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James Turner
The Next Innovation Revolution
Laying the Groundwork for the United States
Nations seem most open to economic innovation when they feel threatened. En el
late 1970s the United States experienced this: slipping competitive position com-
pared to Japan convinced policy-makers that strategic adjustments to compete
were necessary. En 1979, President Carter’s Domestic Policy Review on Industrial
Innovation (DPR) provided a road map for optimizing U.S. society for innovation
and for responding to Japan’s industrial policy. While the DPR benefited from ear-
lier studies, it proved to be the right study at the right time.1 It championed coop-
eration among industry, universidades, and the government, then a fresh idea, y
promoted cooperative research among U.S. companies. And it systematically
examined federal policies to see what changes in law and administration policy
were needed to permit American researchers from all sectors to work together. El
resulting changes were neither entirely new ideas nor immediate, and innovation
policy had different emphases in each successive presidential administration. Pero,
looking back, it is clear that the DPR proposals led to revolutionary changes, ambos
within companies and in the ways they relate to other companies and universities
—and thus provided the nation with a significant competitive advantage.
But that advantage was temporary. Hoy, twenty-five years later, many in the
United States again feel threatened by international competition. The edge the U.S.
achieved through innovation policy changes in the 1980s and early 1990s has
largely disappeared. Other nations have adopted, and in some cases improved
upon, most of these policies. Estados Unidos. is now experiencing record trade deficits and
budget deficits and international competition is fierce. Una vez más, key American
companies are on the ropes.
Afortunadamente, the advent of the Internet and other key software developments
provide a new set of potential revolutionary changes in the way people and organ-
izations work together. Far-reaching opportunities are available to improve the
James Turner is Chief Democratic Counsel on the House Science Committee, y
except for three years, has served on that staff since 1977. He was involved at the staff
level in the development of much of the legislation mentioned in this article. The views
he expresses are his own and should not be construed as being the views of the
Committee or any of its members
© 2006 Tagore LLC
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James Turner
Nations seem most open to
economic innovation when
they feel threatened.
ways government and society are organized to relate to business and for compa-
nies to improve their internal and external relations. This will require legislative
and administrative revisions and behavioral changes by all involved. While the aca-
demic community and elements of the business community seem to be coalescing
around a proposed set of next
steps, A NOSOTROS. political leaders are less
unified than in the 1970s. El
jury is still out on whether the
A NOSOTROS. can develop a sufficiently
broad and ambitious common
visión, but the intense pressures
on industry may move other parts
of society toward their vision.
How will the U.S. respond? Will it, or other nations, achieve first-mover advantages
in this next round of restructuring for innovation? The answers to these questions
will affect the nation’s future well-being and competitiveness with other nations in
ways that we are only beginning to understand.
THE 1979 INNOVATION REVIEW
The United States was caught flat-footed in 1979 when Japan emerged as a manu-
facturing power and u.s. domestic cost of doing business was rising rapidly. El
A NOSOTROS. moved rapidly, from industrial dominance in autos, steel, and computers in
the 1960s and early 1970s, to such weakness in the late 1970s and early 1980s that
some key companies needed government intervention to survive. The United
States had not kept up with the times. Estados Unidos. economy was organized around
major vertically-integrated companies. They did their own research. They depend-
ed on volume and large inventories to deliver products on time. They dictated to
suppliers. Many of the federal government’s responses to these challenges were
short-term financial fixes: the Chrysler loan guarantee, support of chipmakers
through the SEMATECH consortium, and the Synthetic Fuels Corporation that
helped commercialize alternatives to crude oil. In time, a much more profound
and lasting impact came from a series of low- or no-cost policy changes to the
social capital of the U.S.: the set of policies that determines how efficiently the U.S.
can conduct business. Many of these changes were initially proposed during the
Carter Administration; most came to fruition in a modified form during the
Reagan years.
On October 31, 1979, President Carter unveiled the President’s Industrial
Innovation Initiatives, the result of an 18-month Domestic Policy Review (DPR)
carried out under the leadership of Jordan Baruch, then Assistant Secretary of
Commerce for Science and Technology, and involving approximately 500 privado-
sector participants and 250 representatives from 28 federal agencies. The initiatives
reflected a strong belief in the free enterprise system and an equally strong belief
in the federal government’s responsibility to nurture an environment in which
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The Next Innovation Revolution
industria, universidades, and government can function smoothly together. Baruch
and his colleagues sifted through many task force reports to come up with nine
priority areas, aimed largely at bringing together the strengths of industry, univer-
sities and government, especially in research. The president endorsed their work.
The initiatives package contained nine key proposals:
Enhance transfer of technological information to industry by expanding the
domestic and international capabilities of the National Technical Information
Servicio (NTIS).
Increase technical knowledge by creating generic technology centers at universi-
corbatas, funded jointly by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and industry,
through federal investment in developing the technologies that industry needs to
meet regulatory requirements, and by improving university-industry cooperation
in research and development.
Improve the patent system. Develop a uniform federal patent policy, establish a
single court for patent appeals, and improve public access to information held by
Estados Unidos. patent office, among other initiatives.
Clarify antitrust policy. Make it clear that collaboration on basic research is not
an antitrust violation and dispel the misconception that antitrust policy inhibits
innovation.
Foster the development of smaller innovative firms. Increase NSF’s nascent Small
Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and explore the possibility of
expanding it to other agencies. Have the Department of Commerce increase direct
equity investment in startups by promoting state or regional corporations for
industrial development. Make more venture capital available, and change agency
policies to increase the small business share of their R&D contracts.
Open federal procurement to innovations. Substitute performance specifications
for design specifications, focus on life-cycle costs rather than initial purchase price,
and pay special attention to small businesses.
Improve the regulatory system, including innovation waivers of regulatory
requisitos.
Facilitate labor/management adjustment to innovation, including a national
labor/technology forecasting system that would allow time to train and retrain
workers.
Maintain a supportive climate for innovation. Improve engineering and busi-
ness school curricula in technology management and innovation. Have the execu-
tive branch monitor innovation activities, including efforts to remove legislative
and administrative barriers to innovation.2
Thus a shift began, from companies acting as fiefdoms to sectors of society
working together. Breaking the initiatives down by sector, the DPR proposed spe-
cific initiatives to strengthen the innovation capabilities of all three sectors.
(cid:121) Businesses would benefit from antitrust and labor/management reform, SBIR,
the Corporations for Industrial Development, and patent reform.
(cid:121) Universities would benefit from patent reform, the development of innovation
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James Turner
curricula, and generic technology centers.
(cid:121) Government would benefit as NTIS strengthened information policy, as it built
up control over patents, and through reformed procurement and regulatory
practicas.
Legislative Response: The Carter Years
Work began almost immediately on these provisions to strengthen each sector’s
abilities to contribute to innovation, and two important bills were quickly enact-
ed. In October 1980, President Carter signed the Stevenson-Wydler Technology
Innovation Act of 1980 (Stevenson-Wydler Act). It authorized the Department of
Commerce and the NSF to create Centers for Industrial Technology at universities
to promote cooperative research with industry, assist small businesses and start-
ups, and develop curricula. It also created the Center for Utilization of Federal
Technology at NTIS, created technology transfer offices in the federal laboratories,
and established a National Technology Medal. Fifteen days later, Carter lost his re-
election bid to Ronald Reagan. In December, during a lame duck session, Congreso
passed, and Carter signed, the Bayh-Dole Act which began the process of establish-
ing a uniform federal patent policy.
Legislative Response: Subsequent Years
While President Carter’s Domestic Policy Review died with the start of the Reagan
revolution, the Stevenson-Wydler and Bayh-Dole Acts remained on the books. El
underlying problems that the DPR addressed did not go away. Dr. Baruch’s succes-
sor was Dr. Bruce Merrifield, Assistant Secretary for Productivity, Technology and
Innovation in the Reagan Administration. He and his staff spent the next several
years pushing their own versions of innovation reform. Although Bayh, stevenson,
Wydler, and most of their staffers left Congress at the end of 1980, some of their
colleagues who had helped write these laws stayed there or moved to the Reagan
Administration and continued the work. While the Reagan Administration kept
new domestic spending programs to a minimum for the next six years, some in
Congress were eager to work with the administration to address competitiveness
issues through structural reforms and tax policy. Major policy changes that did not
involve Federal appropriations sometimes passed with little or no opposition. En
hecho, during this period, innovation policies jointly developed by the Reagan
Administration and the Congress at least partially addressed all of the DPR areas
of concern, except for procurement and regulatory reform.
Key Reagan-Era Legislation Impacting Innovation
The version of the Bayh-Dole Act in place at the end of the Carter Administration
was far from the uniform federal patent policy that the DPR had recommended.
Opponents of the original Bayh-Dole Act strongly opposed the act as a giveaway
of federal property—even though that property had little or no value while in fed-
eral hands. There was little incentive to commercialize federally-funded inventions
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The Next Innovation Revolution
and the government retained up to 20,000 de ellos, unlicensed. The act passed only
after its sponsors made major concessions; one was limiting its applicability to
small businesses and non-profit organizations. This situation changed with
Reagan’s Presidential Memorandum on Government Patent Policy and Executive
Orden 12591, which made the Bayh-Dole Act applicable to all businesses unless
otherwise prohibited by law; later the 1984 Bayh Dole Amendments extended the
act’s provisions to federal laboratories and cleared up other problems.3 Since then,
the Bayh-Dole Act has been the dominant patent policy for federally-funded
inventions. Most of the other patent changes recommended by the Carter DPR,
including consolidating patent appeals in
one federal court, were also made during
the first Reagan term.
[A] shift began, de
companies acting as
fiefdoms to sectors of
society working together.
The Bayh-Dole Act, as amended and
implemented, ended a major barrier to
private-sector use of
federally-funded
investigación; university-industry cooperation
in research began to increase dramatical-
ly.4 The huge increase in patenting oppor-
tunities also led to unanticipated, funda-
mental changes in the way universities
operate and helped them become major economic players in their own right. Desde
the Bayh-Dole Act, universities have received billions of dollars in royalty pay-
ments from the licensing of federally-funded inventions and well over 1000 com-
panies have started up based on federally-funded patents.
Activity related to the act is still increasing rapidly. Por ejemplo, attendance at
the annual meeting of the Association of University Technology Managers has
risen from 50 the year the act was passed to over 5000 hoy, and legislation
inspired by Bayh-Dole has been enacted in most industrialized countries.
According to a 2002 article in the Economist, entitled Innovation’s Golden Goose,
the Bayh-Dole Act is “possibly the most inspired piece of legislation to be enacted
in America over the past half-century,” as it led to the creation of 2000 new com-
empresas, 260,000 new jobs, y un $40 billion annual increase to the U.S. economy.5 Before 1980, few universities had the capability to license inventions. Since the act passed, universities and government contractors routinely choose to retain rights to their inventions made under federal grants and contracts; their employee inventors generally share in any royalty streams from the licensing of the inven- ciones. The act and its incentives have contributed to a fundamental change in the relationship between universities and industry, and cooperation is occurring in ways never dreamed of a quarter century ago. In engineering schools, medical schools, and many science departments, some professors have moved from con- sulting with industry to participating in startups and holding financial stakes in the companies they assist. Many universities have moved beyond technology licensing and now actively support startup companies sometimes headed by a pro- fessor or graduate inventor; they even take equity positions in these companies. innovaciones / primavera 2006 127 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/1/2/123/704247/itgg.2006.1.2.123.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 INNOV0102_06-05-31_FINAL.qxd 6/6/2006 5:51 Página PM 128 James Turner Technology-based companies also are increasingly locating personnel at or near research universities to take advantage of university expertise. As of March 2006, the Association of University Research Parks had 134 members in 44 estados. The average park had 51 companies; altogether they had a total of 144,260 full-time employees and 23,506 students and interns working; 76 percent had current plans for expansion.6 Another key piece of legislation was the National Cooperative Research Act (NCRA) de 1984. En 1979 the DPR had stated that anti-trust laws are often mistak- enly understood as preventing cooperative basic research, even when doing so would foster innovation without harming competition. Corporations were gener- ally not interested in joint research because a couple of legal precedents indicated the potential for liability under federal antitrust law. This was also a time of great stress for the semiconductor industry; most U.S. semiconductor companies were young and not firmly established; por ejemplo, Robert Noyce of Intel had partici- pated in the 1978-9 DPR initiative as a small business representative. With large Japanese companies moving rapidly into the dynamic random access memory chip (D-RAM) negocio, the government agreed with the U.S. industry’s conclu- sion that it needed a research consortium (SEMATECH) to survive. The effort to form SEMATECH was the driving force behind the NCRA. NCRA reversed the burden of proof in joint research antitrust cases, whether basic or applied, and thus removed the incentive for private parties to bring joint research antitrust cases. Al hacerlo, NCRA began a chain of events that may have had even a larger impact on how technology-based businesses operate than Bayh- Dole had on universities. Overnight, attorneys changed their advice and joint research became fashionable. Large companies that had virtually no industrial partners in 1984 had acquired thousands by the early 1990s. Sucesivamente, many small high-technology businesses started up, partnering with large businesses that could now legally be major consumers of their research and development results. The speed and diversity of research and development accelerated; no longer could any company, no matter how large, depend only on its home-grown technology. As central corporate research labs declined, university startups began the rapid growth that continues to the present. The NCRA also led to a change in thinking about the very nature of antitrust. Just nine years later, the antitrust climate in the United States had changed so sig- nificantly that the act was expanded to include joint manufacturing when Toyota and General Motors decided to form a joint venture to make nearly identical auto- mobiles on the same assembly line. Companies that a decade earlier were afraid to do basic research together now were making cars together. While clearly the NCRA did not cause all these changes single-handedly, it freed businesses first to do research together and then to manufacture together, thus speeding the rate of change. And now, international antitrust law is harmonizing and joint manufac- turing occurs worldwide. A third key piece of legislation was the National Technology Transfer Act of 1986. It was based on a systematic look at what it would take to increase the flow 128 innovaciones / primavera 2006 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/1/2/123/704247/itgg.2006.1.2.123.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 INNOV0102_06-05-31_FINAL.qxd 6/6/2006 5:51 Página PM 129 The Next Innovation Revolution of commercial ideas from government laboratories to the private sector. Probably the most important innovation in this act was the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), which provided a legal means for laboratories and outside parties to work together without the formalities of a contract or coop- erative agreement. Over the years a huge body of boiler-plate conditions had been added to the federal acquisition regulations and the defense acquisition regula- ciones, creating a major impediment to executing relatively simple transactions. With a CRADA in place, some agencies could work out an agreement one week and begin collaborating the next.7 Included in the same act were a set of Bayh- Dole-like provisions that permitted federal inventors to share in the profits from their inventions. Experience had taught us that the laboratory compensation sys- tem did not reward employees for putting in the extra effort required to ready their inventions for commercialization. Revenues from the licensing of federal laborato- ry inventions have increased several hundred fold since this provision went into effect.8 By the end of the Reagan years, even the functions of the Centers for Industrial Development, a part of the Stevenson-Wydler Act that the Reagan Administration had chosen not to establish, reappeared in other forms. The NSF funded Engineering Research Centers at universities to promote university research that would solve generic industry problems and to integrate industry needs more thor- oughly in the agency’s research and development agenda. The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 contained several innovation initiatives; one was the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), centers to help small- and medium- sized manufacturers to modernize.9 This program was extended during the George H.W. Bush Administration and was implemented nationwide under President Clinton. Policies that Increased Research Funding In 1982, with the enactment of the Small Business Innovation Development Act, the SBIR program began to change, from an NSF experiment to the federal gov- ernment’s largest source of funding for small high technology businesses, fueling their rise. It implemented the DPR recommendations to enlarge the NSF’s pro- gram and to consider expanding it to other federal agencies. What was in 1982 a $5 million NSF program now awards over $2 billion in grants per year in eleven agencies. Initially, the program was quite controversial. Supporters had no hard data to back up their assertions that small businesses were the nation’s primary source of innovation in the economy. At the time it was passed, the most recent statistics available showed that only 5.5 percent of scientists and engineers worked for small businesses; agencies complained that they were being forced to fund research that was below the quality of peer-reviewed research. Congressional critics could not see enough technologically-based small businesses to fund, especially in areas like biomedical research that were traditionally the domain of universities and larger innovations / primavera 2006 129 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/1/2/123/704247/itgg.2006.1.2.123.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 INNOV0102_06-05-31_FINAL.qxd 6/6/2006 5:51 Página PM 130 James Turner companies. They also objected to funding the program through a set-aside from other research budgets rather than as a separately appropriated program. This sit- uation changed rapidly as the Bayh-Dole Act took off. Por 1988, with the first reau- thorization of the SBIR program, so many university-based small businesses were applying to the program that universities had mixed feelings and were reluctant to testify on either side. As the supply of money grew, so did the number and quality of small high-tech businesses, and the percentage of American scientists and engineers working for them increased several times over. Now these businesses could begin to match the rhetoric of the program’s early supporters. In later reauthorizations the program was changed to emphasize commercialization. Ahora, more and more countries around the world are developing their own versions of SBIR. All these develop- ments show that changes in the antitrust laws created a climate in which small high-technology could thrive, but it was federal money, channeled through the SBIR program and other initiatives, that led to the rapid expansion of their num- beres. The Reagan Administration was the first to object that grants to individual companies might artificially create winners and losers in the marketplace. But it had no problem with subsidizing industries across the board through tax policy. Most of this effort went into reducing tax rates, but the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit of 1981 provided a partial tax credit for increases in industrial R&D. En el 25 years since that provision became law, it has never been made permanent. It has lapsed several times and is lapsed now, and five major changes have been made in its structure. Economists differ on the level of its effec- tiveness, especially given its tenuous nature, and on whether it targets the right research. Other countries have studied and copied it. Por ejemplo, Japan recently enacted an R&D tax credit that addresses some of the weaknesses in the U.S. pro- visión, and other nations have enacted similar, but more generous, credits. If the law ever gave the U.S. a competitive advantage, it is now greatly diminished. University research was one of the few areas where the Reagan Administration was willing to increase funding; federal funding of university research increased 50 percent during these years, and NSF funding doubled between 1983 y 1990.10 De hecho, science funding continued its upward trajectory until George W. Bush’s sec- ond term, although it was increasingly weighted towards biomedical research. This growth in research funding contributed to the emergence of the modern research university, along with the Bayh-Dole Act and closer university-industry coopera- ción. Without these changes in the law, the current practices in university-industry cooperation would never have been possible. Without the increased funding, the huge increases in licensing, startups, and other novel relationships between indus- try and academia would not have occurred. Por lo tanto, it is fair to say that the increase in research money to the universities played a catalytic role in emphasiz- ing research, not unlike what the SBIR program did for small businesses. 130 innovaciones / primavera 2006 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/1/2/123/704247/itgg.2006.1.2.123.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 INNOV0102_06-05-31_FINAL.qxd 6/6/2006 5:51 Página PM 131 The Next Innovation Revolution Total Quality Management Although it was not part of the DPR Innovation agenda, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, established near the end of the Reagan Administration, played a significant role in closing the competitiveness gap with the Japanese. It established a national standard for quality in business operations and promoted the DPR goal of facilitating labor-management adjustment to innovation. One irony of the U.S. decline in competitiveness in the 1960s and 1970s is that the Japanese looked to American mathematicians and engineers, including Joseph Juran and Edwards Deming, for the business methods that helped them transform their economy. En efecto, Juran and Deming began working with the Japanese only after they had failed to popularize their ideas in the United States. The Japanese took their ideas and turned them into an art form. They stress five key actions: focus on internal and external customers, focus on areas most needing improve- mento, involve all employees in quality and honor the highest achievers, and strive for continuous improvement. The Japanese named their highest quality award after Dr. Deming. By the 1980s, some major U.S. companies were adopting the Japanese approach to quality. John Hudiburg, CEO of Florida Power and Light, decided to compete for the Deming Award and the Japanese obliged by creating a Deming category for overseas companies. Hudiburg imported Japanese experts to train his workforce in quality theory and methods. Frustrated after several years of trying to create a Presidentially awarded U.S. quality award in the private sector, en 1985 he proposed House of Representatives Science Committee Chairman Don Fuqua that he introduce legislation creating a U.S. equivalent of the Deming Prize; Hudiberg even provided quality experts to help write the statute. With the untimely death of Commerce Secretary and close presidential friend Mac Baldrige in July 1987, the Reagan Administration began to support the legis- lation once its sponsors agreed to name it after Baldrige, whose industrial career had been in manufacturing. The bill quickly cleared Congress and Reagan signed it that August. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Program was established at the National Institute of Standards and Technology; its quality guidelines for man- ufacturing, small businesses, and service companies rapidly became an interna- tionally recognized standard for quality that was emulated around the world, including in Japan. President Reagan underscored the importance of quality by personally presenting the first set of Baldrige quality awards. A federal quality pro- gram based on bringing Total Quality Management (TQM) to federal government activities was established the following year. Standards Policy In 1996, through the National Technology Transfer Advancement Act (NTTAA), Congress finally addressed the two final DPR areas: making the regulatory and procurement systems more efficient. Defense Secretary William Perry had under- taken an aggressive program of phasing out military specifications in defense con- innovaciones / primavera 2006 131 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/1/2/123/704247/itgg.2006.1.2.123.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 INNOV0102_06-05-31_FINAL.qxd 6/6/2006 5:51 Página PM 132 James Turner tracting, replacing them, wherever possible, with voluntary consensus standards used in the private sector. Now the Defense Department could buy many off-the- shelf components and products that were much cheaper than products manufac- tured to unique military specifications. NTTAA extended this concept to all the government’s purchases and regulatory activities: it is now required to use volun- tary consensus standards wherever practicable, and government employees are encouraged to participate on the committees that write the standards. Since then, federal agencies have made substantial progress ending use of government-specif- ic standards; they have made less progress in having employees help develop con- sensus standards and in identifying areas where the development of new voluntary consensus standards would benefit the government.11 Looking Back: The Value of the DPR The Carter Administration proposed substantial changes in the way companies work together and the way that industry, gobierno, and universities cooperate, hoping these changes would increase the nation’s competitiveness posture. Carter did not remain in office long enough to put much of its agenda in place. But the Reagan Administration and its successors headed down a very similar path and eventually put in place much of what the Carter DPR had hoped for. The results exceeded expectations, at least temporarily, and let the nation maintain its supremacy in innovation. Other pre-existing factors were essential to the success of the U.S., including its meritocratic tradition, its relatively large and open domes- tic markets, its treatment of bankruptcy as a learning experience, and its tradition- al openness to talent from overseas. The DPR proposals and the Reagan era initia- tives plugged gaps in the U.S. legal framework regarding innovation and built on the existing policies to place the United States in a unique position to blossom. Although that period of leadership eventually ran its course, it still provides a model for how the U.S. can lay the groundwork for further advances in innovation today. TODAY’S CHALLENGE. WILL THE U.S. LEAD OR FOLLOW IN THE NEXT INNOVATION REVOLUTION? Tremendous advances in communications technology, including the Internet and broadband, have irreversibly changed the world of innovation. It is now so easy to share work and to get data from anywhere that organizational boundaries have begun to blur. Estados Unidos. no longer needs to focus on convincing sectors of society to work together closely because everyone in society is by definition much closer together. While individual companies, educational institutions, and governmental entities still need substantial internal restructuring before they can function as lean, innovative entities, this is no longer enough.12 The U.S. must now think on a larger scale: How can the U.S. move beyond supply chains that connect together companies and their suppliers to value chains that add in the other parts of socie- 132 innovaciones / primavera 2006 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/1/2/123/704247/itgg.2006.1.2.123.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 INNOV0102_06-05-31_FINAL.qxd 6/6/2006 5:51 Página PM 133 The Next Innovation Revolution ty who have an interest in a given problem, including government at all levels? To succeed, the U.S. must now shift its focus to a common language, a common vision, and ultimately to adopting a common way of doing business across indus- intentar, universidades, and government as well as other pertinent parts of society. Digitization and Data almost The information component of innovation policy once again is king but in a way that participants in the DPR could never have imagined. The DPR focused on making sure that NTIS was collecting paper copies of as much government-gener- ated and foreign technical literature as possible; now the key to future innovation is the availability, anywhere, any time, of huge amounts of data in digital informa- ción. Information that a decade ago would have taken days to assemble and understand, once in digital form, is available and use- ful instantaneously, thanks to search engines and data mining software. Groups of peo- ple no longer have to be in the same location to work together. Work can literally continue 24 hours a day; some tasks are now routinely handed off from one time zone to another. With digiti- zación, even three-dimensional data can enter huge data pipelines made possible through fiber optics, and through advances in communications software and graphics. Hoy, if information is not in digital form, we see it as antiquated and clumsy; it presents a competitive disadvantage to both the company that does not digitize and to its customers. How can the U.S. move beyond supply chains that connect together companies and their suppliers to value chains that add in the other parts of society who have an interest in a given problem, including government at all levels? Take health care as an example. An article in the January 2005 on-line issue of the journal Health Affairs predicted that $78 billion a year could be saved by mov-
ing to electronic patient records in a network with open communication stan-
dards.13 That $78 billion is the savings just from improved infrastructure. It does not include the impact of the innovations that become possible only after digitiza- ción. Por ejemplo, because digital x-rays contain more complete and more search- able data, they can probably be read by an experienced technician anywhere in the world with the same or better precision than a conventional x-ray can be read by the best trained personnel in the best hospital in the world. Por lo tanto, President Bush’s push for digital medical records makes sense and should be accelerated. The more quickly all sectors of the U.S. economy move to digital databases, the better. innovaciones / primavera 2006 133 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/itgg/article-pdf/1/2/123/704247/itgg.2006.1.2.123.pdf by guest on 08 Septiembre 2023 INNOV0102_06-05-31_FINAL.qxd 6/6/2006 5:51 Página PM 134 James Turner Common Standards: Sharing Data in a Usable Form Transforming data to digits and making broadband widely available are both nec- essary to enhanced competitiveness—but not sufficient.14 The data must also be formatted and organized in a way that is generally understandable and easily retrievable. Consider a situation that arose late in 2000: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) vinculado 148 deaths and more than 525 injuries in the United States to separations, blowouts, and other tread problems of Firestone tires on Ford Explorer vehicles. Apenas 200 lawsuits were filed against Ford and Bridgestone/Firestone following crashes involving the tires. Encima 6.5 mil- lion tires were recalled. The lawsuits and recalls cost the companies well over $1
billion. This was a tragedy of very large proportions for the companies and the
families involved; today it could be minimized through the use of digitized data,
collected in a usable form.
En 2000, the Ford Explorer value chain, the various organizations concerned
with auto components, such as tires, at various points in their life cycles, acted as
separate entities with their own standards and data sets. Ford and its supply chain
manufactured and sold autos. Firestone and its supply chain manufactured and
sold tires with identifying numbers that could be traced to factory and day of man-
ufacture, but this information was not available outside the Firestone supply chain.
The companies that took care of autos over the rest of their useful lives did not col-
lect systematic data on tire wear. State motor vehicle departments oversaw semian-
nual safety inspections of autos, including tires, using their own state standards to
measure how close tires were to failure on the date of inspection, but this data was
not coordinated with the tire’s history, and after the tire passed inspection, los datos
were not saved. NHTSA investigated the accidents and made recall decisions, usando
a fourth, independent data stream: data on the actual tire failures. As a final inde-
pendent step, trial lawyers and the courts used another set of standards to redis-
tribute huge amounts of company resources in an imperfect, after-the-fact attempt
to make victims and their families financially whole. Data existed that could have
prevented the tragedy, but it had been collected in suboptimal electronic form and
was never made available to those who needed it.
Using the technology available today for data collection and analysis, the inter-
ested parties could collectively develop voluntary consensus standards that would
provide a common set of rules governing automobile life cycles, including those of
tires. We would then have a baseline on the properties of tires and components
when they are manufactured, and the ability to trace and measure changes in the
components throughout their useful life, and we would understand what is accept-
able wear for the component. In addition to end-of-life safety, which is already
monitored, we could detect abnormal wear problems much earlier in the compo-
nent’s life cycle and detect and address them before the first accident occurred.
Since data would be available on all tires and other critical components, the scope
of any recall could be carefully circumscribed, thereby avoiding damage from acci-
dents and from adverse publicity. Since the standards of the inspectors and regu-
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lators would also be the standards of the manufacturers and repairers, corrective
actions would be much easier to undertake. Standards development is yet another
area where the Internet and software advancements have revolutionized the way
we do business. Standards can now be developed on-line with participation from
all affected parties in as little as three months; not long ago such a process would
take years to complete.15
In making standards compatible, one key issue is addressing legacy problems.
The Internet did an amazing job of connecting everyone, but it did not make sure
that the computers on the ends of those connections spoke the same language.
Most factories and their computer systems predate the Internet; when they were
designed, no one was concerned to make their software systems compatible with
those of their suppliers, customers, and other factories making the same product.
A substantial amount of standardization and retooling has occurred but we still
need product data exchange standards that will allow us to translate data from one
design and manufacturing system to another. En 2002, Congress passed legislation
to accelerate the development of these standards in key manufacturing sectors but
the work has never been a top Bush Administration priority and has received only
minimal funding.16 Developing solutions to communications problems between
software systems ranks with digitization and broadband implementation as a nec-
essary precondition for unleashing the huge advantages made available by the
Internet and related software.
Spreading Lean across the Business Community: Using Standards to Address
Product Life Cycles
Firestone and Ford suffered both from not having common standards across a
value chain and from the inability to measure products over their lifetimes. Allá
are many other areas of the economy where thanks to the Internet and related soft-
ware advancement, we now should be able simultaneously to save money and
improve public health and safety by considering product life cycles. Consider the
current building industry. It is a mixture of craftsmen, architects, engineering
companies, suppliers, financiers, insurers, realtors, building code officials, y
local regulators who form different teams for different construction projects. Cada
building has its own life cycle that involves utilities, remodelers, owners and oper-
ators, users, financiers, and insurers. Without standards that permit easy, relative-
ly accurate measurement of the likely costs of construction decisions over a build-
ing’s lifetime, builders will not pay a little more for improvements that will save the
building’s owners and operators a lot more in future years, thereby creating
tremendous waste. Por ejemplo, buildings often do not stand up under extreme
conditions because first-time cost savings almost always trump life-cycle durabili-
ty, seguridad, and energy efficiency. Highly efficient, but more expensive heating and
cooling units or appliances are not used as often as they should be. And people
constructing buildings rarely consider ease of repair or provide for the ability to
upgrade easily to new technology.
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Sección 914 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires the Department of
Energy to contract with the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) a
upgrade building standards so all segments of the building sector can use them to
diseño, construir, and operate high-performance buildings on a life-cycle
basis.17To survey the current state of standards, NIBS has formed a High
Performance Buildings Council that includes a wide cross-section of organizations
interested in the design, construction, operación, and retrofitting of buildings over
their useful lives. As a second stage, the department is to contract with appropriate
standards development organizations to upgrade their existing standards and to
fill in any gaps they identify that are not otherwise being corrected. The goal of the
section is to provide a common standards language that permits all interested par-
ties—from architects to realtors to banks and beyond—to make their decisions
based on a combination of life-cycle costs and the ideal building attributes for a
specific location. If this effort succeeds, it should force out much of the waste in
the current system.
The standard should provide ways to coordinate building data with geospatial
datos. If building permitting goes digital, it will be possible to coordinate the data
currently assembled for individual buildings by building permit offices with all
other geographically organized data, including that from hundreds of databases
coordinated through the United States Geological Survey.18 Of course this requires
appropriate security provisions, but the potential is enormous. Por ejemplo, pre-
cise data on past flooding or windstorms could lead to informed decisions about
the appropriate use of specific parcels of land. Historical weather records could be
analyzed to determine whether adding a solar energy system, a heat pump, or extra
insulation makes sense financially at a specific location. Data from the various
transportation departments could help determine how to best use buildings and
how much parking to add. Geological data could determine whether a ground
source heat pump makes sense. Such data also has life cycle uses. Por ejemplo, el
baseline data on the size and construction of buildings collected by building per-
mit offices, when combined with energy use records on individuals held by utility
companies, could indicate which buildings are candidates for an energy upgrade.
If the floor plans and information on construction materials now locked in paper
form at building permit offices were available in searchable electronic form to first
responders, emergency response to a fire or an earthquake could be more effective
and timely.19
The regulatory world contains many examples of where the adoption of value
chains using common standards over product life cycles could lead to dramatic
improvements over current practices. Consider pharmaceuticals. A NOSOTROS. decisions on
drug efficacy and safety are based on a costly system of trials that usually occur
before the product is used by the general public while data on drug use after
approval is fragmented. Once the medical industry goes digital, a vast amount of
actual use data potentially could become available to the entire pharmaceutical
value chain including pharmaceutical manufacturers, investigadores, physicians,
pharmacists, users, and regulators, among others. Appropriate standards are much
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The Next Innovation Revolution
more difficult than in the Ford-Firestone example, because privacy of personal
medical records is a paramount concern. If these problems can be surmounted, nosotros
will better understand dosage, drug interactions, and useful life of products. El
digital availability of this information as in the case of Ford-Firestone also leads to
the possibility of a complete revamping of the regulatory process where drugs can
enter the market more quickly, where we have a more precise understanding of
who is affected adversely by the product, and where product adjustments and
recalls can be done more quickly and with less adverse economic effect.
The manufacturing sector has learned from experience that it usually takes ten
or more iterations and several years to progress to a highly efficient, lean supply
cadena, but the initial savings are real and large. It will be at least as difficult to move
entire business sectors—including their customers and regulators—towards lean
operations on a life-cycle basis, but the benefits promise to be worth the effort.
Además, the advantages to first movers will eventually cause companies to com-
pete to modernize before their competition.
Outside of manufacturing, the lean movement in industry has begun in
earnest but is still in its early stages. In March 2006, IBM Enterprise Business
Services released the results of its survey of 750 of the world’s top CEOs and busi-
ness leaders; solo 20% of CEOs feel they have been highly successful in restructur-
ing but 65% del 750 plan to change their companies radically in the next two
years to respond to market forces. Two-thirds of their efforts are now targeted at
innovations in their business models and operations and 61% fear that changes in
a competitor’s business model could radically change their industry. De estos
CEOs, 76% consider collaboration essential and the rate of collaboration is high-
est in emerging markets. The CEOs also feel that competitive, dynamic suppliers
are already available making their external obstacles to collaboration less severe
than the internal ones.
Extending Quality to Other Sectors
Emphasizing quality, with a focus on data and customers, is an excellent way for
companies to prepare for post-Internet innovation. Experience with the
President’s Quality Award (PQA) and state quality programs verified that the prin-
ciples that have modernized so many American companies are equally applicable
to other sectors of society. En 1999, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award
was extended beyond business as categories were added for education and health
care. En 2005, a non-profit category was added that includes government. Ahora,
every type of organization can aspire both to winning a Baldrige award and to
meeting Baldrige criteria that set the standard for quality.
The Congressional sponsors of these changes anticipated that school adminis-
tration and business functions would become much leaner. They were pleasantly
surprised when some schools used Baldrige principles to empower teachers and
estudiantes. The schools provided students with their educational goals and showed
them the steps to take to reach higher levels in reading or mathematics. The stu-
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dents then worked towards achieving those levels, measured their own perform-
ance, and made much more rapid progress. If these practices could be spread more
widely, they would trigger a major advance in competitiveness. Not only will stu-
dents from schools practicing quality be better prepared to enter the workforce,
but they will enter the workforce with an innate understanding of, and substantial
experience in applying, quality principles to their daily work.20
Much of the waste in the educational process is related to the imperfect inter-
faces between schools at various levels and between schools and their students’
empleadores. Often students need remedial education so to bring them to the point
where they can do entry-level work at the next school level or for an employer.
Equally wasteful is the repetition that high-performing students have to endure
because a school cannot effectively evaluate
what they learned at their previous schools.
Idealmente, schools should work jointly with
their institutional customers—the organi-
zations who employ or continue to educate
their students—to develop common cur-
riculum standards that meet their needs.
Currently most school standards are one-
size-fits-all, either regulations coming from
third parties like departments of education
or proprietary standards from testing
organizations like the Educational Testing Service. While these regulations and
standards have the potential to reduce some waste, they cannot be as efficient as
standards that reflect the needs of the student’s next school or employer.
The ultimate goal in the
A NOSOTROS. should be to move
from lean manufacturing
to a lean society.
Here is an area where some of the Baldrige winners have made great progress.
The University of Wisconsin-Stout has jointly developed curricula with several
Wisconsin community colleges and works closely with several hundred potential
employers on practical work experience and courses related to the employers’ spe-
cific needs. This process enables community college students to earn a four-year
degree that is relevant to their future employment and eliminates much of the
need for future employers to offer training to new employees.21
The President’s Quality Award (PQA) program and state award programs have
shown great promise in bringing the values of the quality movement to the public
sector. The advantages have been most apparent in times of crisis. Although we
have no detailed studies yet, we do have strong evidence that organizations like the
Coast Guard and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which had adopted these prac-
tices, were much better prepared for Hurricane Katrina and much more successful
in their response than organizations like FEMA that had not adopted modern
business practices.
Desafortunadamente, en 2001, the Bush Administration chose to change the PQA.
Ahora, instead of measuring an agency’s performance against Baldrige criteria, él
measures progress in achieving the administration’s top-down, bureaucratic goals
for the agency.22 But the non-profit Baldrige category promises a new beginning.
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The Next Innovation Revolution
This year the program will test run its non-profit categories using the winners of
state quality awards (SQAs). The logical next step would be to establish quality
awards in the various agencies based on Baldrige criteria and to maintain the pres-
tige of the Baldrige Award by allowing only the winners of agency quality awards
to compete for the Baldrige. NIST should also consider establishing a quality sub-
committee within its Interagency Standards Committee to help coordinate agen-
cies’ efforts to redesign for quality.
Common Work Culture
The ultimate goal in the U.S. (as well as elsewhere, as appropriate) should be to
move from lean manufacturing to a lean society. The extension of the Baldrige
award criteria to all segments of the economy gives the United States the chance to
move to the next level of social capital: a common culture and a common set of
principles for interacting professionally with others across the entire society. Si
American universities, gobierno, and industry all adopted the common com-
mitment to serve their customers, many of the barriers of dealing with each other
would disappear over time, and the U.S. would have a definite advantage over
institutions abroad that are less responsive. Estados Unidos. would move beyond the goal
of running government efficiently, to using government to promote public health
and safety and the common good in harmony with the private sector. Rather than
being threatened by government, business would participate with all interested
parties, including regulators, in developing common standards that serve as a com-
mon basis for doing business and meeting public needs.
If done right, regulation would move from quality control to quality, in an ana-
log to manufacturing’s revamped approach to quality. Just as manufacturing
defects in a six-sigma company are largely a thing of the past, violations of health
and safety standards would also become highly unusual, ending the need for after-
the-fact inspections and recalls. Regulation designed in harmony with manufac-
turers becomes just-in-time regulation applied at the appropriate time in the least
obtrusive way. Under this scenario, government programs designed to serve indus-
try also will need a revised mission. The Manufacturing Extension Partnership
(MEP), described earlier, was set up to serve small businesses by helping them
modernize their manufacturing processes and layouts. A post-Internet MEP, en
minimum, will help small businesses serve their customers by helping them to dig-
itize and to qualify for the most sophisticated supply chains. Potentially, the pur-
pose of MEP will be to help bring about the lean society’s value chains, incluido
helping government agencies that fund or regulate small businesses go lean them-
selves.
Relatively rarely does industry turn to universities for help with its research
problemas. Despite the huge increase in the talent they now enroll, universities cur-
rently perform only 1.7 percent of industrial research, at a time when corporations
are contracting out virtually anything that can be done cheaper and better else-
dónde. This percentage has barely changed over the last 50 years.23 Industry and
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James Turner
universities both offer their explanations for this situation, but the main reason is
the gap between the two cultures. Universities prize curiosity-driven research; cor-
porations want research that will solve specific problems and improve the bottom
línea. Industry is dealing with quarterly earnings and shorter and shorter product
cycles. Even in their activities that ostensibly serve industry, universities tend to
place a higher priority on publication than on commercialization, and on the aca-
demic calendar than the business calendar.
If universities adopt quality and the lean philosophy, the customer will become
the king and the organization will constantly look for ways to better meet the cus-
tomer’s needs. Those universities that wish to attract a larger share of research
funding will realize their primary competition is outside academia. They will learn
why industry funds this work. To compete, they may need to become just-in-time
suppliers of applied research, offering service equal to that of the businesses now
supplying the research—even if this means structural changes. Just as companies
that have mastered quality and leanness often become suppliers of choice and grow
rapidly, the first universities that master these concepts will have an immense com-
petitive advantage over other schools; they will also gain access to a largely
untapped source of research funding that is several times what government can
and will spend on university research.24
Equally great potential for change exists in the medical sector, if digitization
and improved standards can pull all parts of the medical value chain together. X-
rays are just the beginning of how digital enhancement will improve capabilities to
analyze data and deliver better care. New value chains, such as those connecting
sensors, emergency technicians, visiting nurses, doctors, and emergency rooms, son
already beginning to allow patients to stay in their homes longer and will, encima
tiempo, have a dramatic impact on Medicaid costs. Other medical costs will join
pharmaceuticals in facing downward pressures as the Internet helps us move
towards a worldwide standard of care and increases consumer choice in the med-
ical services.25
CURRENT INNOVATION PROPOSALS
In December 2004, the Council on Competitiveness, an organization of presi-
dents of major universities and CEOs of major companies, put forward a ten-
point plan entitled “Innovate America” which focused on education and worker
retraining, increased appropriations and tax breaks for research, y creando
Innovation Extension Centers to strengthen manufacturing and investing in the
next-generation Internet. The report also dealt with social capital, though it
offered more concepts than details. Among the Council’s suggestions were these:
reduce the cost of tort litigation by one half, develop a White House innovation
estrategia, develop new metrics to understand and manage innovation more effec-
activamente, develop best practices for setting collaborative standards, and establish
standards for an integrated healthcare system and expanded electronic health
reporting. Based on this report, bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the
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The Next Innovation Revolution
Senate that would authorize increased spending for federally-funded research
and would have the National Institute of Standards and Technology coordinate
federal manufacturing initiatives.26
The American Electronics Association subsequently issued a report, “Losing
the Competitive Advantage? The Challenge for Science and Technology in the
United States,” which made several suggestions: lower barriers to immigration for
high-skilled workers, enforce intellectual property worldwide, improve educa-
ción, increase the same research programs as suggested by the Council on
Competitiveness, and provide incentives to promote broadband and cellular pen-
etration.28 In late 2005, the National Academies followed with a report, “Rising
above the Gathering Storm” that provided an expanded list education reform
propuestas, and called for increased R&D funding and related tax breaks, también
as many of the reforms advocated by the American Electronics Association.
Legislation to implement many of the National Academies’ recommendations
has been introduced by Senators Lamar Alexander, Jeff Bingaman, and Pete
Domenici in the Senate and by Congressman Bart Gordon in the House of
Representatives. The president’s budget for fiscal year 2007, released early in
2006, includes a few of the research and development funding proposals, pero
largely pays for them through cuts to existing programs in manufacturing and
research and development. This was followed by a House Republican competi-
tiveness initiative that includes the president’s research and development funding
aumenta, selected tax incentives, incentives for improved technology in the
healthcare system, and changes in tort law including making it easier to disbar
trial attorneys. Más tarde, a second set of House Republican bills tried to accomplish
some of the National Academies’ goals through amendments to existing pro-
gramos.
Since all these initiatives are in the early stages of the legislative process, es
unclear right now whether legislation to authorize competitiveness will be enact-
ed in 2006 or what final form it might take. Initial signs from the appropriations
committee indicate that programs related to competitiveness would be slightly
better funded in the aggregate compared to recent years. This year’s experience to
date also reconfirms that it is easier and quicker to fund legislative solutions to
perceived problems than to update the legal framework. Todavía, as the U.S. moves
adelante, it will have to do both, if it is to reestablish a strong competitive posi-
ción. Estados Unidos. will have to think deeply about how it can take advantage of new
opportunities and about the related changes these opportunities will require in
law, regulación, and the way the approaches its jobs and its customers.
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NEXT STEPS AND COMMON VISION
Is a common vision, leading to a lean society, possible today? At the local level,
clearly it is. Municipalities or clusters that embrace digitization and telecommuni-
cations advances and that promote quality throughout their communities clearly
will be highly desirable places to carry out business and will be able to respond to
opportunities quickly and with a united voice. Local governments have a major
impact on local economic development; their leaders rise and fall according to how
well the local economy is doing. This is the governmental level at which econom-
ic reality comes closest to being the same as political reality. Most major compa-
nies plan to restructure dramatically in the next couple of years; this trend will only
accelerate as the pressures they feel reverberate through supply chains.
Communities will come to understand that lean companies will need lean research
partners and lean government in addition to lean suppliers. Those who learn this
first will have a tremendous competitive advantage and the local communities that
host their competitors will quickly follow their leads.
It is harder for the federal government to reach consensus on major policy
cambios; generally it can make big changes only in the direction of public opinion.
When industry progresses to the point where external inefficiencies cause more
problems than internal inefficiencies, consensus for change at the federal level will
develop. Entonces, national politicians will pay attention and be able to act. Will this
happen in the United States sooner or later than overseas? We don’t know. As a
nación, the United States still has major advantages. It is a country that thrives on
challenges, and does its best at times like the present when it feels threatened. El
A NOSOTROS. is also clear on the general direction it must take and have begun to prepare
for the time when federal action is possible. As a representative democracy the U.S.
moves more slowly than authoritarian countries but the U.S. has an advantage:
ideas that make it through the legislative process tend to be highly refined and
well-reasoned. Just as in 1979, as the U.S. begins to lay the groundwork for the next
innovation revolution, it is starting a process that will twist and turn and will take
more than one administration to implement. Estados Unidos. will have less time than in
1979, because innovations become international much more quickly than ever
antes, but the U.S. also has tools to act more quickly than it did in the 1980s and
1990s. The process it is beginning will yield impressive, but unpredictable results.
To make sure that efforts are both timely and world-class, a coordinated effort will
be necessary.
We invite reader comments. Correo electrónico
1. En 1968-69, the Industrial Research Institute conducted a workshop entitled Research-on-
Investigación, funded by the National Science Foundation, that recommended establishing one or more
university research centers. No university ‘centers’ had emerged through the early 1970’s. In the
meantime, ‘Industrial Innovation’ gained attention on the national scene via the 1971-72 publica-
tion of the Arthur D. Little ‘Charpie Report,’ sponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce. El
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The Next Innovation Revolution
including administration submissions,
report called attention to shortcomings in the U.S. system of government policies and to industrial
management practices that threatened U.S. economic progress because they failed to understand
and appreciate the social and economic effects of industrial innovation. Under President Nixon, a
White House study of the problem discussed in the Charpie Report was launched. Three initiatives
emerged: The Experimental Technological Incentives Program (ETIP) in the Department of
Commerce; the Experimental Research and Development Incentives Program (ERDIP) in the NSF;
and the National R&D Assessment (RDA) programa, also in the NSF. Throughout the 1970’s, el
RDA program and its successor, the Division of Policy Research and Analysis, supported academic
research on the nature and effectiveness of industrial R&D/innovation management practices, con
an eye toward assessing the impact of government policies (p.ej. on patents, taxes, the environment,
and the SBIC) on ‘the rate and direction of industrial innovation’ in the U.S. Por 1975, this program
had established a liaison between the IRI and the NSF but by 1978, it was forced to close down for
financial reasons.
2. The DPR was unveiled on October 31, 1979, at a joint hearing of four committees: the Senate’s
Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and its Select Committee on Small Business,
and the House Committees on Science and Technology and on Small Business. The hearing tran-
is printed as Committee Print No. 69 del
script,
Committee on Science and Technology for the 96th Congress and is generally available at federal
depository libraries.
3. See the hearing record on the Uniform Science and Technology Research and Development
Utilization Act, House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology publication 86 para
the 96th Congress and House Report 98-983, Part I.
4. While most commentators feel that Bayh-Dole was probably the catalyst for rapid growth,
Mowery et al. argue that it is impossible to know for sure because the biotech industry was emerg-
ing at the same time. See David Mowery, Richard Nelson, Bhaven Sampat, and Rosemary Ziedonis
“The Effects of the Bayh-Dole Act on U.S. University Research and Technology Transfer,” Chapter
11 in Lewis M. Branscomb, Fumio Kodama and Richard Florida, editores, Industrializing Knowledge:
University-Industry Linkages in Japan and the United States (Cambridge MA: CON prensa, 1999).
5. The anonymous Economist article is reproduced at the end of a May 24, 2004 speech by Senator
en
Birch
publicaciones, including an anonymous 2005 article in Fortune, entitled “The Law of Unintended
Consequences,” have lamented the resultant changes in universities.
6. Ver
Jackie Kerby-Moore’s March 2, 2006 presentation entitled Research Parks: Cataloging America’s
Competitive Edge and for more in-depth information on the growth of research parks at universi-
ties and government laboratories.
7. The Department of Energy is the exception in the use of CRADAs. It was not interested in having
CRADAs apply to its National Laboratories in 1986 o, after the law was changed in 1989, to permit
National Laboratory CRADAs. The department’s rules for implementing CRADAs have never per-
mitted DOE CRADAs to reach their potential.
8. National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators.
9. El 1988 Trade Act also established the important Advanced Technology Program (ATP), cual
was designed to address the problems innovative companies have in finding patient capital during
the technology development stage of the innovative process. [What is patient capital? Investors who
are willing to wait?] A highly successful pilot program under George H. W.. Arbusto, it grew dramati-
cally during the first two years of the Clinton Administration, only to be reduced to a fraction of its
original planned size and placed under constant attack as a “corporate welfare” program once the
Republican Party gained control of Congress in 1994. The closed DPR recommendation to ATP was
to aid small businesses through state or regional cooperation for economic development. Ironically,
state technology programs became strong enough to be effective partners just a few years later, pero
by then the political window for amending the program had closed. I believe that if we in the leg-
islative branch had been able to move to the DPR formulation, the program would have developed
Institutes
National
Salud
Bayh
el
en
de
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a national constituency like that for the MEP program and it would no longer be in political dan-
ger.
10. National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators.
11. Under the National Technology Transfer Advancement Act, the Secretary of Commerce is
required to report to Congress annually, on both government use of standards and federal employ-
ees’ participation in developing voluntary consensus standards.
12. I use the word lean in this context in the same way that James P. Womack and Daniel T. jones
use it in their Lean Thinking (Nueva York: Free Press, 2003). I argue that the same basic principles
these authors apply to manufacturing can be and are being applied to other aspects of U.S. sociedad.
13. Ver
journal’s estimate of $75,000 annual savings per doctor is too high, huge savings are clearly possi-
ble.
14. The most recent Organization for Economic Cooperation data indicate that broadband use is
growing rapidly worldwide; in just the second half of 2005, it grew by 16 por ciento. Estados Unidos. has the
largest total number of broadband subscribers but ranks 12th in per capita broadband use (16.8%
penetration as compared with world leader Iceland’s 26.7% penetration). The number of business-
es and consumers with the option to buy the technology is also expanding rapidly. Ver
15. This information comes from private discussions with senior executives at the American Society
for Testing and Materials.
16. Public Law 107-277 established a four-year program that would have led to the development of
product data exchange standards for each major sector of the manufacturing and construction
industries. The program did not go forward because appropriations to carry it out were not provid-
ed.
17. Public Law 109-58, Sección 914, Agosto 8, 2005.
18. Estados Unidos. Geological Survey plans to have a searchable data base for geospatial information func-
tioning by June 30, 2006. For a description, see National Geospatial Programs Office: A Plan for
Acción
19. En 2001, the federal intergovernmental committee that studies mapping adopted the national
grid as the standard for federal agencies. Four years later, FEMA’s failure to have software for geospa-
tial mapping in its Emergency Operations Centers hampered its response to Hurricane Katrina vic-
tims. See “Which Way to the National Grid,” National Journal, Abril 29, 2006, páginas. 59-60.
20. Two school systems have been leaders in the effort to empower students: those in Pinellas
County, Florida and in Chugash, Alaska; the latter was a 2001 winner of the Baldrige Award. Its
experience is described on the award’s website:
ished grades in favor of having students work to meet standards that are often more advanced than
state graduation standards.
21. Information on Wisconsin-Stout also can be found on the Baldrige website:
22.
links President’s Quality Award
23. Science and Engineering statistics in this article are derived primarily from the National Science
Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators.
24. Through its University-Industry Demonstration Partnership, the Government-University
Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR) of the National Academies is working to remove barriers
to university-industry cooperative research by sharing information on best practices and develop-
ing such aids to cooperation as the TurboNegotiator data base. Ver:
25. See Really St. En otra parte,” National Journal, Puede 13, 2006, for a discussion of the role health
insurers play in lowering costs by internationalizing routine surgery.
26. For the report text, ver:
27 For the report text, ver:
to Bush management agenda”
See “OPM
144
innovaciones / primavera 2006
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