Task Force on American Competitiveness Recommends More Investment in Defense Research

The U.S. may lose its edge in advanced military technology if it does not increase national investment in basic defense research, according to a new report issue by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation. The group, comprised of organizations from academia and industry supporting investment in basic research, notes that though military R&D spending is at a record-high, the share of Department of Defense (DoD) science and technology investment dedicated to basic research has declined from 20 percent to 12 percent over the past 25 years.

 

Measuring the Moment: Innovation, National Security and Economic Competitiveness depicts U.S. basic research in all areas as underfunded, and insufficient to the task of maintaining U.S. competitiveness. As emerging countries in Asia, especially China, rapidly increase their R&D investments, U.S. investment appears to be stagnant. Both Japan and Korea have already surpassed the U.S. in gross R&D expenditure as a proportion of gross domestic product. The U.S. faces an even more difficult challenge in competing against foreign universities. In 2002, only 17 percent of U.S. undergraduate students received a science and technology degree, while 52 percent of Chinese students did so. The task force study argues that these trends have already significantly eroded the U.S.’s high-tech advantage and require a comprehensive response exceeding current federal proposals. 

 

The current report is an update of findings originally published by the task force early last year (see the Feb. 28, 2005 issue of the SSTI Weekly Digest). That initial study was one of a series of similar publications that urged policymakers to increase federal funding for R&D and science and engineering education programs. These findings contributed to President Bush’s February unveiling of the American Competitiveness Initiative. Through this initiative, the Bush Administration plans to rally the country’s lagging basic research performance by dedicating $50 billion in new funding for R&D and $86 billion for R&D tax incentives over the next decade. This funding would double aggregate federal investment in physical sciences and engineering at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

 

The latest task force study recommends expanding the focus of the ACI to include basic research performed by DoD and to place a greater priority on defense-related computer science research. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has cut its support of computer science research in half in recent years, leading to a severe drop in university research into cyber security and other defense technologies. Other support programs, such as NSF’s Cyber Trust computer research program, lack the funding to generate the new discoveries needed by for national security.

 

The report also calls attention to the critical need for investment in the defense research workforce. Almost a third of DoD civilian science and technology workers are currently eligible to retire, and nearly 70 percent will become eligible within the next seven years. Though many high-tech sectors have come to rely on foreign talent to fill the post-baby boomer retirement gap, the DoD requires U.S. citizens to carry out security-related research. The task force analysis recommends more collaboration between universities and federal defense research programs.

 

Read Measuring the Moment: Innovation, National Security, and Economic Competitiveness, Benchmarks of Our Innovation Future II at: http://futureofinnovation.org/PDF/BII-FINAL-HighRes-11-14-06_nocover.pdf

 

Links to this paper and more than 4,500 additional TBED-related research reports, strategic plans and other papers can be found at the Tech-based Economic Development (TBED) Resource Center, jointly developed by the Technology Administration and SSTI, at: http://www.tbedresourcecenter.org/