Future R&D Environments A Report for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (2002) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix D: Workshop Summary
Appendix D: Workshop Summary
Pages 80-99
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From page 80... ...
The pull factors session focused on societal demand factors and the economic, social, environmental, and political needs and sensitivities that would promote or inhibit research and development in certain areas of science and technology as well as innovations based on that research. The contextual factors session considered issues such as changes in the organization and support of R&D in both the public and private sectors, educational goals of students and methods of delivering education, and patterns of investment by the private sector, all of which might be expected to change the process by which ideas move from research to product.
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From page 81... ...
In addition, on that last day, the template-ordered results were displayed and distributed, and the entire morning was devoted to brief reports from the breakout groups, followed by plenary discussion. The committee is the first to recognize that analyzing trends in science and technology by dividing them into push, pull, and contextual factors is arbitrary when discussing any particular technological development.
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From page 82... ...
Medical Devices and Instrumentation 1. There will be important advances in tissue engineering, based on better understanding of synthetic surfaces and how to characterize and modify them, and on improved understanding of cell membrane structure and function.
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5. There are new imaging techniques by which to study brain metabolism, which is enabling better interpretation of functional MRI images.
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3. The technology for organizing quantum dots into useful systems, which may be developed during the next 10 or 20 years, will have important applications in archival data storage devices.
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From page 85... ...
Speech recognition has been improving tremendously, but speech understanding under natural conditions requires a degree of context that is still not possible. Visual recognition will still be difficult, even with 100-fold CPU speed advances expected during the next decade, although existing capabilities are used routinely by the military for example, for target recognition by moving aircraft.
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From page 86... ...
They involve trade-offs and choices. For example, a person carrying his or her complete medical record may want total control over access to the record, but what if that person arrives in an emergency room unconscious?
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From page 87... ...
BREAKOUT SESSION 2: FINDINGS ON CONTEXTUAL FACTORS Organization of Research 1. Universities are important in fostering industrial innovation and speeding the commercialization of innovation, but needed changes in their organization and practices are taking place only slowly: .
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From page 88... ...
Alliances between companies can facilitate development and marketing and will be an important activity in the future. Alliances speed time to market and facilitate specialization and learning, but they also pose serious organizational interface challenges for and could cause conflict between longer-term strategic goals.
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From page 89... ...
For example, the orientation of the NIH toward specific diseases and disease hypotheses does not encourage the kind of multidisciplinary collaboration on basic phenomena that leads to fundamental advances even though it is not aimed at curing a particular disease.
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7. Despite globalization of R&D and innovation, regional clustering of innovation remains important because it concentrates resources and satisfies the need for critical mass.
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· New waves of innovation usually result in patent wars. The costs of litigation must be minimized.
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From page 92... ...
Also, the corporate status of state universities is not the same; some are more independent from state control than others. One participant pointed out that the groups did not address trends in the status or role of the DOE national laboratories.
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Consumers worldwide increasingly determine products and technologies, but there are significant regional differences in acceptance of new technologies (e.g., nuclear power, genetically modified organisms and foods, and medical devices)
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· In the United States, there is now general acceptance of genetically engineered drugs, such as :-PA and insulin, but growing concerns about genetically modified organisms and food. · Free markets tend to respond quickly to needs, and public attitudes in a democracy may be quickly modified in response to any perceived crisis.
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From page 95... ...
6. Popular views of technology may impede research in certain areas but promote it in other areas: · A substantial proportion of the public objects to the conduct of stem cell research and the creation of genetically engineered organisms (impede)
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5. There will be considerable demand for improved health technologies, and the direction of biomedical technology will influence the structure of health care itself: .
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Economic forces will push manufacturing closer to the source of natural resources and to end-use markets. This may reverse the flow of manufacturing from the United States in certain industries.
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From page 98... ...
Plenary Discussion of Pull Factors There was an extended discussion of the public response to technological change and research risks and what explains that response. Public opinion in
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From page 99... ...
Although the idea that scientists and engineers are rational and nonscientists are not is obviously simplistic, there was consensus that public understanding of science and technology should be increased. Another discussion ensued, this one on the difficulty of agreeing on the facts when negotiating international treaties, such as those on controlling global warming, biosafety, and patents, and on what the scientific bases for international standards are or should be for example, should the Kyoto Protocol be based on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?
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