts on how innovation and technology transfer were being funded in the various economic regions, and in particular on the roles of private and of public funding.

Pointing out that any future meetings in the series on Comparative Innovation Policy would be principally organized by a steering committee, he recognized the members of that panel who were in attendance—Mark Myers, Lonnie Edelheit, Alan William Wolff, Alice Amsden, and Kenneth Flamm.3

Dr. Spencer then turned the microphone over to Bradley Knox, a member of the staff of the House Committee on Small Business, who chaired the opening session.

3

See the complete committee list in the front matter of this report.

Suggested Citation:"Opening Remarks." National Research Council. 2007. Innovation Policies for the 21st Century: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11852.
×
Page 43
Suggested Citation:"Opening Remarks." National Research Council. 2007. Innovation Policies for the 21st Century: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11852.
×
Page 44
Next: Panel I: An Overview of the Global Challenge »
Innovation Policies for the 21st Century: Report of a Symposium Get This Book
×
Buy Hardback | $66.00 Buy Ebook | $54.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF
  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!