Posts tagged with ‘Innovation’
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.
NIH funding directly and indirectly contributes to good jobs and is a proven engine of economic growth.
Stem cell science has advanced rapidly in China, but the field suffers from a lack of adequate regulation for clinical applications in the country. The time is ripe for international collaboration.
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.
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.
Investing in innovation is a critical component of long-term economic prosperity, and the president’s FY2011 budget request includes two notable provisions that will support regional science and technology clusters.
The administration is asking for $75 million “to support the creation of regional innovation clusters that leverage regions’ competitive strengths to boost job creation and economic growth,” [...]
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.
The Obama administration’s push for innovation to boost economic competitiveness requires better strategic links between federal agencies and universities.
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.
Rekindling an innovation economy focused on regional clusters would go far to making Americans productive and optimistic again.
Investing in research and innovation can unleash Americans’ talents for discovery and entrepreneurship, says Congressman Holt.
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.
Two financial crises—the dotcom meltdown and the current credit crisis—continue to inhibit the financing of young, innovative companies, requiring critical regulatory reform.
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.
Abel Real attributes his transformation from likely high school dropout to nursing student at East Carolina University to classroom technology. Real, a self-proclaimed success story from poverty-stricken Greenville, North Carolina, shared his experience with a school laptop program that introduced him to the power of technology before the House Committee on Education Labor yesterday [...]
The Manufacturing Extension Partnership program’s evolving strategies to spur competitiveness and innovation among small- and medium-sized businesses adjusts to new challenges.
Scientists need professional research technicians the way doctors need professional nurses, but grant-based research programs rarely provide for these key positions.
The Flemish government’s 20 years of cluster building offers U.S. policymakers some key lessons on how to guide technology innovation.
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.
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.
The Obama administration’s proposed FY2010 budget reflects a sweeping re-thinking of priorities for the U.S. government. A welcome change from previous budgets, the administration makes a significant investment in developing regional centers of innovation, business incubators, and other strategies to encourage entrepreneurship and high-tech development.
The importance that the Obama administration places on strong government support [...]
A few weeks ago, we blogged on why the administration should fund the development of high speed rail networks that can serve as the foundation of regional centers of innovation. According to a New York Times article, at the last minute the White House added an $8 billion investment in high-speed rail to the stimulus [...]
The American economic geography is changing, argues urban theorist Richard Florida in a recent article for the Atlantic. Analogous to how the Great Depression precipitated a flight to the suburbs and how the post-industrial economic anemia of the 1970’s shriveled Rust Belt cities such as Buffalo, Detroit, and Cleveland, the current economic crisis promises to [...]
Connecting universities and professors with the companies and venture capitalists that help turn their ideas into viable businesses, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has launched a new website, iBridge Network, which aims to foster collaborative networks to streamline the innovation process. The site provides a centralized, open, and transparent clearinghouse for institutional technology, and encourages [...]
A study released last week by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, in partnership with consulting firm Grant Thornton LLP, found that supporting business incubators, including those multi-dimensional support programs that help scientists with innovative ideas turn them into successful companies, is one of the most efficient and effective way to create jobs. [...]
The backlog at the United States Patent Office is 1 million applications long. This means that it takes almost 33 months for examiners to decide up or down on an application’s status. For sectors like communications where innovation moves at a particularly brisk clip, that “patent pending” period can be 44 months—a virtual eternity. A [...]
Cutting science out of the stimulus bill is like killing the goose that lays the nation’s golden eggs. How else is the United States going to cut healthcare costs, reduce energy dependence and ensure sustainable security except through the waves of technological innovation that, according to the National Academies and other independent sources, have accounted [...]
Now is the time to invest in our innovation infrastructure and the new generation of researchers.
Multiple studies have advocated for improving and modernizing the U.S. rail network as a way to spur economic growth, rein in sprawl, and make a strong commitment to sustainability. One such report, focusing on Boston, found that quality regional transportation played a significant role in fueling life sciences research.
For decades, Japan and Europe have deployed [...]
Stephen Colbert points to the helpful assistance that Bush administration policymakers provided to researchers while talking with Contributing Editor Chris Mooney last night:
Mooney points out that science and scientists make regular appearances on popular Comedy Central shows, and that’s a good thing.
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.
The United States is one of only three industrialized nations that lack a national innovation policy. Most international competitors boast recently created or long-standing innovation agencies in addition to scientific research bodies. But not only is U.S. innovation policy disorganized, it is woefully underfunded. In 2006, the federal government spent a total of $2.7 billion, [...]
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the new print edition: Developing Regional Centers of Innovation, Tackling the Challenge of Patent Reform, and Government Contracting Run Amok.
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.
The new administration should create a National Innovation Foundation—a new, federally funded organization whose sole responsibility would be to promote innovation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Government Technology indicates that two major media outlets,
The New York Times and the BBC, are reporting that President-elect Obama will announce his pick for White House Chief Technology Officer this week. Among the speculative short listers is
Science Progress adviser Vint Cerf.
The new administration must provide proper patent incentives and thoughtful financial support for science and technology to germinate in communities around the country.
Arguments over the state of funding for research at the National Institutes of Health, and for the younger generation of life science researchers in general, continue. As the new administration considers candidates for the next NIH director, the question of how the government will bail out various sectors of the economy weighs on the issue of money for R&D.
The Washington Post reported yesterday that the Obama transition team announced the leaders for its innovation and technology team—though that announcement did not include the appointment of the White House Chief Technology Officer.
Today, the Center for American Progress Action Fund posted a new slate of chapters from
Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President online for free download, including
Science Progress adviser Tom Kalil’s overview on science, technology, and innovation. Kalil looks back over the history of successful government-backed research and lays out principles for the future. Here are some of his recommendations.
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.
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?
How will unprecedented budget deficits affect the funding of American science? The answer: No one is entirely sure, but they can’t be good.
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.
In addition to a stumbling automotive industry, Michigan is home to some of the most restrictive regulations on stem cell research in the country. A new report from the Michigan Prospect calculates the scale of the negative economic impact of the hobbled biotech research on the state.
A recent RAND Corporation report called the country a “dominant leader” in global science and technology, but according to a paper released yesterday, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation found the RAND study off-color, offering a rosy assessment where none was warranted.
Federal dollars and leadership drive energy innovation in the United States. That was true in 1942, when Enrico Fermi’s team of physicists and engineers created the world’s first sustained nuclear reaction, and it is true today. One of the many things that U.S. government must do to move the economy towards a low-carbon future is to support research and development in energy technologies.
Want to clean up the patent mess? Start by admitting government can’t know everything. Then put the public on the task.
Bell Labs, birthplace of technological breakthroughs like the transistor, the laser, and communications satellites, may have arrived at the end of its storied history. Industry support of basic research has been on the wan for years, but federal policies can bolster public and private R&D.
Federal legislation that would enhance the Environmental Protection Agency’s role in protecting our most valuable resource advances to the Senate.
With a concerted push by policymakers on research, development and deployment of solar technologies, solar renewable energy could dot our landscape.
After every voting machine failure in recent election years, it has become more and more clear that proper oversight of voting technology is critical to the preservation of our democratic system. The Senate is currently considering bipartisan legislation to support innovation in voting machines.
In a recent paper in
Technology and Society, Neal Lane discusses the impact of the Mansfield Amendment and Bayh-Dole Act on federal R&D in the United States and the need for forward-looking innovation policy for the 21st century.
A report released today by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation analyzes the evolution of the innovation ecosystem in the United States over the last four decades and argues that in order to encourage innovation most effectively, policymakers must better understand where new ideas come from.
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.
Rep. Rush Holt explains how science informs policy that improves the lives of Americans, builds opportunity, and creates a fair and equitable society.
Governor Schwarzenegger touts California’s biotech prowess and Governor Patrick signs legislation for a $1 billion Life Science Initiative in Massachusetts. The rivalry continues between two major biotech states.
We can spur scientific innovation by revising our green card immigration policy for highly educated foreigners studying in the United States.
As Congress considers the supplemental funding request and the spending earmarks that will accompany it, it’s worth looking at what states themselves spend on R&D.
Yesterday, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) introduced H.R. 6049, the Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008. Among other extensions, the bill would renew the Research and Development Tax Credit for the 13th time since its inception in 1981. But extending the R&D tax credit for one more year is insufficient; it should be made permanent.
Part 2 of a break down of Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standards, with a look at what witnesses had to say about the economic and environmental concerns.
Thousands of scientists, engineers, corporate executives, and college presidents across the country have mobilized in an effort to convince Congress to set aside a small piece of this year’s wartime supplemental funding bill to boost science research funding.
The U.S has no national innovation policy. To respond to the changing landscape of a global innovation economy, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Brooking Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program released a report yesterday proposing the creation of a National Innovation Foundation.
Are the growing ranks of well-educated and increasingly well-financed scientists in other countries bad for U.S competitiveness and ultimately the economy? In a “post-scientific” society, not necessarily.
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.
“In a weak economy, we should be doing everything we can to spur on innovation and the type of family-wage jobs that increased research and development will create,” said Congressman Jerry McNerney (D-CA) when he introduced legislation that would streamline the R&D tax credit and make it permanent.
The Senate Subcommittee on Energy Oversight held a field hearing in Bismarck, North Dakota on Wednesday on carbon capture and sequestration technology. Two panels presented the current and projected future development of CCS technology, the outlook ranging from very cautious optimism to an almost cynical pessimism. But the lack of an objective scientific voice among those testifying was conspicuous.
Education Week released a report today on the state of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in U.S. schools.
British politician Gordon Brown has always been keen on creating innovation in his nation’s economy, convinced that U.K. universities and businesses together can create new technologies and services that will boost economic growth. Now that he’s prime minister of the United Kingdom, he’s moving swiftly to act on those inclinations—with possible lessons for the United States.
Last summer, the United Kingdom Government created the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. The new Department has an ambitious goal, outlined in a new report: to turn the United Kingdom into an “Innovation Nation” that is the world’s most attractive country for innovative businesses.
Microsoft Corporation Chairman Bill Gates advised Congress to reform both the United States education system and immigration policies during a hearing yesterday honoring the 50th anniversary of the House Committee on Science and Technology.
The President’s plan to slash two highly successful National Institute of Standards and Technology programs drew the ire of Subcommittee members during a hearing on NIST’s FY 2009 budget request yesterday.
Applying the tools of 21st century technology and innovation to the science of governing offers a wealth of opportunities to promote the common good.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will appear before the House Science and Technology Committee tomorrow in what will be the first of a series of hearing on challenges to our nation’s innovation agenda. A look at recent findings, including the National Science Foundation’s biennial report on the state of science and engineering research and education, shows that there is cause for concern.
Preserving the U.S. competitive edge in science requires many things to happen, but most immediately we must maintain English as the lingua franca of science, and open the doors to all who want to study science in our country.
Jeffrey Sachs helped launch a new student-led journal of sustainable development,
Consilience, on Monday by detailing a vision of goal-driven innovations that cross the public-private line. He advocated an “organizational ecology” approach to addressing global challenges.
The improbability of an HIV vaccine, possibilities for improving scientific communication, and cheap laptops all made news at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting held this past weekend in Boston.
Last week, the House authorized funding for a new learning center dedicated to researching and developing innovative digital learning and information technologies for the nation’s education system. The Higher Education authorization bill includes a provision to create the National Center for Learning Science and Technology Trust Fund which will provide public funding for research in educational technology.
The techniques of computer gaming could reform our classrooms and our education system and test 21st century skills.
President Bush’s final Federal budget for FY 2009 contains significant boosts for physical sciences and programs supported by the Administration’s American Competitiveness Initiative, but proposes flat lining funding for National Institutes of Health, the largest source of funds for life sciences research. Today, the American Association for the Advancement of Science releases its preliminary analysis of R&D in the budget.
“The answer to the question of how the U.S. manages its great scientific resources and potential,” wrote Dan Greenberg this week at the Chronicle’s Brainstorm blog, “is that it doesn’t.” The Federal government has a responsibility to support scientific and technological research, and the President must lead the way.
Market forces alone are not enough to expand the research and innovation initiatives that will drive a competitive U.S. economy. To bolster the economy, science and technology policy must return to the national priority list, said Science Progress advisory board member Tom Kalil, speaking yesterday at the Congressional Intern Caucus “State of the Net” conference.
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.
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.
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.
Three stories focusing on innovation and on the impact of climate change demonstrate the difficulty of fairly distributing the costs, risks, and benefits of technologies.
A design flaw in the gusset plates joining steel beams may have been the culprit in the I-35 bridge collapse outside of Minneapolis that killed 13 people last August.
Scientists on Capitol Hill; National Science Board reports on the state of U.S. science; interview with the Department of Energy Undersecretary Orbach; risks to U.S. leadership in biotech; Columbia Journalism Reviews announces The Observatory.
New helmet sensors will improve army body armor; the disorganization of state stem cell initiatives; acute stress spikes after 9/11; think tanks for developing nations.
Tracking broadband speeds for the FCC; bioterrorism sensors in NYC; China revises its patent policy.
The Minneapolis bridge collapse underscores the need to modernize infrastructure monitoring.
