Economic Drivers Behind Science and Technology Support
The Organizing Framework Behind US Science Agencies
The Organization of Innovation Systems at the Face-to-Face Level
The Competitiveness Challenge in Advanced Technologies. Production and Services
Students will take away from this class key foundation elements in sci/tech public policy: 1) a review of the applicable aspects of growth economics theory, 2) the concept of innovation systems and the actors and players behind them, 3) a framework for looking at an innovation system of direct and indirect factors, and 4) a grasp of one of the deepest problems in innovation, the “valley of death” between research and development.
Class One will start by summarizing two classic works (by Solow and Romer) in economic growth theory, turn to a discussion of the innovation-related basis for growth in the 90’s, and note the emerging debate on the effect of the economics of globalization and the comparative efforts of other competitive nations. Two elements of direct or explicit innovation policy will be introduced: R&D funding, (including the physical science R&D funding challenge) and science and technology education levels, with international comparisons noted.
The class will also discuss the innovation system, with a brief summary of indirect or implicit elements in this system. On the governmental side, these elements include fiscal policy, tax policy, standards, technology transfer policies, trade policy, procurement, intellectual property, the legal system, regulation, antitrust, export controls, etc. On the private side, these include markets, management approaches including support for incremental verses radical innovation, accounting systems and information transparency, business models, and venture and angel capital, etc. The direct and indirect factors will be discussed as elements in an “innovation system,” building on the Nelson reading cited below. Particular “indirect elements” will be briefly noted, including the emerging debate over how the accounting system values innovation, the ramifications of current fiscal policy, and the role of venture and angel capital. The lack of innovation metrics will be cited. The class will also discuss policy justifications for governmental verses private sector roles, including the debate over “industrial policy,” and the “market failure” and the “public value” (as pursued by science and technology mission agencies) justifications for a public role.
We will also briefly discuss at the end of the class the longstanding problem of the “valley of death”, i.e., of moving technology from the research stage through the development stage, and discuss the pipeline (linear) model verses dynamic model for research and development. More recent attempts for crossing the “valley of death” will be briefly noted, including the biotech model, NIST’s Advanced Technology Program (ATP), the Small Business Innovation and Research Program (SBIR), NIST’s state-based Manufacturing Extension Program (MEP), and the CIA’s In-Q-Tel.
The Drivers behind Science and Technology Support (PDF)
Nelson, Richard R. National Systems of Innovation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 3-21, 505-523. ISBN: 9780195076172. [Preview with Google Books]
Solow, Robert M. Growth Theory, An Exposition. 5th ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. ix-xxvi. ISBN: 9780195109030.
Romer, Paul. “Endogenous Technological Change.” Journal of Political Economy 98, no. 5 (1990): 72-102. (PDF – 2.8MB)
Jorgenson, Dale. “U.S. Economic Growth in the Information Age.” Issues in Science and Technology 18, no. 1 (2001): 42.
Milunovich, Steven, and John M. A. Roy. The Next Small Thing: An Introduction to Nanotechnology. Global Securities Research and Economics Group, Merrill Lynch & Co. September 4, 2001.
Branscomb, Lewis M., and Phillip E. Auerswald. Between Invention and Innovation: An Analysis of Funding for Early-Stage Technology Development. Gaithersburg, MD: Report for National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2002.
Students will take away from this class the foundational concepts that led to the way the US organizes its science and technology mission agencies, and review alternative models that led to more connected science systems.
The class will start with a review of key organizational developments in science, technology and health federal support, focusing on the organizational models for the missions of those science-support organizations. Potential strengths of government-supported R&D (selection neutrality and long-range focus) as well as concerns (peer review tending toward incremental progress not breakthroughs and isolation from application connections) will be discussed. The pre-WWII organization will be briefly noted, then the transformation of science during WWII under Vannevar Bush and Alfred Loomis, and the creation of the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation after the war.
The review will focus on the overall organizational structure and as part of that note the following developments:
Innovation at the Institutional Level: The Organization of Federal Science Support (PDF – 1.3MB)
Bonvillian, William B. “Power Play – The DARPA Model and U.S. Energy Policy.” The American Interest 11 (November/December 2006): 39-48.
Hart, David. Forged Consensus. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780691026671. [Preview with Google Books]
Stokes, Donald E. Pasteur’s Quadrant, Basic Science and Technological Innovation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997, pp. 1-25, 45-57, and 58-89. ISBN: 9780815781776.
Ruttan Vernon W. Is War Necessary for Economic Growth? Military Procurement and Technology Development. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 21-31, 91-111, and 115-129. ISBN: 9780195188042. [Preview with Google Books]
Students will take from this discussion class an understanding of how people- and team-driven, as opposed to institution-driven, the innovation stage is, and of the rule sets that appear to influence innovation success.
Class Three will be more informal and more student-led. We will note that although innovation systems function at the institutional level in the public and private sectors, as discussed in Class Two, they also must function at the personal, face-to-face level. The class will review a series of breakthrough innovations and look at the R&D teams that assembled them, discussing the organizational rule sets that appear to be common to these great innovation groups. The focus groups include Edison, “Invention Factory”, Oppenheimer and Los Alamos, Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley at Bell Labs, Boyer and Swanson founding Genetech, Venter and the genome project, and Robert Taylor and Xerox Parc. The session will close with a review of lessons from a “great group” at DEC, where the founding innovation culture failed as the firm transitioned to a major corporation.
The Organization of Innovation at the Personal, Face-To-Face Level (PDF)
Bennis, Warren, and Patricia Ward Biederman. Organizing Genius, The Secrets of Creative Collaborative. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1998, pp. 63-86, 196-208. ISBN: 9780201339895. [Preview with Google Books]
Rosen, William. The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention. New York, NY: Random House, 2010, pp. 35-39, 115-134. ISBN: 9781400067053. [Preview with Google Books]
Evans, Harold. They Made America – From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of American Innovators. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company, 2004, pp. 152-171, 420-231. ISBN: 9780316277662.
Bird, Kai, and Martin J. Sherwin. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, pp. 205-228, 255-259, 268-285, and 293-297. ISBN: 9780375412028.
Hoddeson, Lillian, and Vicki Daitch. True Genius – The Life and Science of John Bardee__n. Washington, DC: 2002, pp. 115-154. ISBN: 9780309095112.
Morrow, Daniel S., and Dr. J. Craig Venter. Oral History. Video interview transcript. ComputerWorld Honors Program, 2003, pp. 3-53, 56-58.
Schein, Edgar. DEC Is Dead, Long Live DEC: The Lasting Legacy of Digital Equipment Corporation. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Kohler Publishers, 2004, pp. 123-169. ISBN: 9781576753057. [Preview with Google Books]
The major rationale for federal R&D support has become its role in promoting U.S. competitiveness. Students will obtain from this class a summary of the current competitiveness debate in the U.S., in both manufacturing and services sectors.
Class Four will first review the nature of the competitiveness debate of the 80’s and early 90’s, which focused on the manufacturing sector, particularly on process efficiency and quality. The role of manufacturing in the U.S. economy will be discussed, including its declining share of that economy. The nature of the international competition in manufacturing and the strategies of other international competitors, both in the 80’s and now, including in advanced manufacturing sectors, will be reviewed. Approaches in Japan, Korea, and China will be explored. Two recent major articles on U.S. manufacturing challenges will be reviewed and discussed. The “disruptive technologies” approach to innovation will also be discussed, as well as corresponding possible approaches for manufacturing process technology productivity breakthroughs. As background reading, students will read Paul Samuelson’s important 2004 article on free trade theory in a period of competitive advantage in innovation.
The class will close by turning toward the services sector, noting the dominant role of services in the U.S. economy which includes the emerging importance of software services, and review the emerging international competition in services. The debate on whether the economy is facing a major competitive challenge to advanced technology-based services and to innovation capacity, through offshore outsourcing, will be examined. The lack of objective data-gathering in this area by federal data collection agencies will be cited. The importance of the growing international competition in software development, and India’s growing role as a competitor in information technology-based services will also be noted.
The Competitive Challenge in Advanced Production and Services (PDF)
Samuelson, Paul A. “Where Ricardo and Mill Rebut and Confirm Arguments of Mainstream Economists Supporting Globalization.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 18, no. 3 (2004): 135-137, 144-145. (PDF)
Hughes, Kent. Building the Next American Century: The Past and Future of American Economic Competitiveness. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, pp. 68-111, 152-199.
Berger, Suzanne. How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing to Make it in Today’s Global Economy. New York, NY: Crown Business, 2005, pp. 251-277. ISBN: 9780385513593. [Preview with Google Books]
Fong, Glenn R. “Follower at the Frontier: International Competition and Japanese Industrial Policy.” International Studies Quarterly 42, no. 2 (1998): 339-366.
Kim, Linsu. Imitation to Innovation; The Dynamics of Korea’s Technological Learning. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997, pp. 192-213, 234-243.
Tassey, Gregory. “Rationales and Mechanisms for Revitalizing US Manufacturing R&D Strategies.” The Journal of Technology Transfer 35, no. 3 (2010): 283-333.
Pisano, Gary, and Willy Shih. “Restoring American Competitiveness.” Harvard Business Review 87 (2009): 114-125.
Raduchel, William J. “The Economics of Software.” In Measuring and Sustaining the New Economy, Software, Growth, and the Future of the U.S Economy: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2006, pp. 36-46.
Given the powerful and increasing importance of energy innovation in climate change and security contexts, this class will provide students with a close look at the systemic challenges now faced by the energy innovation system and draw on lessons from prior classes for possible organizational solutions.
The instructor will review the innovation policy elements that could be considered as part of a major federal program to stimulate innovation in energy technology, which is now starting to evolve. Given the central role of energy in the economy and the variety of new technologies needed, this program may need to approach the dimensions of a major military transformational effort, going beyond research and development to include all aspects of the innovation process. It would also need to be as technology neutral as far as possible, consistent with the need for measures to overcome obstacles specific to particular technologies. Ideally, such a technology supply-side program should be accompanied by market demand policies that ensure market entry for new technologies. However, given interests opposing and threatened by such measures, political support for such demand-side policies in Congress and the executive branch appear to be some years away. The political barriers to a technology supply-side strategy, on the other hand, are not as high.
Given the depth of the need for new energy technology, a supply side program arguably will be needed even if demand measures are adopted. Numerous authoritative publications have called for an expansion of energy research and development as a complement to demand-side measures. However, the specific mechanisms by which the development, deployment and diffusion of these technologies might be facilitated by government action have been left largely unstudied. A hard look at these specific mechanisms will be a major topic in the class. The new R&D elements evolving at the Department of Energy, such as ARPA-E and the Energy Frontier Research Centers will be reviewed, along with the potential role of the Defense Department in creating energy technology testbeds and initial markets, and the possible role of a government corporation for demonstration financing. Policy options for a fallback plan to carbon pricing will be explored.
The Challenge of Energy Technology (PDF)
Bonvillian, William B., and Charles Weiss. “Taking Covered Wagons East: A New Innovation Theory for Energy and Other Established Sectors.” Innovations 4, no. 4 (2009): 289-300.
Socolow, Robert H., and Stephen W. Pacala. “A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check.” Scientific American 295, no. 3 (2006): 50-57.
Deutch, John M. “What Should the Government Do to Encourage Technical Change in the Energy Sector?” Report No. 120, Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, MIT, May 2005. (PDF)
“Statement of Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Installations and Environment Dr. Dorothy Robyn before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.” January 27, 2010.
Alic, John, Daniel Sarewitz, Charles Weiss, and William Bonvillian. “A New Strategy for Energy Innovation.” Nature 466 (2010): 316-317.
Bonvillian, William B. “Time for Climate Plan B.” Issues in Science and Technology. Winter 2010-2011.
