Archive: Innovation and Economic Mobility

Features

03-05-10 | How Science Sparked Democracy

By Jonathan D. Moreno and Andrew Plemmons Pratt
There are intimate connections between the scientific advances that expanded the frontiers of human knowledge and the democratic experiments that expanded the frontiers of human liberty.

02-17-10 | Investing in Recovery and Discovery

By Clyde Yancy, Edward D. Miller, and Greg Lucier
NIH funding directly and indirectly contributes to good jobs and is a proven engine of economic growth.

02-11-10 | Gadgets for Gathering Evidence Are Not Evidence of Better Policing

By Cynthia Lum, Ph.D.
The idea that police work should be evidence-based and use the best available scientific research to guide crime control decisions is still an innovative and radical concept.

02-02-10 | A First-Place Budget for Science

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt
The budget request for fiscal year 2011 that the Obama administration released on Monday includes foundational investments that will help the United States remain the leader among innovative nations.

01-20-10 | Is the Science Glass Half Full, or Half Empty?

By Chris Mooney
The latest figures on the relationship between science and the U.S. public can be used to support either a positive or a negative perspective.

01-11-10 | Chinese Science Rising?

By Jonathan D. Moreno
There is no reason for us to fear for our scientific advantage, but we should be resolute in cultivating U.S. research, development, and innovation.

12-18-09 | Bringing New Ideas to Market

By James J. Zuiches
The Obama administration’s push for innovation to boost economic competitiveness requires better strategic links between federal agencies and universities.

12-14-09 | Angels Sometimes Need Help, Too

By Ed Paisley
Early-stage investors in innovation companies—angel investors—and the founders of start-up companies they support financially, warrant investment support. Here’s one intriguing idea.

12-07-09 | Voting with their Wallets

By Beryl Lieff Benderly
Although the numbers of young Americans studying science, technology, engineering, or math in high school and college are as strong as ever, the very best of those students are less likely than in decades past to stay in STEM fields when they leave college.

11-18-09 | Letter from Kyoto

By Jonathan D. Moreno
Rekindling an innovation economy focused on regional clusters would go far to making Americans productive and optimistic again.

11-16-09 | Online Since the ’80s

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt
The lessons learned from the French Minitel network in the 1980s are still important as the FCC considers net neutrality today. A philosopher of technology talks about the importance of digital democratic innovation.

09-28-09 | Keep the Same Address

By Jonathan Zuck
At the end of the month, the agreement between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, and the U.S. Department of Commerce expires. Hopefully, not much will change.

09-23-09 | The Science of Recovery

By Rep. Rush Holt
Investing in research and innovation can unleash Americans’ talents for discovery and entrepreneurship, says Congressman Holt.

09-01-09 | The Geography of Innovation

By Jonathan Sallet, Ed Paisley, and Justin Masterman
The federal government can assume a vital role in which it frames critical national challenges, facilitates the flow of information and expertise to and between regions, and helps finance, in a competitive and leveraged fashion, valuable activities that innovation clusters would otherwise be unable to undertake.

08-21-09 | Science the Way It Should Be

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
New guidelines from the NIH will let researchers expand on important research, and, presumably, allow them to stop color-coding equipment paid for by different funding sources.

08-19-09 | Lab Bench Ethics

By Science Progress
The ethics of data selection, the potential conflicts of peer review, the “soft money lifestyle” of grant recipients, and other issues facing researchers.

08-19-09 | Is There a Future for Science Parks?

By Anthony Townsend
Revolutions in economics, ecology and knowledge systems will alter the business model of today’s science parks. Here’s how it all might play out.

08-18-09 | Protectors of the Human Race

By Science Progress
So what’s the appropriate progressive response to the recent under-the-radar attempts from conservatives to ban the creation of animal-human hybrids? Caricature.

08-12-09 | Capital Markets Matter

By Joseph Bartlett
Two financial crises—the dotcom meltdown and the current credit crisis—continue to inhibit the financing of young, innovative companies, requiring critical regulatory reform.

07-13-09 | Beyond the Box

By Brian Kahin
We need to take a closer look at the institutions that enable innovation, not only to see how they can be better coordinated but also how they can respond to the evolving forms and practice of innovation.

06-01-09 | You Have a Friend Request from The White House

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
It’s not the campaign anymore. Some of the best tools for getting the President’s message out and getting the administration’s work done require special consideration on WhiteHouse.gov. Swire explains the laws that constrain and the rules that advance new media for the government.

05-27-09 | No Monopoly on Expertise

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
Last week, the Obama administration unveiled its Open Government Initiative, a set of online tools and a process of public engagement for making its operations more transparent. This podcast takes a look at what it means for citizens and scientists, who are now asked to share their knowledge and ideas.

05-14-09 | Arizona’s Entrepreneurial Song

By Julia Rosen, Keith Aspinall, and Augustine V. Cheng
ASU over the past six years has engaged in a significant institutional transformation. One of the results is the SkySong Innovation Center, a nucleus for a community of entrepreneurs dedicated to innovation and learning.

05-06-09 | Manufacturing Innovation

By Justin R. Masterman
The Manufacturing Extension Partnership program’s evolving strategies to spur competitiveness and innovation among small- and medium-sized businesses adjusts to new challenges.

05-04-09 | Needed: Professional Research Technicians

By Estella Raulfs
Scientists need professional research technicians the way doctors need professional nurses, but grant-based research programs rarely provide for these key positions.

04-28-09 | Time for a More Open Approach?

By Joseph Cortright
“Open innovation” challenges the assumptions made by university technology transfer offices about maximizing the value of their intellectual property.

04-27-09 | Flanders: An Example of Best Practices

By Elmer Yglesias
The Flemish government’s 20 years of cluster building offers U.S. policymakers some key lessons on how to guide technology innovation.

04-22-09 | Creating a National Innovation Framework

By Richard Bendis and Ethan Byler
Amid a global economic downturn during which other nations are boosting their already significant public- and private-sector efforts to build more competitive, innovation-led economies, the United States stands almost alone in the world without a national innovation framework.

04-21-09 | Accelerating Innovation

By Mark P. Rice
Creating a vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystem is key to fostering broad-based economic growth and competitiveness. Astute policymaking is necessary.

04-14-09 | Making Robots Personal

By Andrew Plemmons Pratt, interviewer
Science Progress talks with Tandy Trower, general manager of Microsoft’s robotics group, about the future of robotics in the United States and around the globe.

04-14-09 | Robots to the Rescue

By Dan Dubno
How can you design the products of tomorrow and create the innovations that will keep the country advancing if you don’t learn how to make anything? Robots can help.

04-06-09 | Big Whig History and Nano Narratives

By Cyrus Mody and W. Patrick McCray
History that only considers success stories creates a very real danger for policymakers. Telling the story of nanotechnology in all its fascinating, sometimes weird, detail makes this important technology more human and approachable.

04-02-09 | Much Ado About Broadband

By Mark Lloyd
The economic stimulus funding for broadband deployment should require policymakers to determine first what connectivity standards are necessary before spending any money.

03-31-09 | Restart the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment

By Gerald L. Epstein
Not only is Congress handicapped in its ability to deal with the critical technological components of current policy issues, but it is also poorly suited to anticipate the significance or the implications of emerging technologies.

03-05-09 | Open Source, Open Data

By Ian Cairns
The open source development community is ready to help Washington open up. But first they need the data in an open, structured form.

02-23-09 | The Big Business of Nano Litigation

By Rick Weiss
A recent conference examining the legal protections corporations are taking to defend themselves in the event their products turn toxic should raise regulatory questions.

02-13-09 | Down Payment on a Scientific Future

By Rick Weiss
Several science budgets fared well in the Recovery and Reinvestment Act compromise, but cross your fingers that we won’t need additional resources to combat bird flu.

02-02-09 | Innovation Is Central to Our National Prosperity

By Rep. Rush Holt
Now is the time to invest in our innovation infrastructure and the new generation of researchers.

02-02-09 | Fifty Years In Orbit

By Rick Weiss
A lot has changed in five decades for the venerable committee. (UFOs are no longer on the agenda.) But our 21st-century Representatives still have some Cold War priorities.

01-22-09 | Where to Spend Our Research Dollars

By Neal Lane and Leslie Berlowitz
Innovation to boost economic prosperity requires new ways to get more funding to our most talented young researchers.

01-16-09 | Recovering Innovation, Innovating to Recover

By Will Straw and Andrew Plemmons Pratt
The proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act recognizes that science, technology and innovation have long provided the foundation for America’s prosperity, and are crucial to boosting an economy in crisis.

01-12-09 | Patent Reform 101

By Science Progress
Inventions are being created at an ever-increasing pace and have grown increasingly complex, but the rules governing patents have not seen substantial change in decades. As a result, the system is bogged down, hampering investment and job creation. Here’s how to fix things.

01-12-09 | Place Matters

By Maryann Feldman
Sometimes there is no substitute for just being there—being where exciting work is taking place, where high-content unstructured conversations take place, and where the unexpected may be explored and spark something new.

01-12-09 | Tackling Complex Issues for New Policymakers

By Ed Paisley
U.S. science and technology policymaking will be critical to carrying our deeply troubled economy back to the forefront of global innovation in the 21st century.

01-12-09 | From Many Inventors, One Nation

By Jonathan D. Moreno
America’s use of the patent system has a special quality beyond rewarding the individual—as a way to construct the common good through socially shared innovation.

01-12-09 | Issue 2: Science’s Troubled Legacy

By Science Progress
In the new print edition: Developing Regional Centers of Innovation, Tackling the Challenge of Patent Reform, and Government Contracting Run Amok.

01-12-09 | British Innovation Policy

By Will Straw
After a decade of overtly focusing on innovation economics, Britain appears to be moving ahead of the United States with regard to the innovation of innovation policy.

01-12-09 | Creating a National Innovation Foundation

By Robert Atkinson and Howard Wial
The new administration should create a National Innovation Foundation—a new, federally funded organization whose sole responsibility would be to promote innovation.

01-12-09 | Benchmarking Foreign Innovation

By Stephen Ezell
While many nations have taken the innovation challenge to heart and put in place a host of policies to spur innovation, the United States has done little, consequently falling behind in innovation policies and risking falling behind in innovation performance as well.

01-12-09 | Regional Centers of Innovation 101

By Science Progress
Regional centers such as Silicon Valley and Boston cultivate technology-based economic development through a dynamic mix of researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, and infrastructure. Drawing lessons from their success can help revitalize the U.S. economy.

01-12-09 | Tackling the Challenge of Patent Reform

By Rick Weiss
Scientific research and technological development have long been mainstays of American economic and military strength. Today more than ever, the global economic crisis and the prospect of a long and deep U.S. recession call for a reinvigoration of America’s scientific, engineering, and manufacturing enterprises.

01-12-09 | Patent Trolls Erode the Foundation of the U.S. Patent System

By Daniel P. McCurdy
By far, the most significant and destabilizing change in the patent environment since 2003 has been the dramatic increase in the growth, financing, and patent acquisitions of so called non-practicing entities, or “patent trolls.”

01-12-09 | The Federal Role in Catalyzing Innovation

By Richard Seline and Steven Miller
As the new Obama administration develops its innovation, economic development, and workforce policies, it should look to build and sustain regional and networked efforts, rather than only crafting broad national policies.

01-12-09 | Pittsburgh’s Targeted Incubator

By James F. Jordan and Paul L. Kornblith
The Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse was formed in 2000 as a focused incubator to provide capital investments and customized company formation. A focused incubator provides deep knowledge of global industry trends, national networks, and corporate collaborations to identify investment opportunities.

01-12-09 | Improving the Effectiveness of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

By Gerald J. Mossinghoff and Stephen G. Kunin
Critical to the continued effectiveness of the U.S. patent and trademark system is a well-functioning U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, which is currently a bureau of the Department of Commerce. Alas, the office does not function well today.

01-12-09 | Global Patent Protection

By Bruce A. Lehman
The global patent backlog crisis cuts to the heart of the problem plaguing the roll out of timely and effective innovations to help the world cope with such immediate dangers as climate change and pandemic diseases.

01-12-09 | Science’s Troubled Legacy

By Dan Guttman
Government contracting grew out of scientific inquiry in the interests of national security in the mid-20th-century and represents a government reform that yielded great successes but has since lost its moorings. It’s time to re-envision the role of private contractors in the public service.

01-07-09 | Innovation Policies for the 21st Century

By Will Straw
The new administration must provide proper patent incentives and thoughtful financial support for science and technology to germinate in communities around the country.

12-19-08 | Advanced IT Policy for a New America

By Mark Lloyd
Speedy access to the Internet for every American is about so much more than expanded broadband access. It’s about all aspects of advanced communications and information technology.

12-17-08 | Where Are the Grad Students?

By Chris Mooney
Science and engineering will continue to play a key role in growing our economy and developing clean energy technologies. The government needs to enable more students to pursue schooling that contributes to our green growth.

11-10-08 | How to Save the U.S. Space Program

By Neal Lane and George Abbey
The future of the U.S. space program is very much in doubt. In spite of continued great accomplishments, a number of setbacks, combined with a series of bold pronouncements by the Bush administration followed by inadequate funding, have led to serious questions of the nation’s commitment to space and, consequently, to a steady erosion of NASA and the aerospace industry that supports its missions.

11-07-08 | The Scientific World Is Round

By Jonathan Moreno, interviewer
The contemporary scientific community is a complex adaptive system woven among researchers across the globe. But the rules of the system tend to block scientists in poor nations from participating. A scientific system of the future would ignore national borders and solve the problems of everyday life.

11-05-08 | Science Under Obama

By Chris Mooney
There’s much for scientists to like about Barack Obama’s plans for science policy—but will he make it a priority, and what about the money?

10-22-08 | The Science Crunch

By Chris Mooney
How will unprecedented budget deficits affect the funding of American science? The answer: No one is entirely sure, but they can’t be good.

10-20-08 | From the Lab to the Home (Without Leaving the Building)

By Rick Weiss
As different as Singapore is from America politically and culturally, the way it is tackling its economic challenges through big investments in science and technology deserves attention from Washington insiders and the American public.

08-29-08 | Better Patents Through Crowdsourcing

By Nancy Scola
Want to clean up the patent mess? Start by admitting government can’t know everything. Then put the public on the task.

08-07-08 | It’s the Money, Stupid

By Beryl Lieff Benderly
It isn’t a scientist shortage or a poor public education system. It’s the lack of decent-paying, tenured job opportunities for young graduate and postgraduate research scientists.

08-06-08 | A New Mission for American Science

By Chris Mooney
While everybody is talking about energy these days, they’re not necessarily talking about the scientific opportunity so much as the business one. The moment is right for researchers to take up—with a sense of unshaking mission and purpose—the grand cause of a generation.

06-25-08 | From the Lab to the Market

By Ed Paisley and Jennifer Nelson
Five factors influence biotechnology transfer—university policies, economic development agencies, venture capitalists, strategic partners, and financial markets. Understanding each of them is crucial to building regional centers of innovation.

06-23-08 | Wi-fi, War, and Peace in Myanmar

By Robert Klitzman, MD
If the Internet is a force for democracy, then is there a moral imperative to bring the World Wide Web to citizens living under repressive regimes?

05-27-08 | Your iPhone Is Going to Outsmart You

By Lyle Ungar
It won’t be long before computers will outsmart humans and take over basic problem-solving tasks. But because we don’t understand the exponential growth of computational power, we can’t see it coming.

05-07-08 | It’s Just Like That, Except Different

By W. Patrick McCray
Advocates and critics of nanoscience research often compare the technology to the creation of genetically-modified organisms, yet the more apt analogy is to the space program. But there are limits to the analogies used in shaping emerging technology policy.

04-18-08 | What Money Can Buy

By Jonathan Pfeiffer, interviewer
David Goldston wants to ask the big questions about federal science policy. Can the research establishment become unsustainably large? Are scientists always an asset to Congress? And what are the problems with current methods of creating science policy?

04-15-08 | Quality and Ingenuity Are Intertwined

By Jim Turner and Maryann Feldman
Americans invented quality assurance procedures, those prosaic yet indispensable steps that insure ever-incremental innovation. It’s time we upgraded government for the 21st Century, relying on the insights of Joseph Juran.

03-26-08 | Broadband Done Right

By Nancy Scola
Virginia rolls out high-speed Internet programs to boost jobs, health care, education, and commerce. It’s a model that works.

03-11-08 | 21st Century Government: The Next Big Thing

By Jim Turner and Maryann Feldman
Applying the tools of 21st century technology and innovation to the science of governing offers a wealth of opportunities to promote the common good.

01-29-08 | Bush Asks Congress to Double Science Spending

By Ed Paisley
Progressives can get behind the president if he supports in words and deeds his calls for a doubling of federal spending on critical basic research, writes Ed Paisley.

01-29-08 | The Flashing Light on America’s Dashboard

By Tom Kalil
The decline in basic scientific research in the United States is verifiable, writes Tom Kalil, but easily reversible with the right set of policies in place.

01-28-08 | A Few Words from the President on Science and Technology

By Science Progress
Tonight, President Bush offers the final State of the Union address of his presidency. Saying that science has gotten short shrift during the Bush years is nothing new. Science Progress takes a look at some of the key terms in science and tech policy that have, and have not, appeared in the previous six State of the Union addresses.

01-23-08 | Science and the 2009 Budget

By John Irons
President Bush’s last budget is unlikely to expand dedicated and critical federal spending on science. It’s a problem that must be overcome.

01-03-08 | Reopening the IPO Window

By Joseph W. Bartlett
Without greater access to public markets, startup entrepreneurs trying to commercialize cutting-edge science and technology will founder.

11-30-07 | Maine’s Tradition of Innovation

By Hannah Pingree
Maine voters recently voted to support targeted investment in the state’s technology sector through the Maine Technology Initiative. Technology investments have yielded significant gains for the state economy since the 19th century.

11-28-07 | A National Innovation Agenda

By Thomas Kalil and John S. Irons
The Center for American Progress today releases the first pieces of Progressive Growth, its Economic Plan for the Next Administration, which includes a chapter on expanding growth and opportunity through science and technology.

11-26-07 | Supporting Venture Innovation

By Joseph W. Bartlett
Entrepreneurial, venture capital-backed innovation industries require a deft public policy hand to find the financing they need to help boost economic prosperity.

10-23-07 | The State of the Scientific Estate

By Dan Guttman
WWII contracting out of scientific inquiry in the interest of national security was the springboard for mid-20th century reform of American government that yielded great successes but has lost its moorings. It’s time to re-envision the role of private contractors in the public service.

10-17-07 | Watch That Message

By Chris Mooney
Scientific integrity and scientific innovation aren’t necessarily—or always—the same thing. There are important distinctions that must be made if we are to marry sound scientific research with sound science and technology policymaking.

10-09-07 | Science and Technology Is the Answer

By Robert D. Atkinson
More private- and public-sector investment, collaboration and talent creation are essential for broadly shared future economic prosperity.

10-04-07 | Diversity Should Power Science

By Scott Page
Scientific inquiry proceeds most fruitfully when sufficient funding is spread across a complexity of disciplines to a diversity of researchers.