Impact of Science and Technology on Regional Economic Development An Assessment of National Policies Regarding Research and Development in the Context of Regional Economic Development (1969) / Chapter Skim
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Pages 1-10
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The environment in which this study was initiated is typified by the congressional hearings carried out in 1966 and 1967 by such committees as the Subcommittee on Government Research of the Committee on Government Operations (United States Senate)
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Typical of this viewpoint is the following statement of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty: Research and development funds in conjunction with trained manpower have both direct and indirect economic effects, which often act as a significant spur to growth and development. Industry and education play major roles in the growth process, and thus the research and development funds awarded to business and schools in a particular area are of vital concern to the inhabitants of that area.
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Although this report is addressed largely to the implications of federal policies concerning R&D, we have recognized from the outset that the key to the solutions of many regional problems lies in the encouragement of local initiative at the state and regional levels, and of entrepreneurial and innovative activities in both the private sector and the public sector. It should have been expected that although addressed to the special policy issues related to R&D, this study would inevitably be confronted with the broader questions regarding national policies and objectives for regional economic development.
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To address issues of this broad character calls for qualifications to which no one discipline or field of expertise can lay special claim; if this Committee may set forth a claim to be heard, it lies in the diversity of the educational background, institutional affiliation, and professional experience represented by its membership. The insights which we have gained from this attempt make us more aware of the need for further study, particularly to consider some of the recommendations of this report in more quantitative terms.
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Indeed, the purpose of the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965 was: to provide new industry and permanent jobs in areas where they are most needed. Its main emphasis is on long-range economic development and programming for areas or communities that are burdened with persistent unemployment and low family incomes.
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A third major premise in this study is that the relationships between science, technology, and a national or regional economy are complex and must not be described or assessed in terms of one-to-one relations or direct causal connections without reference to external factors. To begin with, the political interest in this element of the national budget is not based solely on the short-range economic implications of federal expenditures, but on the much greater long-range implications that R&D is presumed to have.
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Harvey Brooks has indicated the complex interplay between science and technology in the context of regional or national economies: Although a decade ago there was a simplistic notion of the relation between science and economic development, it is now generally realized that, while the two are connected in a general but important way, they are not particularly closely coupled -- industry by industry, region by region, or even country by country. Thus, while there is little question that general industrial advance in all the developed nations depends on the continuing advance of science, it is also true that the diffusion of knowledge in fundamental science throughout the world is so rapid that the local advance of industry depends more on its coupling to science and to markets than it does on the particular location of scientific activity.
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Technological innovations are regularly introduced for the sake of technological convenience, and without established mechanisms for appraising or controlling or even cushioning their consequences.9 The great challenge to our society is whether technology, which has helped make our country the symbol of affluence to the other nations of the world, can be used to solve the problems it has helped to create. The Implications of R&D Activities and of R&D Location for Regional Economic Development Much of the ambiguity in the discussions of R&D vis-a-vis regional economic development has resulted from the fact that underlying the discussions there are two distinctly separate though related assumptions regarding the potential contributions of R&D.
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If R&D activities are considered outside the context of the institutional relationships in which they are carried out, it is highly unlikely that such considerations will lead to valid policy recommendations. It has been one of the objectives of this study to examine R&D and economic development in the framework of the variety of mechanisms by which they may relate to each other.
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