44

of slightly greater concern to respondents than are issues of national security and terrorism. On the eve of the 2004 presidential election, the Gallup organization asked respondents what issues concerned them most. Terrorism was first, ranked “extremely important" by 45% of respondents; next came the economy (39%), health care (33%), and education (32%).** Only 35% say that now is a good time to find a high-quality job; 61% say that it is not." Polls, of course, only provide a snapshot of America's thinking, but presumably one can conclude that Americans are generally worried about jobs—if not for themselves then for their children and grandchildren.

45

Investors are worried, too. According to a Gallup poll, 83% percent of US investors say job outsourcing to foreign countries is currently hurting the investment climate “a lot” (61%) or "a little" (22%). The numbers who are worried about outsourcing are second only to the numbers who are worried about the price of energy, according to a July 2005 Gallup poll on investor

concerns.

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DISCOVERY AND APPLICATION:

KEYS TO COMPETITIVENESS AND PROSPERITY

A common denominator of the concerns expressed by many citizens is the need for and use of knowledge. Well-paying jobs, accessible health care, and high-quality education require the discovery, application, and dissemination of information and techniques. Our economy depends on the knowledge that fuels the growth of business and plants the seeds of new industries, which in turn provides rewarding employment for commensurately educated workers. Chapter 2 explains that US prosperity since World War II has depended heavily on the excellence of its "knowledge institutions": high-technology industries, federal R&D agencies, and research universities that are generally acknowledged to be the best in the world.

The innovation model in place for a half-century has been so successful in the United States that other nations are now beginning to emulate it. The governments of Finland, Korea, Ireland, Canada, and Singapore have mapped and implemented strategies to increase the knowledge base of students and researchers, strengthen research institutions, and promote exports of high-technology products-activities in which the United States has in the past excelled.47 China formally adopted a pro-R&D policy in the middle of the 1990s and has been moving rapidly to raise government spending on basic research, to reform old structures in a fashion that supports a market economy, and to build indigenous capacity in science and technology.

48

The United States is now part of a connected, competitive world in which many nations are empowering their indigenous "brainware" and building new and effective performance

43 ABC News-Washington Post poll, June 2-5, 2005, 1,002 adults nationwide. Of those polled, 30% rated the economy and jobs of highest concern, 24 % rated Iraq of highest concern.

44. Dennis Jacob, Gallup chief economist, in "More Americans see threat, not opportunity, in foreign trade: Most investors see outsourcing as harmful." Available at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/default.aspx?ci=14338 . 45 Frank Newport, Gallup poll editor-in-chief, “Bush approval, economy, election 2008, Iraq, John Roberts, civil rights" Aug. 9, 2005. Available at http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=17758&pg=1.

Gallup poll, June 24-26, 2005, ± 3% margin of error, sample size 1,009. Available at

http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=17605&pg=1 on 14 Sept. 2005.

47

OECD. Main Science & Technology Indicators, 2005. Available at:

http://www.oecd.org/document/26/0,2340,en_2649_34451_1901082_1_1_1_1,00.html

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China's Science and Technology Policy for the Twenty-First Century—A View from the Top, Report from the US Embassy, Beijing, November 1996.

partnerships—and they are doing so with remarkable focus, vigor, and determination. The United States must match that tempo if it hopes to maintain the degree of prosperity it has enjoyed in the past.

ACTION NOW

Indeed, if we are to provide prosperity and a secure environment for our children and grandchildren, we cannot be complacent. The gradual change in England's standing in the world since the 1800s and the sudden change in Russia's standing since the end of the Cold War are but two examples that illustrate how dramatically power can shift. Simply maintaining the status quo is insufficient when other nations push ahead with desire, energy, and commitment.

49

50

Today, we see in the example of Ireland how quickly a determined nation can rise from relative hunger to burgeoning prosperity. In the 1980s, Ireland's unemployment rate was 18%, and during that decade 1% of the population mostly young people-left the country, largely to find jobs. In response, a coalition of government, academic institutions, labor unions, farmers, and others forged an ambitious and sometimes painful plan of tax and spending cuts and aggressively courted foreign investors and skilled scientists and engineers. Today, Ireland is, on a per capita basis, one of Europe's wealthiest countries." In 1990, Ireland's per capita GDP of $12,891 (in current US dollars) ranked it 23rd of the 30 OCED member countries. By 2002, Ireland's per capita GDP had grown to $32,646, making it 4th highest among OECD member countries. Ireland's unemployment rate (as a percentage of the total percentage of total labor force) was 13.4% in 1990. By 1993, it had risen to 15.6%. By 2004 unemployed declined to 4.5%. Since 1995, Ireland's economic growth has averaged 7.9%. Over the same time period, economic growth averaged 2% in Europe and 3.3% in the United States.

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31

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History is the story of people mobilizing intellectual and practical talents to meet demanding challenges. World War II saw us rise to the military challenge, quickly developing nuclear weapons and other military capabilities. After the launch of Sputnik4 in 1957, we accepted the challenge of the space race, landed twelve Americans on the moon, and fortified our science and technology capacity.

Today's challenge is economic-no Pearl Harbor, Sputnik, or 9/11 will stir quick action. It is time to shore up the basics, the building blocks without which our leadership will surely decline. For a century, many in the United States took for granted that most great inventions would be homegrown—such as electric power, the telephone, the automobile, and the airplane— and would be commercialized here as well. But we are less certain today who will create the next generation of innovations, or even what they will be. We know that we need a more secure Internet, more-efficient transportation, new cures for disease, and clean, affordable, and reliable sources of energy. But who will dream them up, who will get the jobs they create, and who will profit from them? If our children and grandchildren are to enjoy the prosperity that our forebears

49 William C. Harris, director general, Science Foundation Ireland, personal communication, Aug. 15, 2005.

50 Thomas Friedman. The End of the Rainbow. New York Times. June 29, 2005.

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OECD, OECD Factbook 2005. Available at: http://puck.sourceoecd.org/v1=2095292/cl=23/nw=1/rpsv/factbook/

OECD, OECD Factbook 2005. Available at: http://puck.sourceoecd.org/vl=2095292/cl=23/nw=1/rpsv/factbook 53 Robert Samuelson. The world is still round. Newsweek. July 25, 2005.

*4 The fall 1957 launch of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite, caused many in the United States to believe that we were quickly falling behind the USSR in science education and research. That concern led to major policy reforms in education, civilian and military research, and federal support for researchers. Within a year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and DARPA were founded. In that era, science and technology became a major focus of the public, and a presidential science adviser was appointed.

earned for us, our nation must quickly invigorate the knowledge institutions that have served it so well in the past and create new ones to serve in the future.

CONCLUSION

A few of the tiles in the mosaic are apparent; many other problems could be added to the list. The three clusters discussed in this chapter share a common characteristic: short-term responses to perceived problems can give the appearance of gain but often bring real, long-term losses.

This report emphasizes the need for world-class science and engineering-not simply as an end in itself but as the principal means of creating new jobs for our citizenry as a whole as it seeks to prosper in the global marketplace of the 21st century. We must help those who lose their jobs; they need financial assistance and retraining. It might even be appropriate to protect some selected jobs for a very short time. But in the end, the country will be strengthened only by learning to compete in this new, flat world.

2

WHY ARE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CRITICAL TO
AMERICA'S PROSPERITY IN THE 21st CENTURY?

Since the Industrial Revolution, the growth of economies throughout the world has been driven largely by the pursuit of scientific understanding, the application of engineering solutions, and continual technological innovation.1 Today, much of everyday life in the United States and other industrialized nations, as evidenced in transportation, communication, agriculture, education, health, defense and jobs, is the product of investments in research and in the education of scientists and engineers. One need only think about how different our daily lives would be without the technological innovations of the last century or so.

2

The products of the scientific, engineering, and health communities are, in fact, easily visible the work-saving conveniences in our homes; medical help summoned in emergencies; the vast infrastructure of electric power, communication, sanitation, transportation, and safe drinking water we take for granted.3 To many of us, that universe of products and services defines modern life, freeing most of us from the harsh manual labor, infectious diseases, and threats to life and property that our forebears routinely faced. Now, few families know the suffering caused by smallpox, tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, cholera, typhoid, or whooping cough. All those diseases have been greatly suppressed or eliminated by vaccines (Figure 2-1).

We enjoy and rely on world travel, inexpensive and nutritious food, easy digital access to the arts and entertainment, laptop computers, graphite tennis rackets, hip replacements, and quartz watches. Box 2-2 lists a few examples of how completely we depend on scientific research and its application-from the mighty to the mundane.

Science and engineering have changed the very nature of work. At the beginning of the 20th century, 38% of the labor force was needed for farm work, which was hard and often dangerous. By 2000, research in plant and animal genetics, nutrition, and husbandry together with innovation in machinery had transformed farm life. Over the last half-century, yields per acre have increased about 2.5 times, and overall output per person-hour has increased fully 10fold for common crops, such as wheat and corn (Figure 2-2). Those advances have reduced the farm labor force to less than 3% of the population.

1 Another point of view is provided in Box 2-1.

2S. W. Popper and C. S. Wagner. New Foundations for Growth: The U.S. Innovation System Today and Tomorrow. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. The authors state: "The transformation of the U.S. economy over the past twenty years has made it clear that innovations based on scientific and technological advances have become a major contributor to our national well being," p. ix.

3

One study argues that "there has been more material progress in the United States in the 20th century than there was in the entire world in all the previous centuries combined," and most of the examples cited have their basis in scientific and engineering research. S. Moore and J. L. Simon. The greatest century that ever was: 25 miraculous trends of the last 100 years. Policy Analysis No. 364. Washington, DC: Cato Institute, Dec. 15, 1999. "National Research Council. Frontiers in Agricultural Research: Food, Health, Environment, and Communities. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2003.

Similarly, the maintenance of a house a century ago without today's labor-saving devices left little time for outside enjoyment or work to produce additional income.

The visible products of research, however, are made possible by a large enterprise mostly hidden from public view-fundamental and applied research, an intensively trained workforce, and a national infrastructure that provides risk capital to support the nation's science and engineering innovation enterprise. All that activity, and its sustaining public support, fuels the steady flow of knowledge and provides the mechanism for converting information into the products and services that create jobs and improve the quality of modern life. Maintaining that vast and complex enterprise during an age of competition and globalization is challenging, but it is essential to the future of the United States.

Box 2-1

Another Point of View: Science, Technology and Society

For all the practical devices and wonders that science and technology have brought to society, it has also created its share of problems. Researchers have had to reapply their skills to create solutions to unintended consequences of many innovations, including finding a replacement for chlorofluorocarbon-based refrigerants, eliminating lead emissions from gasoline-powered automobiles, reducing topsoil erosion caused by large-scale farming, researching safer insecticides to replace DDT, and engineering new waste-treatment schemes to reduce hazardous chemical effluents from coal power plants and chemical refineries.