The Impact of the First Decade of the National Academy of Inventors

Abstract

Arthur Molella, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), authored an excellent historical review of the formation and the early impact of the NAI (1). Now, as we complete the first decade of the NAI, I will emphasize the importance of the intellectual revolution that the NAI has achieved for the betterment of academia and for our society as a whole. The NAI is much more than just a professional society since it spans all professions. Like the other national academies, the NAI's impact extends well beyond academia, expanding knowledge, capabilities, and employment in the private and government sectors as well. The NAI has brought the process of new knowledge discovery, which is primarily conducted in our major research universities, back into the broader service of our knowledge-based economy, returning to the vision and mission of higher education as embodied in our land-grant universities and expanded through the Smith-Lever Act of 1914. To understand the past benefit and future promise of the NAI, it must be viewed primarily as the transformative process that it is—one that works for the betterment of human-kind.