Rising to the Challenge: U.S. Innovation Policy for Global Economy.

摘要

The capacity to innovate is fast becoming the most important determinant of economic growth and a nation's ability to compete and prosper in the 21st century global economy. Innovation encompasses not only research and the creation of new ideas, but the development and effective implementation of the technology into competitive products and services. Governments around the world now recognize that innovation, not just inputs such as capital and labor, is critical to sustaining economic growth, creating good jobs, and fulfilling national needs. Industrialized nations and emerging powers alike have boosted spending on research and development and unveiled comprehensive national strategies to build innovation-led economies. Indeed, just as the global movement toward freer markets in the 1990s became known as the Washington Consensus, the second decade of the 21st century is witnessing the emergence of what may be called the Innovation Consensus. At the same time that the rest of the world is investing aggressively to advance its innovation capacity, the pillars of America's innovation system are in peril. America's public research universities are facing severe financial constraints. High budget deficits and public debt are exerting extraordinary pressure on federal and state lawmakers to cut spending on the very things that made the United States the world's innovation leader in the post-war errand that are needed to keep the U.S. economy competitive and productive. Policymakers are being forced to make painful choices about funding for universities, applied-research programs, help for small business, and new energy technologies. While other nation's race to build state-of-the-art transportation systems and ubiquitous high-speed broadband networks, America's critical infrastructure suffers from a lack of sustained investment needed to match rising world standards. Failure to invest in these areas threatens to inflict long-term damage to America's innovation ecosystem, and therefore to its economy and security.