Science Policy

  • PDF / 97,122 Bytes
  • 2 Pages / 612 x 792 pts (letter) Page_size
  • 60 Downloads / 163 Views

DOWNLOAD

REPORT


SCIENCE POLICY Incorporating WASHINGTON NEWS and policy news from around the world.

National Innovation Act Introduced in Senate Senators John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) introduced in December 2005 comprehensive bipartisan legislation to maintain and improve U.S. innovation in the 21st century. The National Innovation Act (S. 2109), which is based on “Innovate America,” the National Innovation Initiative Report of the Council on Competitiveness, focuses on three primary areas of importance: research investment, increasing science and technology talent, and developing an innovation infrastructure. “The number of jobs requiring technical training is growing at five times the rate of other occupations,” Lieberman said. “However, the average number of students studying and entering these fields is declining, and the average age of the U.S. science and engineering workforce is rising. Our legislation will significantly increase federal support for graduate fellowship and traineeship programs in science, math, and engineering fields in order to attract more students to these fields and to create a more competitive and innovative American workforce.” To promote innovation, the bill establishes the President’s Council on Innovation to develop a comprehensive agenda to promote innovation in the public and private sectors and establishes the Innovation Acceleration Grants Program, which encourages federal agencies funding research in science and technology to allocate 3% of their research and development (R&D) budgets to grants directed toward high-risk frontier research. Furthermore, the bill increases the national commitment to basic research by nearly doubling research funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) by FY 2011 and encourages the development of regional clusters (“hot spots”) of technology innovation throughout the United States. The bill seeks to modernize science and education by expanding existing educational programs in the physical sciences and engineering by increasing funding for NSF graduate research fellowship programs as well as Department of Defense science and engineering scholarship programs; by authorizing the Department of Defense to create a competitive traineeship program for undergraduate and graduate students in defense science and engineering that focuses on multidisciplinary learning and innovation-oriented studies; and by authorizing funding for new and existing professional science master’s degree programs to increase the number of qualified scientists and engineers entering the workforce. MRS BULLETIN • VOLUME 31 • FEBRUARY 2006

Among incentives to encourage innovation, the legislation seeks to make permanent the research and experimentation tax credit, with modifications expanding eligibility for incentives to a greater number of firms. Senator Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), a cosponsor of the legislation, said, “China and India alone graduate 6.4 million from college each year and over 950,000 engineers. The United States turns out 1.3 million college graduates and 70,0

Data Loading...