Change for America on Science and Tech Policy: Part 1

The Center for American Progress Action Fund, sister organization to CAP, last week released in conjunction with the New Democracy Project “Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President.” The book draws on the expertise of 67 leading policymakers who describe how the presidential transition should operate and what policies it should prioritize across a wide swath of executive branch departments and agencies—many of which play critical roles in the determination of the county’s science policy.

Today, CAPAF posted a new slate of chapters from the book online for free download, including Science Progress adviser Tom Kalil’s overview on science, technology, and innovation. Kalil, a veteran of the Clinton administration’s science policy team, looks back over the history of successful government-backed research and lays out principles for the future, which include these primary steps:

Increase funding for research and development, improve the math and science skills of America’s workforce, reform our nation’s immigration laws to attract the “best and brightest,” strengthen incentives for private sector investment in R&D, and expand the role that science, technology, and innovation can play in meeting some of our most important national and global challenges.

Innovation is for everyone, Kalil argues, and can help us solve a wide array of challenges that face all citizens. He points out the “market failures” of the innovation process but also preempts conservative criticism of federal investment in R&D by acknowledging that there is a risk for “government failures” such as “pork-barrel politics, rent-seeking by interest groups, and regulatory capture by the industries that agencies are supposed to police.” Sound policy must chart a course around these problems and direct market forces to cultivate solutions when appropriate rather than simply dictate command-and-control policies.

Kalil’s specific recommendations, some of which he has presented previously on SP, include:

Double R&D Funding:

“Over the next 10 years, the federal government should provide 7 percent to 10 percent annual increases in the budgets of the key science agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Focus on Clean Energy Technology:

“New efforts should be launched in areas such as clean energy technologies, which will accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy, including nanotechnology- based solar cells as cheap as paint, or intelligent grids that support distributed energy resources.”

Support High-Risk, High-Return Research:

“Due to the shortcomings of today’s science policies, the new administration should expand support for high-risk, high-return research, particularly at agencies such as DARPA, and fill the void left by the demise of research labs such as Bell Labs with new university-industry partnerships, such as the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative. These new research efforts should encourage multidisciplinary research and education.”

Kalil also lays out a slate of policies to grow a national workforce with better skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. These recommendations include college scholarships for students pursuing undergrad degrees in STEM fields along with a teaching certification, more partnerships between industry and community colleges to create useful programs in technical fields, and ramping up National Science Foundation support of graduate research fellowships. He also explains how immigration reform that expands the H1-B visa program for highly-skilled workers is another important component to a competitive workforce.

On the tax front, his main recommendation is simple: make the R&D tax credit permanent.

You can download a pdf of the entire chapter here.

UPDATE: The link to the .pdf went down, but has been fixed.

Tags: Innovation, transition

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