Winning the Economic War
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Winning the Economic War The Business of Science Hazel R. O'Leary The following is an edited transcription of the plenary address given by U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary at the 1993 MRS Fall Meeting.
Tonight, I'm not going to talk about the Department of Energy's role in support of materials research because there is a bigger issue that we need to be talking about—the role science and technology can and must play in driving the U.S. economy. We ought to be focusing on the real business of science, and, like it or not, science is a business. In the Clinton administration we are focusing on using science and technology as a strategic weapon and on what I'm calling the new war, the economy war. Why would the administration and I be saying that? If you recall, the theme of the campaign waged by Bill Clinton was the economy. Then early on, when he took leadership, he staged an economic summit, and immediately joined in a partnership with Al Gore to begin focusing on science and technology and articulating clearly the goals that he saw for driving the economy. People quite clearly didn't focus on the Department of Energy during that early dialogue. Most people had no idea that the national laboratories exist, that there is a strong nexus between the labs and the research community and, perhaps most importantly, that there is great work going on in materials research, much of it supported through the Department of Energy's budget. We've learned as business people that we really don't want to focus on the budget alone and that the Department has a great sum of money to invest in this area. The real issue is what happens with that budget. Now, in the old days, the United States was a major player in terms of economic competitiveness. Until around the early 1980s, there was no question that the United States was dominant in science and technology and certainly in economic prowess. Much of that prowess came out of focusing on materials, and a great deal of it resulted from the Department of Energy's focus on national security.
MRS BULLETIN/MARCH 1994
We focused on shaping what the nation wanted to address in science and technology, at that time, national security, by asking what it takes to keep America safe from the threat, first of all, of communism and then, certainly, of the nuclear bomb. Interestingly enough, some people understood and talked about dual technology then. They've been talking a great deal about it lately, and my friends who are scientists and technologists can clearly point to the fact that national defense was then the primary focus, and that science was a sometimes almost secret study and production that took place behind very high walls. Today, that's not the case.; Some, but certainly not all in this crowd, would say that the United States hasn't Jost the economic war. Nevertheless, we're surely
If you can't tie the work we're all doing to increasing the GDP, that work is not likely to gain the support it needs. not head and shoulders above Western Europe and Japan the way we
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