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Working Paper #05 |
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Crafting an Obama Innovation Policy
Click here to download the PDF version of the report. If you don't have the ability to read PDFs, get Acrobat now by clicking here. Throughout the campaign and since his
election, Barak Obama has made it clear that long-term economic growth—not just
economic recovery—is a priority. He also understands the importance of
technology in reaching that goal. The campaign advanced a well-thought-out list
of technology policy recommendations. Among other measures, candidate Obama
talked about the need to accelerate funding for research and development
(R&D); support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ( In
addition to carrying through on these commitments, President-elect Obama faces
an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity is to broaden his agenda into
an innovation policy focused on other drivers of growth—not just science and
technology. The challenge is to make the best use of existing and new
institutions of government to design and implement that policy without getting
in each others’ way. The existing institutions, which under President Bush
forfeited any serious role in technology and innovation policy, are for
starters the Department of Commerce ( The
Obama Administration can meet this opportunity and challenge through a series
of near-term and longer-range actions some of which we describe in this paper.
The short-term actions would signal a commitment to a broad innovation agenda.
The longer-range actions could significantly strengthen the nation’s innovation
capacity. Moving Toward a Broad Innovation Policy
Crafting
an innovation strategy starts with an understanding that its scope extends
beyond the support of science and the development of tangible technologies. As
historian and educator Lawrence Husick put it in From Stone to Silicon: A Brief Survey of Innovation: “Innovation” is not just inventions; it
is a process of making changes by introducing valuable new methods, ideas, or
products . . . . Innovations may of course be inventions, but they may also be
beliefs, organizational methods, and discoveries. An innovation is a
value-creation mechanism. It is the way we humans manage to extract more value,
generate more economic surplus . . . .[2] Similarly,
when the Financial Times recently
issued its FT Climate Change Challenge, it emphasized that, “[t]he innovation
need not be technological . . . . [C]reativity could equally come in marketing,
financing, analysis or in an entire business model.”[3] George
Mason University Professor Christopher Hill suggests in his article, “The
Post-Scientific Society,” that, “the creation of wealth and jobs based on
innovation and new ideas will tend to draw less on the natural sciences and
engineering and more on the organizational and social sciences, on the arts, on
new business processes, and on meeting consumer needs based on niche production
of specialized products and services in which interesting design and appeal to
individual tastes matter more than low cost or radical new technologies.”[4] The
need for an innovation policy, encompassing but not limited to a revitalized
technology policy, is driven by changes in the economy and the basis of
business competition.[5]
Twenty years ago, the operational issues were product quality and labor
productivity; now, they are customization, speed, product and service design,
and responsiveness to customer needs. A generation ago, our focus was on
individual integrated firms and discrete industries. Now, industries from
computing to pharmaceuticals and biotechnology are organized in networks. Firms
commonly specialize in one or a limited set of activities and contract with
others that specialize in other activities, often in totally different
industries. In the 1980s, the In
addition to increased specialization, we see a greater fusion of manufacturing
and services. Companies that make products rely as much on the “service” aspect
of their business as on manufacturing activity. As knowledge gains importance
as a factor of production, all companies must utilize their intangible
assets—including the skills of their workforce—to improve both their service
and their manufacturing capabilities. The
new environment highlights the fact that innovation is not a linear process
flowing from basic research to final product but rather a network process with
many “feed-in” and feedback opportunities. Observers have coined a number of
terms to describe this: open innovation,
user-driven innovation, and even design
thinking. Lewis Branscomb, in a
recent Science article, refers to
relational networks with a series of nonlinear feedback loops with “dynamic
links based on trust and orchestration.”[6] Further,
innovation depends on people and organizations. Skills, not just education, are
critical. Tacit and experiential knowledge—not just codified and science-based
knowledge—are important. To put those skills and knowledge to productive use,
organizational structure comes into play. The old hierarchal systems of the
industrial age are no longer adequate or appropriate. New adaptive
organizations—what we used to call high-performance
work organizations—are needed to make effective use of worker skills and
knowledge.[7] Organizing for Innovation Policy
Crafting
an innovation policy cognizant of these changes is a daunting job: It requires
recognizing, evaluating, and using a variety of government policy levers, many
of them not usually associated with research and technology development, and it
entails coordinating disparate parts of government. For this, there is no
playbook comparable to the National Academies’ report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, which distilled recommendations
for science and technology policy from a number of previous efforts.[8] Development
of an innovation policy roadmap may be feasible and valuable to undertake
(provided that, like technology roadmaps, it is revisited and revised over
time). Nevertheless, organizing for innovation policy—in the first instance at
the White House level—won’t wait. That proposition raises two questions. The
first—why lodge responsibility for policy development and coordination in the
White House—is more easily answered. It is because innovation is central to the
economy’s restructuring and long-term growth prospects—the President’s chief
preoccupations for the foreseeable future. The
second question—where to assign responsibility within the White House—has, as
we suggested earlier, several possible answers, including the OSTP, the NEC,
the There
may be concern that innovation policy will be lost in an institution
necessarily preoccupied with financial restructuring and designing an effective
economic stimulus program. That is a risk, but it was not the history of the
NEC when it was established at the outset of the To
help craft and carry out a broad innovation agenda, the NEC could make
effective use of a mechanism created by the previous Congress. Section 1006 of
the America COMPETES Act provides for a President’s Council on Innovation and
Competitiveness made up of the heads of 16 departments and agencies (a
nonexclusive list).[9] The law gives the
President latitude in organizing, using, and certainly in staffing this
Council. For example, it would be consistent with congressional intent for the
President himself or the head of the NEC to chair the PCIC and for an NEC
deputy director to serve as chief of staff. Regardless
of the location, it is important not to proliferate entities concerned with
innovation policy, such that the result is an information technology (IT)
innovation policy, a biomedical innovation policy, and an innovation policy for
energy and climate change mitigation. Sectoral differences are, of course,
important but should not dominate to the exclusion of initiatives that promote
innovation across the economy. As a general proposition, the Administration
should favor consolidation, not proliferation, of jurisdictions that often
appear to be advocates of particular constituencies—an appearance that weakens
rather than strengthens their influence in the White House setting. Among the
remaining White House agencies, the risk of fragmentation can be mitigated in
part by joint appointments—for example, to the NEC and the OSTP. Already, there is a precedent in the appointment of the
Secretary of Health and Human Services as the Director of the White House
Office of Health Policy. This device has the further advantage of containing
the size of the White House staff and budget; but its success depends of course
on the ability of White House agency heads to work effectively together. Short-Term Actions
The
Obama Administration could take any of several actions, beyond the
organizational decisions, to both signal a commitment to a broad innovation
policy and lay the groundwork for longer-range actions. The following actions
would advance this agenda: •
Renaming the Baldrige Quality Award the Baldrige Quality, Productivity, and
Innovation Award. Over the years, the criteria for the Baldrige Award have
changed with the times. As these criteria have shifted and broadened, the award
has become much more productivity and innovation focused. Much of this shift,
however, has not been recognized. The change in the name would both better
advertise the broader nature of the award and provide an opportunity to review
and modify the criteria to reflect this broader view. In addition to changing
the name, the award should be given greater visibility by the President. By
presenting the awards personally, the President could use it as an opportunity
to showcase innovative American companies and collaborations. The National
Science and Technology medal criteria could also be broadened to recognize a
small number of individual contributions to innovation that are not solely
technology based. •
Expanding and renaming the Manufacturing
Extension Partnership (MEP) the Innovation
and Productivity Extension Partnership (IPEP). The MEP program has been a
successful mechanism for increasing quality and productivity in small- and
medium-sized manufacturing companies. We should build on that success by
expanding the scope of MEP’s services to include both innovation activities and
to encompass service companies as well as manufacturing companies. Doing so
would require a phased expansion of the program’s budget and staffing into
areas of marketing, finance, and business model development beyond simply new
product development and process adoption. •
Enabling the National Science Foundation’s (NSF)
Engineering Research Centers program to support the creation of Design Research
Centers as well as promote research and teaching of integrated design thinking.
Innovation success is heavily reliant on design as a key component but not
simply involving the physical appearance of products. A new approach to applied
problem solving and innovation is emerging under the rubric of design thinking. Successful models
include the •
Implementing the America COMPETES Act call to
study of how the federal government could support research and teaching related
to the services industries and service functions in the manufacturing sector.
Some suggest that there is already a well-defined discipline of “service
science” that merits support and replication across more higher education
institutions. Whether or not that is the case could be answered by such a
study, which, like other provisions of the 2006 Act, has not been implemented. •
Endorsing, operationalizing, and funding the
recommendations of Commerce Secretary Gutierrez’s Advisory Committee on
Innovation Measurement in the 21st Century.[10]
Among other things, this means supporting and accelerating efforts of the •
Undertaking a number of measures, outlined
below, to enhance disclosure and utilization of intangibles:[12] •
The Securities and Exchange Commission ( •
As proposed at a June 2008 conference sponsored
by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) at the National Academies, a broader
study of intangibles could include (1) a survey of efforts in other countries
to advance the understanding of intangibles and their role in corporate
performance and economic growth, promote financial investments in intangible
assets, and foster the utilization of intangibles; (2) an inventory of
federally owned intangible assets and how to exploit them for economic growth;
and (3) recommendations of policies to accelerate private investment in and
management of the types of intangible assets most likely to contribute to
growth. •
To foster best practices for management of
intellectual assets and intangibles in the United States, the relevant federal
agencies—such as •
Undertake a budgetary cross-cut of government
investments in intangible. The federal government is a major investor in
intangibles, but we don’t know the size of that investment or even where it
really goes. For some time the federal budget, as prepared by the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB), has included a capital budget that includes
physical capital, R&D, and education and training.[13]
The budget documents also include a separate analysis of funding of statistical
agencies, which is not included in the investment budget. These and other
budget analyses already undertaken by OBM can serve as the starting point for a
cross-cutting budgetary analysis of federal investments in intangible assets. •
As part of the effort to enact a permanent
R&E tax credit, adding an incumbent worker training tax credit that would
transform the provision into a knowledge generation and acquisition incentive. We already support training of
unemployed workers, but not for those who have a job. A corporate tax credit
would reduce the incentive firms now have to lay off workers in a recession and
rehire different workers with higher skills when the recovery comes, with an
attendant loss of company-specific knowledge. Instead of sending some workers
to the unemployment line in a recession, we could be sending them to the
classroom. Longer-Range Activities
Over
the longer term, the following ongoing activities might be considered as part
of a broad innovation policy: •
Analyzing regulatory activities with an
innovation impact. As Stuart Benjamin and Arti Rai suggest, the White House
could review of some executive branch decisions and legislative proposals from
the standpoint of their effects on innovation.[14]
There is unlikely to be agreement on a standard methodology for such analysis
(e.g., cost–benefit analysis) and thus not a high degree of consensus about its
conclusions, but there could be broad agreement about which decisions merit
scrutiny and discussion from an innovation perspective. •
Better managing the allocation of R&D
spending among and within federal agencies. More could be done here—perhaps
jointly by OSTP and OMB—to review agency spending plans in key areas and make
mid-course adjustments. Had it been done consistently, this process might have
partly averted the steep decline in the government’s physical science and
engineering investment for nearly a decade following the end of the Cold War.
The prospective expansion of investment in alternative energy sources is a
prime candidate for close monitoring and adjustment in light of changing market
conditions and security needs—a function that should not be left solely to the
Department of Energy (DOE) if this is a presidential priority. •
Strengthening the White House role in reviewing
and balancing intellectual property policy as broadly defined. The merits of
infinitely expanding and strengthening intellectual property
protection—patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets—to accelerate
innovation and promote investment are no longer the articles of faith they were
for a generation beginning in 1980. Witness the pending patent reform
legislation—most of the provisions of which command broad private sector
support—and recent Supreme Court and Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decisions
in patent cases involving injunctions, patentable subject matter, obviousness,
and willful infringement. But there has been no White House leadership on these
issues, contributing to a congressional stalemate on patent reform. Moreover,
within the Executive Office of the President there is a growing need for
balancing the views of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative ( •
Considering establishment of a National
Foundation for Science, Technology, and Creativity. Such a foundation might be
patterned after the •
Using government procurement to push new
business models. New collaborative work tools, such as Virtual Worlds, offer
the potential for creating innovative new business models.[16]
Demonstration projects employing this new technology could be sponsored by
federal agencies to improve collaboration among suppliers, manufactures, and
end users. This is just one example of how government procurement could
actively be used to support innovative new business models. Another example is
offering what is in essence a prize for new software applications for
government use, as the local Conclusion
We
have described some challenges in moving beyond a technology policy to an
innovation policy. The hurdles are high, but we must leap them if the
government is to help create a globally competitive economy that provides
high-quality domestic jobs. Other countries, localities, and regions are not
standing still: They understand that innovation is a principal driving force in
economic prosperity and are inventing new ways to promote it. The Obama
Administration has a remarkable opportunity to chart an even more ambitious and
successful path. [*] President, Athena [†] Director, National Academies’ Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP). The views expressed in this paper do not represent positions of the Academies, the STEP Board, or any of the institution’s other appointed committees. [1] Barack Obama: Connecting and Empowering All Americans
Through Technology and Innovation. Fact Sheet: Innovation and Technology. http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/technology/Fact_Sheet_Innovation_and_Technology.pdf. Accessed Investing in [2] Husick, L. A. From Stone to Silicon: A
Brief Survey of Innovation. Footnotes:
The Newsletter of FPRI’s [3] Crooks, E. Call for innovators. Financial Times, [4] Hill, C. T. The Post-Scientific Society.
Issues in Science and Technology,
Fall 2007. http://issues.org/24.1/c_hill.html.
Accessed [5] Jarboe, K. P. Info Age: Recast Issues
Demand New Solutions. New Technology Week, [6] Branscomb, L. Research
Alone Is Not Enough. Science, Vol.
321, No. 5891, 2008, pp. 915–6. [7] Jarboe, K. P., and J. Yudken. Time to
Get Serious About Workplace Change. Issues
in Science and Technology, Vol. XIII, No. 4, Summer 1997, pp. 65–71. http://www.issues.org/13.4/jarboe.htm.
Accessed [8] [9] American
COMPETES Act of 2007, HR 2272, 110th Cong., Congressional Record 153
(2007): H9414–65. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.02272:.
Accessed [10] [11] Corrado, C. A., C. R.
Hulten, and D. [12] For more on
intangibles, see Jarboe, K. P. Reporting Intangibles:
A Hard Look at Improving Business Information in the U.S. Working Paper
No. 1, Athena Alliance, April 2005. http://www.athenaalliance.org/apapers/ReportingIntangibles.htm.
Accessed Also,
Jarboe, K. P., and R. Furrow. Intangible Asset Monetization: The Promise and
the Reality. Working Paper No. 3, Athena [13] Office of Management and Budget. Analytical
Perspectives, Budget of the [14] Benjamin,
S. M., and A. K. Rai. Fixing
Innovation Policy: A Structural Perspective. Duke University School of Law,
2008. [15] National Endowment for Science,
Technology and the Arts. http://www.nesta.org.uk.
Accessed [16] Cohen, R. B. Virtual
Worlds and the Transformation of Business: Impacts on the [17] Office of the Chief Technology Officer, |