U.S. R&D Policy Must Go Beyond Funding to Ensure More Federal Research Produces Innovation and Jobs, ITIF Testifies Before Senate Commerce Committee

WASHINGTON—Robert D. Atkinson, founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a leading science and tech policy think tank, today testified that in reauthorizing the America COMPETES Act, Congress has an important opportunity to do more than provide funding for research and development; it also can ensure that federally funded knowledge creation more effectively leads to innovation, competitiveness, and jobs.

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, Atkinson argued, “It is no longer enough to simply fund scientific and engineering research and hope it somehow produces commercial results. Federal R&D funding as a share of GDP is lower today than before the Russians launched Sputnik. This means the nation needs to be much more efficient about transferring discoveries into commercial applications. Otherwise, we risk slowing the pace of innovation even more.”

Atkinson added, “Other nations can now more easily take advantage of discoveries stemming from U.S. investment in R&D, so if America doesn’t commercialize its own R&D, then a competitor likely will. This is why reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act is so important: Congress has an opportunity to focus on improving the rate at which federally funded discoveries serve as catalysts for actual innovation and job creation.”

In his testimony, Atkinson emphasized that improving the efficiency of the U.S. scientific and engineering research system can provide significant benefits at lower cost than increasing funding alone. Moreover, continuing to underfund research while also not improving the efficiency of the system is a recipe for underperformance. The better alternative would be to provide more federal funding for R&D and a better commercialization and tech-transfer system.

Atkinson proposed a series of policy recommendations:

• Establish a “manufacturing universities” program focused on manufacturing-oriented research and teaching;
• Increase funding for commercialization activities;
• Increase funding for the Regional Innovation Program;
• Expand the share of the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget devoted to the Engineering Research Center and Industry & University Cooperative Research Center programs;
• Authorize into law the NSF I-Corps program;
• Support and reform the Small Business Innovation Research program, including allowing awardees to spend funds on commercialization activities;
• Increase support for the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership and modify the match requirement to a one-to-one match;
• Authorize and appropriate National Strategic Computing Initiative funding levels as requested in the administration’s FY 2017 budget; and
• Increase the supply of STEM talent by improving immigration and education policies, including by funding the administration’s computer science initiative.

“Given the decline in R&D funding and the dramatic increase in technological competencies of America’s competitors,” Atkinson said, “we can no longer simply hope that some R&D funding actually yields economic results. We can and must do better.”

Read the written testimony.