Is America Falling Off the Flat Earth? (2007) / Chapter Skim
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THE COMPETITIVENESS EQUATION -- THE RESEARCH ENTERPRISE
THE COMPETITIVENESS EQUATION -- THE RESEARCH ENTERPRISE
Pages 54-60
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From page 54... ...
The funds must provide for modern laboratories and instrumentation and must sup port the conduct of research itself. As President Bush observed, "It's research that will keep the United States on the cutting edge." Although the research establishment in America remains extremely productive, ample warning signs are to be found in considering the future.
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From page 55... ...
, the United States is in 22nd place in the fraction of GDP devoted to nondefense research. • Federal annual investment in research in the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering combined is equal to the increase in US health care costs experi enced every 6 weeks.
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From page 56... ...
The return to society as a whole from investment in research often far exceeds the rewards to the corporate underwriter or performer of an individual piece of research. In addition to the implicit riskiness and uncertain applicability of investment in basic research, there is always the matter of its long-term nature, not uncommonly involving a decade or more of effort before results can be introduced into the marketplace.
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From page 57... ...
To obtain insight into the answer to that question, consider a result of a survey by the National Bureau of Economic Research: 80% of the senior financial executives questioned said they would be willing to forgo funding R&D to meet their public projections of nearterm profitability. Then consider that the outstanding value of derivative contracts worldwide recently reached 8 times the value of all the homes and land in the United States and over 5 times the combined yearly output of all the world's nations.
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From page 58... ...
Real funding of basic research by DOD has been essentially flat for 30 years in spite of the growing overall defense budget and the grow ing importance of technology to national security. Its science and engineering workforce 5
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From page 59... ...
The recent century's most decisive new military capabilities -- such as the atomic bomb, night vision, stealth, digital computers, precision-guided missiles, nuclear propulsion, precision geolocation, space surveillance, and the airplane -- all had their roots in new discoveries and innovation. America's national security challenge has been complicated by the ongoing transition of the nation from a manufacturing economy to a service economy.
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From page 60... ...
Instead, in its two (sadly prescient) major findings, the bipartisan group warned that a major terrorist attack would probably take place on US soil and pro duce thousands of casualties, and stated that "the inadequacies of our system of research and education" pose a threat to national security "greater than any potential conventional war that we might imagine." It noted that, "second only to a weapon of mass destruction detonating in an American city, we can think of nothing more dangerous than a failure to manage properly science, technology, and education for the common good." 0
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