Innovation Policies for the 21st Century Report of a Symposium (2007) / Chapter Skim
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Panel V: Discussion Roundtable: What Are the Conditions for Success?
Panel V: Discussion Roundtable: What Are the Conditions for Success?
Pages 167-176
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From page 167... ...
Myers, The Wharton School Stefan Kuhlmann, Fraunhofer ISI, Germany Hsin-Sen Chu, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) , Taiwan Peter J
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From page 168... ...
The National Academies, in a review of ATP published 2 years or so before, recommended that ATP look at the United States' highest priorities and create opportunities for thematic competitions in sectors that are either important to national security or technologically relevant for the nation's future. The program's funding has, however, been held at a reduced level for a number of years, and it remains all but impossible to run focused competitions of this sort in the absence of "a certain baseline of allocation." Nonetheless, ATP management has, in observing submittals to its regular competitions, seen proposals that concentrate on particular areas that industry feels to be both important and relevant for the research of the ensuing 8 to 10 years, and ATP has succeeded in fashioning "virtual focused competitions" in those areas.
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From page 169... ...
In turn, this will stimulate innovation in Canada, he predicted, and as "all kinds of smart people and entrepreneurs" compete for a significant amount of money available through the new Climate Fund.18 This is one of numerous instances in which the benefit of a policy that was established for rather different reasons might end up having the happy, unintended consequence of being a big driver for innovation. It might also prove "a bit of an equalizer vis-à-vis the [United States]
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From page 170... ...
The United States remains the world leader in basic research by far, with other countries -- and he pointed specifically to developing countries -- doing much less "real basic research." But in the end, he predicted, there will be a balance. As other countries become strong enough that they can afford it, they would in their own best interests start doing more basic research.
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From page 171... ...
And technology transfer takes place through people: No innovations could result from the biggest fund of knowledge, even if openly available, without people actually doing the work necessary to transfer a basic idea into a product. "So ultimately we cut our own throats" in the absence of adequate funding for basic research, she said, "but we'll bleed to death over a period of several years, so we may not actually notice it happening." While disavowing powers of clairvoyance, she said that no major increases in such funding are to be anticipated in light of the United States' current level of budgetary deficit, "unless there's some massive sea change that says we're going to go into even more debt to fund basic research." IS EUROPE MOVING TOWARD MORE BASIC RESEARCH?
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From page 172... ...
This group has argued that such a funding body would achieve the greatest impact if it supports not just basic research but also what is termed "frontier research." As defined in the report, frontier research is collaborative, problem-oriented research into new problems that cut across disciplinary boundaries and might entail not only basic scientific research but also, depending upon the project, engineering, social science, or economics research. A European Research Council is needed to support such groundbreaking work because it would be only through competition for funds on a Europe-wide scale that the best projects and people could be identified.
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From page 173... ...
Marburger, university research parks in the United States and abroad seem to share "many of the same thematics: bio, info, nano, and so on." It was his own conviction, Mr. Milbergs said, that not all of these parks or all tech-led economic clusters are "going to win," and that innovation means taking risk, whether that be policy risk, investment risk, career risk, or another sort of risk.
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From page 174... ...
The downside of the United States' distributed system is that "no one's watching the store." As an example of this lack of coherency, he noted that previous analysis by the STEP board first pointed out that the United States cut its R&D budgets for physics, chemistry, and engineering seriously, on a sustained basis, and in real terms between 1993 and 1999 as different agencies responded independently to the end of the cold war. 19 On 19National Research Council, Trends in Federal Support of Research and Graduate Education, Stephen A
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From page 175... ...
"I would argue," Dr. Wessner declared, "that we have some of the best mechanisms in the world that are inadequately fueled." Surprisingly, he observed, the United States was beginning to suffer what he referred to as "the tyranny of small scale": In a $10 trillion or $11 trillion economy, good programs were funded for $10 million, or for $20 million, or, in the case of ATP, for $140 million.
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