By on March 8, 2010 2:49 PM
On the heels of it's recently released report showing a surge in high-tech investments by China and other Asian nations, the National Science Foundation's National Science Board has urged the Obama administration to gauge the quality of federal research programs and to create a new cabinet-level council to address US innovation and competitiveness issues. In a report released last month, NSB also called on the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to lead a government-wide assessment of key research areas, benchmarking the quality of those programs against those of other nations’.
In a third recommendation, the NSB instructed NSF to focus its funding on research that is “truly transformational” in nature, adjusting the criteria used to rank grant proposals if necessary to achieve that objective. As the only federal sponsor of non-mission research, says the report, “It is incumbent on the NSF to maintain its emphasis on the funding of basic, peer-reviewed research across the fields of science and engineering, with special attention to transformative S&E research in order to ensure that the US remains a world research leader.” The NSB is the governing board of the NSF.
Louis Lanzerotti (right), chair of an NSB subcommittee on Science and Engineering Indicators, said the board will soon establish a new task force to ensure that its instructions to NSF are implemented. The report, Globalization of Science and Engineering Research, defines transformative research as “revolutionary advancements, [made] through the application of radically different approaches or interpretations that result in the creation of new paradigms or new scientific fields.”
The report is touted as a policy companion piece to NSB’s biannual Science & Engineering Indicators 2010 compilation of S&E statistics and analysis, which highlights rapid gains in S&E investments, human capital, research infrastructure and high-tech exports that has been underway outside the US, particularly in China and other Asian nations, throughout the past decade. As with previous editions of the biannual S&E Indicators, the report calls attention to trends, but does not offer policy recommendations. A companion report to the 2008 S&E Indicators also warned of declining US competitiveness and urged additional federal funding for basic research, and greater cooperation in R&D between industry and academia.
The interagency committee called for in this year’s companion report should determine the critical research fields in which the US should not be allowed to relinquish its world leadership. Other issues for the panel’s consideration are how to ensure that the US economy benefits from R&D performed abroad by US-based multinational firms, the potential for cooperative relationships between US and foreign sponsors of R&D to ensure continued vitality and growth of US technical growth and strength, and safeguarding US intellectual property. Lanzerotti, a physics professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said the benchmarking process called for in the report would help verify that federally sponsored research is “wisely invested to ensure US leadership in science and technology.”
Arden Bement, NSF director, noted that the post-war period of US dominance in nearly every field of science has ended. “It’s quite possible that in many cases, we could be the co-leader, and in some cases we could be the fast-follower,” he mused at the report’s unveiling, adding, “The importance of that realization is that we have to stay connected with the rest of the world.”
The NSB report urged the Obama administration to implement a provision in the 2008 America COMPETES Act that orders the White House to establish a “council on innovation and competitiveness” to be chaired by the secretary of commerce and comprising more than a dozen other cabinet-ranking members. The group was charged to develop an “innovation agenda” and recommend policies for maintaining US leadership in S&T. While the law called for the new council to be organized apart from the framework of the National Science and Technology Council, former President George W. Bush formally designated a committee of the NSTC to serve in the role of the new council. The cabinet-level NSTC has been formally convened on just one occasion since its formation during the Clinton administration, although lower-level NSTC committees and working groups do meet with varying degrees of frequency.
Lanzerotti said that the NSB would be happy if the Obama administration chose to follow its predecessor with regard to the placement of responsibilities for the council, and “would only encourage that the [NSTC committee] be strongly engaged in executing this recommendation.”
OSTP director and White House science adviser John Holdren agreed that international benchmarking in key fields is useful, and noted that the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology is currently conducting a review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, an effort that involves more than two dozen federal research and regulatory agencies. PCAST’s report will address how the US is doing relative to other major economies as measured by benchmarks such as R&D investments, patents, and publications, Holdren said.
Science agencies often contract with outside organizations such as WTEC, formerly known as the World Technology Evaluation Center, that perform benchmarking, Holdren said. In recent years, WTEC has carried out agency-sponsored international assessments in a broad range of S&T areas, including flexible hybrid electronics, simulation-based engineering and science, catalysis by nanostructured materials, brain-computer interface, systems biology, and regenerative medicine. The government also works with consulting firms that offer regional expertise, such as the Asian Technology Information Program, which provides assessments of research and technology trends and policies in the Far East. While agencies often initiate such benchmarking efforts on their own, “OSTP staff will advocate for these efforts when we believe they are needed,” said Holdren.
Lanzerotti said the processes Holdren described “are indicative of what the board is recommending, and the board is encouraged that the OSTP will advocate for international benchmarking by agencies.”
- David Kramer
