Science Policy
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SCIENCE POLICY Incorporating WASHINGTON NEWS and policy news from around the world.
Broad Federal Effort Urgently Needed to Create New, HighQuality Jobs in the United States The U.S. National Academies recently released a report calling for a comprehensive and coordinated federal effort to bolster U.S. competitiveness in order to enable the country to consistently gain from the opportunities offered by rapid globalization. The ultimate goal, said the study committee, is to create new, highquality jobs by developing new industries that stem from the ideas of exceptional scientists and engineers. The congressionally requested report— written by a 20-member committee that included university presidents, CEOs, Nobel Laureates, and former presidential appointees, and chaired by Norman R. Augustine, retired chair and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp. (Bethesda, Md.)— makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that federal policymakers should take to create highquality jobs and focus new science and technology (S&T) efforts on meeting the country’s need for clean, affordable, and reliable energy. Some actions will involve changing existing laws, while others will require financial support that would come from reallocating existing budgets or increasing them. The committee said that ongoing evaluation of the results should be included in all of the measures. The report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, recommends that policymakers increase the national investment in basic research by 10% each year over the next seven years. Special attention should be paid to the physical
sciences, engineering, mathematics, and the information sciences, and to basic research funding for the U.S. Department of Defense, the report said. It also said that policymakers should establish within the U.S. Department of Energy an organization called the Advanced Research Project Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) that reports to the undersecretary for science and sponsors “out-of-the-box” energy research to meet the country’s long-term energy challenges. Authorities should make 200 new research grants annually—worth $500,000 each, payable over five years—to the nation’s most outstanding early-career researchers, the report said. In its call for innovation, the report said that policymakers should provide tax incentives for innovation based in the United States. The Council of Economic Advisers and the Congressional Budget Office should conduct a comprehensive analysis to examine how the United States compares globally as a location for innovation and related activities, with the goal of ensuring that the States is one of the most attractive places in the world for long-term investment in such efforts. The Research and Experimentation Tax Credit is currently available to companies. To encourage private investment in innovation, this credit should be made permanent, and Congress should increase the allowable credit from 20% to 40% of qualifying R&D investments, according to the r
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