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Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy (2005)

Chapter: 6 Conclusions and Recommendations

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Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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6
Conclusions and Recommendations

Globalization of MSE R&D is defined in this study as the worldwide expansion of MSE knowledge-creation centers as a result of U.S. and non-U.S. industry and government investments along with increased worldwide collaboration facilitated by information technology. The data and evidence amassed by the committee have led to a number of conclusions, presented throughout this report and repeated in this chapter along with a summary of the rationale for each. The conclusions are focused on the status of globalization and MSE R&D and on the impacts of globalization. Also presented herein are some aggregate conclusions and recommendations concerning the question posed for this study: How can the United States ensure that it has access to current MSE R&D around the world and thereby maintain its leadership position?

OVERVIEW: SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT GLOBALIZATION AND ITS IMPACTS

Patent data, literature data, trends in corporate research, and the results of surveys and polls indicate increasing global activity in MSE R&D, with concomitant increases in global and transnational ownership and collaboration. MSE has become a global undertaking and is developing in a manner that is affecting U.S. leadership across MSE subfields.

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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Globalization and U.S. Leadership in MSE R&D

Broad trends such as the globalization of 21st century technology and increased international and transnational industrial and economic activity have helped drive the globalization of R&D. Information technology and global communications are affecting the execution of R&D in innumerable ways and enabling it to evolve new global modalities. Information from the National Science Foundation, the results of a survey of industrial R&D by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and the results of a poll of MSE practitioners carried out for this study all show that globalization has led to more transnational academia-led R&D with international academic and industrial collaborators and to more transnational corporation-led R&D with foreign affiliates of U.S. corporations, foreign academics, or foreign corporations. The data show that companies are driven to globalize their R&D activity for a number of reasons, not least of which are access to expertise, mitigating the impacts of regulatory regimes, proximity to new international customers, and cost savings. Risk factors for overseas corporate R&D investment are varied but can include concern about the ownership of intellectual property and the security of trade secrets, as well as concerns about the rule of law and democratic institutions, particularly in developing economies. Academic researchers take part in global MSE R&D by seeking out domestic or international partners that can advance their research priorities, by participating in international conferences, and by adopting information technology for sharing R&D results on a global scale.

How is globalization affecting U.S. leadership in MSE R&D? The benchmarking evidence presented in this report paints a varied picture. In the subfield of composites, the United States risks being unable to exploit the promise of composites because of the significant and continuing decline of its leadership in the subfield. Leadership in the subfield of magnetic materials is mixed, with the United States in the lead in some critical areas and among the leaders in others. The United States appears to be losing its leadership role in metallurgy R&D, and there are no signs that this trend is going to be reversed any time soon. The situation in electronic and optical-photonic materials is mixed, with the United States leading in some areas and not in others. Currently, U.S. scientists working on superconductivity are at the cutting edge in nearly all the component areas of superconducting materials. However, the United States does not dominate in any, because other countries share or surpass the U.S. lead in applications. The United States has seen a continued decline in its former dominance in catalyst technology. While the United States leads global activity in nanomaterials and nanotechnology as measured by the number of corporations engaged in the subfield, it is too early to say which, if any, region of the world is going to show clear leadership as this field

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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matures. The use of nanotechnology in many electronic and photonic materials and devices means the U.S. position in both MSE subfields will remain interconnected.

Patent and literature surveys suggest that while MSE R&D is emerging at an accelerating rate in countries not previously known as centers of materials expertise, the United States remains either the world leader or among the world leaders across the MSE subfields. The European Union and the Asia-Pacific region, most notably Japan and most recently China, are challenging traditional U.S. leadership. Japan appears to have surpassed the United States in the alloys and ceramics subfields. Global activity in all the subfields examined during this study is diversifying, with significant increases in Asian countries that had not been active in these fields. How this trend may evolve is unclear.

In summary, it is clear that the globalization of MSE R&D is under way and is affecting U.S. leadership.

Conclusion. Globalization of MSE R&D is proceeding rapidly, in line with broader trends toward globalization. As a result of increasing international trade and investment, the emergence of new markets, and the growth of the Internet and the global communications system, MSE R&D in the United States is an internationalized activity with a diverse set of international partners.

Conclusion. The globalization of MSE R&D is narrowing the technological lead of the United States.

Impacts of the Globalization of MSE R&D

Assessing and predicting the impact on the United States of the globalization of MSE R&D is a complex, interconnected, and multidimensional exercise. The offshoring of MSE R&D from the United States and, equally important, the increasingly transnational nature of all research are raising the level and quality of materials research carried out abroad. This means that the loss of U.S. leadership in several areas of materials research where it traditionally dominated is a real possibility. The proliferation of technology and capability to new parts of the world will, at the very least, complicate the analysis of potential threats and challenges to the United States and, at worst, lead potential adversaries to gain advantage in strategic fields. While the United States might gain some advantages from exploiting the new technology that could emerge from increased global activity, the nation’s strategic one- to two-generation advantage in materials-related technology and perhaps other technologies is clearly threatened.

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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Economic Impact

While a dearth of data and the absence of a framework for analysis limit any analysis, the economic impact of MSE R&D globalization on the United States is likely to differ across materials subfields. The evidence suggests that the overall economic impact of MSE R&D globalization has been limited so far, while its medium-term impact is more uncertain. As measured by patent applications in all classes, U.S. global leadership in R&D output remains intact. However, with increased output from other parts of the world, U.S. leadership in materials, as measured by patent and literature production, has narrowed. While the United States has lost competitive advantage in some materials subfields, such as catalysts, it has maintained it in others, such as semiconductor research. In fact, a relative decline in one subfield may release resources to be invested in another, more promising subfield where the United States enjoys a comparative advantage.

Globalization can facilitate the development by U.S. companies of new comparative advantages by integrating various R&D outputs, both domestic and global, into a final product. On balance, the United States may gain from the globalization of MSE R&D, provided U.S. firms and the government position themselves strategically in the new global R&D environment. The objective is to create conditions at the private and public levels whereby globalization of MSE R&D leads U.S. firms to increase their productivity, efficiency, and innovation capacity. U.S. companies eager to secure access to critical R&D, to leverage domestic activities, and to take advantage of foreign R&D and international R&D relationships must integrate these foreign inputs fully and effectively in their domestic R&D programs. The overall economic impact of globalization of materials R&D will depend on its evolution and on the relative contribution of various materials subfields to the U.S. economy.

Conclusion. At this stage, economic analysis is limited by a dearth of data and by the lack of a comprehensive empirical framework. Although available evidence suggests that the globalization of MSE R&D has had a limited impact on the U.S. economy so far, the medium-term impact is highly uncertain. A positive impact will depend on globalized MSE R&D leading to increased U.S. productivity and contributing positively to U.S. domestic innovation.

National Security Impact

U.S. security forces in the 21st century will need to communicate faster, more reliably, and on a global scale. New threats to national and homeland security will require new materials for their detection. New tasks will require new weapons and new materials to make possible new and better delivery platforms. The new sys-

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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tems will also need to demonstrate multifuctionality, self-diagnosis and self-healing, low cost, low maintenance, environmental acceptability, and high reliability. Meeting these needs will depend on R&D in materials and processes to improve existing materials and achieve breakthroughs in new materials and combinations.

With the global shift in MSE R&D activity, even if the United States makes great efforts to keep American technologies, knowledge, and capabilities under its control, the investments of other governments in their own domestic knowledge-creation capabilities will challenge the technology lead of America’s military, homeland defense, and intelligence communities.

Conclusion. The results of MSE R&D continue to enhance U.S. national security and homeland defense by adding improved materials capabilities to the weapons and protective systems used by today’s warfighters. The evolution of materials research in the United States and abroad will affect the nation’s ability not only to defend against emerging threats of the 21st century but also to ensure a healthy economy as a basic underpinning of national security. Because knowledge and the intellectual capacity to generate new knowledge are proliferating across the world, because innovation and development cycles are becoming shorter, and because U.S. dependence on foreign sources of innovation is increasing, the lead in critical technologies enjoyed thus far by the U.S. defense and intelligence communities will be seriously eroded without mitigating action.

MAINTAINING ACCESS

Numerous policy reports over the years have found that MSE R&D remains in the national interest and recommended that the United States should remain among the world leaders across all MSE subfields and the leader in many. The present study concludes that the globalization of MSE R&D is under way and is affecting U.S. leadership across MSE subfields. The impact of materials R&D globalization can be positive and large, but the risks of a negative impact remain substantial. To avoid a negative impact, the U.S. government and private sector must exploit foreign or joint R&D to benefit domestic innovation by integrating it efficiently and effectively into domestic civilian and military R&D.

With the increasingly global nature of MSE R&D the question that arises is how the United States can maintain access to the global output of MSE R&D and thereby maintain a leadership position. Access is only one part of the story. Even if there is access, it might not be full access or access to the right sort of technology. Integration also must be a priority, but integrating R&D is not easy. There are risks, including that some knowledge generated by foreign R&D will not be ab-

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
×

sorbed in the United States and that there may not be sufficient domestic U.S. expertise to recognize the foreign innovation and maximize its integration. Maintaining access to current MSE R&D will require active management so as to mitigate the potentially negative economic and national security impacts of globalization. Such active management requires government action.

Conclusion. In response to the globalization of MSE R&D, it is the task of public policy to minimize the risks and maximize the benefits to ensure the ongoing U.S. innovation that is essential to the nation’s economy and national security and to facilitate continued access to the new knowledge generated by MSE R&D.

RECOMMENDATION ON DEVELOPING A NATIONAL STRATEGY

To maximize the benefits for the United States of the globalization of materials science and engineering research and development (MSE R&D), the federal government should create a well-defined and coordinated national strategy to manage the development of and access to strategic MSE knowledge and technology in a global framework. Particular emphasis must be given to defining and achieving MSE R&D goals for ensuring a strong 21st century U.S. military and a secure U.S. homeland.

In building a U.S. national strategy for effective development and use of MSE R&D, the following elements should be considered:

  • Identifying in MSE R&D across the defense services and other relevant national security agencies programmatic linkages that will facilitate a coordinated approach to answering critical questions across the subfields of MSE and assessing the readiness of R&D programs to do so, analyzing domestic readiness to provide critical MSE capabilities, and developing recommendations on the role that international and transnational MSE R&D might play;

  • Defining (1) immediate priorities for which programmatic directions are clear and (2) next steps, which will require development of a roadmap as a prelude to determining relevant MSE R&D programs;

  • Including as participants a comprehensive range of stakeholders and decision makers from the defense, homeland security, and intelligence communities and obtaining significant input from and coordinating with the wider federal science and engineering agencies—including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, NASA, and so on; and

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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  • Soliciting independent advice from academia, industry, and other experts, as required—perhaps with the participation of the Defense Science Board—and obtaining input from industry regarding policies and incentives that could encourage proactive industry strategies for sustaining a strong MSE R&D base in the United States.

Building a robust and effective national strategy for ensuring U.S. access to the results of MSE R&D will also require obtaining a better understanding of current trends in MSE R&D worldwide; defining in a clear and focused manner the critical questions and challenges MSE R&D must address to meet national economic, defense, and homeland security needs; and developing a renewed approach to managing regulatory regimes, improving the education system, and strengthening the infrastructure for U.S. MSE R&D. With that in mind, the following immediate recommendations are made.

Maintaining Access with Better Monitoring

It became clear during the course of this study that there are few data on the flow of investments in R&D generally and in MSE R&D specifically. The discussion of how the nation should react to the globalization of MSE R&D will need to be informed by better data. In addition, data alone will not be sufficient, because new analytical tools are needed that reflect the complexity of R&D globalization.

RECOMMENDATION ON GATHERING BETTER DATA

U.S. data collection efforts and forecasting systems should be strengthened in order to monitor trends in the offshoring of MSE R&D and the growth of MSE R&D worldwide.

Addressing the national need for better data and monitoring will require collective efforts on the part of the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, and other data-collecting and intelligence agencies. Ideas to be considered include periodic surveys of corporations on their materials R&D. Obtaining meaningful data on materials is difficult, because materials are intermediate products of other products. In a sense, materials are silent (in terms of data), so that trends can be easily obscured in the more general statistics.

Current but limited DOD information-gathering activities around the world could be broadened and improved to assure access to international innovation. Developing the tools to maintain access to global R&D requires consideration of how DOD internal technology forecasting systems could be strengthened and how

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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current DOD initiatives to identify critical technology around the world could be expanded. New technology could facilitate the identification of synergistic needs across the military services and the homeland-defense services, helping reduce further any stovepiping of R&D within DOD. Technology should allow the development of clearinghouses for R&D goals and needs, initially by subfield and perhaps more broadly in the future.

RECOMMENDATION ON IMPROVING MONITORING

The Department of Defense should build on existing capacities to monitor, assess, and promote access to developments in MSE R&D across the globe with a strategic view to underpinning the maintenance of U.S. leadership and security. In addition, existing U.S. government internal systems for strategic and critical technology analysis, management, and integration should be strengthened. Modern database and communication systems for identifying synergies across the defense services should be developed.

An international DOD-led program could think globally about MSE R&D infusion into the armed forces through liaison visits, visitor support programs, conference support programs, and the promotion of cooperative and collaborative programs. The enhanced activity could provide DOD and the services with a window on global MSE R&D innovation and avenues for maintaining access. To remain current and active in a globalized MSE R&D theater, the United States must adopt an international and focused initiative to infuse international and domestic MSE R&D into the armed forces of the 21st century.

Maintaining Access with Better Benchmarking

The global environment for MSE R&D is changing rapidly and the U.S. relative position in many subfields of MSE is in a state of flux. Any strategy to respond to globalization must have at its foundation not only better monitoring of global activity but also a thorough knowledge of the relative status of U.S. MSE R&D. The benchmarking carried out for this study was limited owing to the breadth of the overall study objectives and the constraints on time and resources. A more comprehensive benchmarking study is needed. Such a study would have to be carried out in expedited fashion and soon, because the U.S. competitive position in MSE R&D is changing rapidly and could be dramatically eroded in some subfields without corrective action. Such a study could also carry out longitudinal comparisons of and interconnections between MSE subfields and compare the impact of globalization on MSE R&D and R&D in other engineering fields.

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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RECOMMENDATION ON CONDUCTING COMPREHENSIVE, EXPEDITED BENCHMARKING

An expedited benchmarking study, similar to Experiments in International Benchmarking of U.S. Research Fields (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2000), should be conducted immediately to assess the relative global position of the United States in MSE R&D.

Maintaining Access with a Better Understanding of Long-Term Security Needs

Building a successful strategy to respond to globalization requires a thorough understanding of the knowledge needs of the national security and homeland defense systems. Defining those needs can complement analyses of more immediate military needs by taking a longer-term perspective on the investment strategy required for establishing a military for the 21st century and securing the homeland. “Longer-term” means taking a two-decade and at times speculative perspective. Earlier reports by the National Academies, the Defense Science Board, and others could feed into the development of a clear list of questions that need to be answered over the long term and challenges that need to be met to maintain the nation’s lead in technology for national and homeland security.

RECOMMENDATION ON ESTABLISHING LONG-TERM SECURITY NEEDS AND CHALLENGES

The Department of Defense should strengthen current systems for establishing clearly the materials needs of the 21st century warfighter as well as those essential to achieving national and homeland security priorities. Efforts in this regard should focus not on meeting the shorter-term acquisition needs of the military, but rather on identifying and prioritizing the longer-term questions and challenges that MSE R&D will have to address in order to meet identified long-term U.S. security needs.

The potentially adverse effects of globalization on traditional U.S. leadership in R&D and on U.S. capacities and capabilities are real and present. In assessing the national security impacts, complacency is not a policy option. An analysis premised on the shorter-term and near-future technological requirements of the warfighter and on a survey of the supply of current technologies on the world market risks being myopic. The national security of the country is more interconnected and multidimensional than an analysis of immediate or predicted acquisition needs of the military would suggest. Neither innovation nor future threats can always be foreseen and predicted. It may not always be clear today what a one- or two-generation lead over potential adversaries tomorrow might require in terms of new materials and technologies. In addition, previous success in acquiring re-

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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quired technology from global sources does not guarantee future supply. Less tangible and harder-to-predict threats may also arise from the increasingly global nature of MSE R&D and, in particular, from any concomitant loss of U.S. expertise or the proliferation of new technology to terrorist organizations or adversarial regimes.

Existing systems within the government for assessing technologies critical to the 21st century warfighter and to wider national security concerns will benefit from the highest level of coordination and cooperation within DOD and between the relevant federal agencies. Continued review facilitates an assessment of existing critical technology lists, contractual arrangements, R&D funding procedures, and so on and helps in defining goals and challenges for MSE R&D.

Maintaining Access with Better Management of Regulatory Regimes

The rapid evolution of the environment for MSE R&D and the need to develop a national response thereto requires consideration of how the nation’s regulatory regime needs to react to the realities of R&D in the 21st century. As shown in this report, regulatory regimes can be a driver for decisions on locating R&D. It seems clear that questions about the security of intellectual property developed abroad—whether the export license process will hinder the effective execution of an R&D program, whether workers will be available to carry out the research, and what tax incentives might be in place in the locales under consideration—would have to be addressed in any thorough decision-making process. It is unlikely, however, that any one of these issues would be the sole determinant of the location of an R&D activity. Nevertheless, it is incumbent on makers of public policy to ensure that as R&D becomes a more global activity, U.S. researchers are not unreasonably impeded by U.S. regulatory regimes from taking part in international activity of national importance. Continuing review should build on current management and review systems and consider if and how existing frameworks need to adapt in a systematic fashion to the realities of the global R&D theater.

RECOMMENDATION ON REVIEWING REGULATORY REGIMES

A systematic review of the rationale for and the impacts of U.S. government regulation of the transfer of knowledge and innovation across borders within the framework of globalized MSE R&D should be carried out by a government task force of representatives from the relevant agencies, with input from academia and industry.

The review could seek input from both the defense and commercial sectors of the private sector and will also assess and build on existing internal government

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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systems designed to maximize the effectiveness of the existing critical technology lists, export regimes, and so on. The review should ask whether there are technologies the nation need not necessarily control but to which it merely needs secure access. The next question would be how such a change in intent would affect the nation’s control regime. In addition, the review might consider innovative approaches. For instance, a risk management approach could be adopted in which defense contractors and researchers (1) identify the key risks of their global R&D strategies for identified critical technologies and (2) describe the risk-management systems they have developed to ensure continued access to these technologies. This approach would have the advantage of being private-sector driven: While allowing the government to influence industry decisions by bringing public, longer-term national security considerations to the table, it would also allow firms to organize their global R&D activities flexibly.

The intent of the review proposed here is not to create new technology lists but to reevaluate the government’s systems for critical technology and knowledge management. The idea would be to ensure access to all the relevant technologies without overburdening private firms and other researchers with regulations and without stunting U.S.-led innovation in the global MSE R&D theater.

Maintaining Access by Remaining on the World Stage

There may be a temptation to protect U.S. interests by retreating from the world stage in areas deemed critical to national security or to the economic interests of the country. Calling into question the exemption from ITAR of basic research would be one such protectionist move. An isolationist approach, however, would have significant costs because it would require a large government investment to maintain a sufficiently robust and productive capability in critical areas. More important, retreating into such a protectionist posture might deprive the United States of superior technologies developed outside the United States and, of most concern, those developed in countries that are not the closest military allies of the United States. Access to cutting-edge knowledge and technology can be better and more effectively guaranteed by the United States being the most active player in the global MSE R&D effort.

Conclusion. It is in the long-term interest of the United States to participate in international partnerships in MSE R&D and thereby ensure U.S. access to cutting-edge knowledge and technology.

Notwithstanding the imperative to remain an active participant in international R&D, a number of other issues arise in this context that will need to be

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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addressed by policy makers. For instance, how will the U.S. balance the risks and benefits of taking part in global MSE R&D, particularly in materials and technologies critical for the nation’s defense? How much domestic expertise and activity in key areas of MSE R&D does the country need to keep on the back burner in case the non-U.S. supply is cut off? How might the country choose which subfields are worth preserving in the United States? Which technologies and expertise must the country retain control of, and which does it simply need continued access to? These are the kinds of questions that the discussion leading to a national strategy will have to answer.

Maintaining Access by Managing the Education System and Maintaining an Infrastructure

Maintaining a domestic U.S. capacity to engage in international MSE R&D, to integrate non-U.S. R&D into U.S. systems, and to monitor and understand global MSE R&D and its impact on U.S. leadership will require the U.S. educational system to produce the MSE practitioners necessary to achieve these goals. As shown in this report, that system faces several challenges in this regard, including the increasingly broad curricula in MSE departments; the decreasing attractiveness of MSE as a career choice for high school and university graduates; and the continuing dependence of graduate programs on foreign students, who must be attracted to the United States in an increasingly competitive global market for the best students. It is not clear that the current MSE education system, including university research, is producing graduates with the depth of knowledge to meet the nation’s needs.

Because the health of the country’s MSE education system is of direct interest to the federal agencies that support MSE activities, such as DOD, NSF, and DOE, as well as to the materials industry, these agencies should cooperate to spell out the national educational needs in the field. Industry roadmaps identifying industrial needs could also be part of the effort to guide MSE education in the decades ahead.

Conclusion. The MSE education system, including K–12 mathematics and science education, will have to evolve and adapt so as to ensure a supply of MSE professionals educated to meet U.S. national needs for MSE expertise and to compete on the global MSE R&D stage. The evolution of the U.S. education system will have to take into account the materials needs identified by the federal agencies that support MSE R&D as well the needs of the materials industry.

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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A number of issues could be considered in examining the education system: the promotion of MSE as a career choice; overcoming the deficiencies of students entering MSE programs from the K–12 system; meeting the evolving needs of U.S. industry and other actors; the possibility of targeted financial support to encourage U.S. citizens to study materials; the possibility of setting minimum competences for graduate students working on master’s degrees in MSE; the role of smaller MSE educational programs, the correct balance between large and small departments, and the role of accreditation; and the best strategy to produce graduates competent in all four aspects of materials, including materials processing, an area in which the United States was already behind the rest of the world, according to the 2000 benchmarking report of COSEPUP.1 The key issue is how to produce the best possible corps of MSE graduates educated to meet the nation’s needs and to compete in the global MSE R&D theater.

Maintaining expertise and leadership will be based on a robust research infrastructure. The data presented in this report clearly illustrate the huge technical downsizing of the U.S. metals industry in the last few decades of the 20th century. As stated repeatedly herein, U.S. leadership is being challenged in the subfields of MSE. The well-documented reductions at once-dominant industrial materials laboratories, exemplified by the loss of much of the effort at Bell Laboratories, indicate the broad range of materials-intensive industries where the R&D infrastructure is being lost. A unique attribute of industrial R&D is that process methodology is not a final step, as often is the case in academic research. Rather, the development of a process methodology is a first step in the definition of a viable industrial route to production at the industrial scale. The function of this kind of industrial activity is to explore new technical areas that could be of business interest to the company, maintain an awareness of what is happening in university or government laboratories, and transmit these findings to the relevant business units. It remains unclear as to where such work will take place in the future as this industrial element of the national R&D infrastructure is eroded. How will science be brought to market?

Conclusion. There is a need to maintain a robust U.S. MSE R&D infrastructure whereby materials problems can be addressed and solved and the solutions verified, from laboratory through pilot scale.

1  

National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, Experiments in International Benchmarking of U.S. Research Fields, Committee on Science and Engineering Public Policy, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press (2000).

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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FINAL REMARKS

Addressing the needs that became clear during the course of this study, mitigating the risks identified, and answering outstanding questions—most of which boil down to matters of risk tolerance and management—require the nation’s public policy makers to formulate a national response strategy to the globalization of MSE R&D. The recommendations in this chapter provide a framework for a robust strategy that will assure a positive impact and outcome for the United States and the nation’s continued access to current MSE R&D. The framework is based on a series of initiatives that will benchmark MSE R&D in the United States, define the MSE R&D challenges and opportunities in meeting 21st century national security needs, manage an IP regulatory framework that supports U.S. MSE innovation in a globalized environment, and build a national infrastructure to support a global role for the United States. The challenge here is multidimensional and intrinsically interconnected across many agencies within the federal government.

In closing it is worth noting that the President’s mandate for defense transformation is to “challenge the status quo and envision a new architecture of American defense for decades to come.” In addition, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget has identified R&D for homeland and national security as a presidential priority. Number five of the top five priorities of the DOD Office of Force Transformation is to “discover, create, or cause to be created new military capabilities to broaden the capabilities base and to mitigate risk.” Achieving these goals will require each sector—that is, government, industry, and academia—to actively manage by means of a well-defined strategy its participation in the increasingly global research and development theater.

Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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Suggested Citation:"6 Conclusions and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2005. Globalization of Materials R&D: Time for a National Strategy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11395.
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Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) R&D is spreading globally at an accelerating rate. As a result, the relative U.S. position in a number of MSE subfields is in a state of flux. To understand better this trend and its implications for the U.S. economy and national security, the Department of Defense (DOD) asked the NRC to assess the status and impacts of the global spread of MSE R&D. This report presents a discussion of drivers affecting U.S. companies' decisions about location of MSE R&D, an analysis of impacts on the U.S. economy and national security, and recommendations to ensure continued U.S. access to critical MSE R&D.

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