ssti features

Twelve states have gubernatorial races in this year’s elections. After Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was recruited for the vice presidential ballot, Indiana voters have current Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb on the ballot as the Republican candidate for governor. Some states have incumbent governors seeking re-election, including Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

In Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game — a New York Times bestseller by Michael Lewis from 2003 – the author focuses on the successful approach of Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Oakland Athletics and its general manager Billy Beane’s use of an analytical, evidence-based, sabermetric approach to assemble a competitive baseball team. Conventional wisdom of the time focused on traditional scouting and non-advanced statistics.

Using the latest data update of the National Science Foundation’s National Patterns of R&D Resources series, this article, the third and final of SSTI’s series on basic research, describes how the performers of R&D and basic research in the U.S. have changed over time.

The second in SSTI’s series on basic research, this article focuses on the ways that the funding sources of R&D and basic research have changed over time. Ultimately, the nature of basic research – long horizons, unknown rewards, and high costs – indicates why some sectors, namely the private sector, may seek shorter term options. A better understanding of the changing nature of funding sources for basic research may be useful in understanding the current state of research and development in the U.S.

Innovation in the United States, once a hallmark of economic success, finds itself resting on an increasingly weak foundation, according to an article in The New York Times. The author, Eduardo Porter, suggests that two trends – increased international competition and a stagnant R&D-to-GDP ratio – pose key challenges for the U.S. First, government funding for basic research continues to fall and is politically vulnerable. Second, evidence suggests that American corporations are walking away from basic science as well. Each of these challenges, Porter notes, bodes poorly for American progress. Using a variety of data sources, this Digest series provides a long-term analysis to assess how basic research has changed over time within the larger context of research and development in the United States.

Under the assumption that regulations place an unnecessary strain on the innovative free-market companies that create the jobs and industries needed to drive the economy, liberalization is oftentimes the go-to policy prescription for states or countries hoping to spur innovation. Although proponents of deregulation cite incidents of government overreach and inefficiency as evidence of the state suppressing the market’s innovativeness, the government does not always hinder innovation, according to articles featured in the January 2015 issue of Foreign Affairs.