US innovation policy: Creating (and expanding) a national agenda for global competitiveness

Abstract

SummaryWhile many critics of the state of US global competitiveness believed they were faint voices in the economic policy wilderness, their concerns were being heeded by a leading national economic policy group, the Council on Competitiveness. The National Innovation Initiative Report (Innovative America), released by the Council on Competitiveness in December 2004, presents a national innovation policy agenda (under three broad categories of Talent, Investment, and Infrastructure) for the public and private sector to debate. The Bush administration, under its innovation policy agenda (A New Generation of American Innovation and American Competitiveness Initiative) released in April 2004 and January 2006, has emphasized three major technology policy initiatives (hydrogen fuel technology, health information technology, and broadband technology development) and increased federal R&D funding and tax incentives (totaling $5.9 billion for FY07) respectively. The weakness of both policy agenda approaches is in the narrow interpretation of ‘innovation’; that is, focusing on the ‘technology’ side of innovation at the expense of market knowledge or organizational innovation In general, both public and private sector efforts need to be enlisted to encourage inter-organizational scientific and engineering communications across organizations and national borders (socalled ‘public spaces’); create an internal environment within US corporations that is conducive to, not only technological, but also organizational innovation; and develop metrics to measure an expanded national inventory of innovation activities – beyond that of traditional science and technology indicators.