At RealClearPolicy Peter Altabel (Unisys) and Reece Kurtenbach (Daktronics) post on the urgent necessity of reversing the U. S.’s “slide” in research and development. After outlining the scope of the problem as they see it, they proposed some solutions:
First, we need to get back to basics. The US must renew its traditional investment in basic research, but, given our fiscal problems, cannot indiscriminately spend. Policymakers should carefully consider basic research proposals across a broad range of disciplines with the potential to ensure national security and public health while enhancing economic resilience and competitiveness. Sectors such as semiconductors, biotech, power storage, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and advanced cyber networking will be the foundational areas of the next generation of technology.
We also have to leverage what’s worked. Public-private partnerships are at the heart of the US innovative ecosystem. Policymakers should develop a long-term roadmap for American innovation and technological leadership which takes full advantage of that tradition. They must collaborate with industry, universities, and nonprofits to prioritize research areas and to strategically disperse R&D investments across US geographies and populations.
Finally, we must grow the STEM workforce. Policymakers must solidify wide, inclusive pathways into the STEM workforce by focusing education on the requisite skills and increasing access to employee-connected internships and apprenticeships. Building STEM skills starting in K-12, increasing exposure to applied technologies, and offering stackable credentials that can build toward higher degrees are the first steps in developing the next generation of American entrepreneurs, inventors, and researchers.
Nice as those sound I think the problems are more basic. If we genuinely want to increase the amount of research and development being conducted in the U. S., we will need make some more basic changes to
- Immigration
- Trade
- Intellectual property
- The tax code
Immigration
The reality is that senior engineers and researchers don’t spring forth full-grown like Athena from the brow of Zeus. Trainees become junior engineers and researchers become senior engineers and researchers. Without that pipeline it doesn’t really matter how much money is devoted to R&D. Unless we restore that pipeline we won’t be doing more R&D we’ll just be paying more for R&D.
Becoming an engineer or researcher is hard work and, unless there is a reward in the form of a secure well-compensated job waiting at the end of the work American students won’t pursue careers in STEM. Real compensation in most STEM disciplines has been stagnant for decades due to a combination of a) importing workers and b) offshoring tasks that would previously have been assigned to trainees or junior engineers or researchers. That must stop.
Trade
Trade and immigration are practically inextricable. When production is offshored production engineering is necessarily offshored as well and design engineering quickly follows. If we want more R&D here, we must produce more of what we consume here. Simple as that.
Intellectual property
This next point will be even more contentious. I think that intellectual property law has become a net impediment to advancement rather an incentive for advancement. I would suggest the following:
- Restrict patents to innovations. Stop awarding patents for minor elaborations on existing inventions. That is particularly true in pharmaceutical patents.
- Either enforce patents strictly or abandon them altogether. In a global economy allowing foreign competitors to infringe U. S. patents while enforcing them in the U. S. imposes an impediment on U. S. companies. Make up your mind.
and while we’re on the subject of pharmaceutical patents an enormous amount of what passes for R&D in that area is actually marketing. Let’s not overstate how much actual R&D is being conducted here.
The tax code
This one is contentious, too. There are many reforms I would make in this area but the first would be current year expensing of all R&D expenses. Also cf. above: real R&D only, please.
That’s a start.
Interesting topic.
Back in the day, I was a classic process engineer (I guess you call it production engineer) which means cost, quality, productivity……..and commercialization. Taking it from the lab to the factory floor. All day long, 24/7. Although the steel industry was the butt of jokes on R&D, we had teams of metallurgists, electrical, mechanical and IT guys and gals working on projects. During my tenure we commercialized a paintable galvanized product, a deep drawing galvanized product and a very high strength and fatigue resistant hot rolled product for line pipe. Your car still has these products inside it. It doesn’t rust.
We introduced ladle (secondary) refining and tundish practices that all but eliminated breakouts. These projects could take months to a year. And this was just my team. I don’t know where efforts such as these stand these days. Our companies are too small for broad and deep R&D/commercialization efforts. But product development is routine. You don’t do this stuff with people who’s primary skills are stuffing tomatoes in boxes in packing plants……..and voting.
“Simple as that.” Yep, simple as that. Else Exen Dong Du will be doing the engineering.
IP – I know you have it in for pharma. I wonder if the marketingR&D issue extends broadly.
Taxes
There an awful lot of dry holes in R&D/commercialization. 1 yr. Its almost like they are expenses.
In most OECD countries R&D costs are expensed. No amortization.
All good points, especially immigration. Something like 30% of all the science and engineering faculty I met as a student and colleague were immigrants born and educated in other countries. The Depression and War years gave us a wave of European engineers and scientists. Nowadays it’s mostly East Asian. At tOSU my colleagues included Balinese, Czech, Chinese (4, mainland), Egyptian, German (2), Hungarian, Iranian (2), Lebanese, Mexican, Polish, and a couple of other Europeans. They all were hired because they were the best candidates available at the time. There was no political test then. One of the Germans had been a Luftwaffe pilot who served with Rommel in North Africa and France.
As a former engineering teacher, I think wokism is the biggest threat to all our STEM programs. The idea that mathematics, physics and the other natural sciences are somehow racist, and that aboriginal superstitions are comparable in truth-value to the sciences is actually destroying our ability to compete in the sciences and technology. Moreover, every STEM program in the country is pretty far down the road of requiring proven adherence to woke values as a condition for faculty hires. Politics determines who gets hired. You have to pass a political filter before you can be considered. There is even discussion, even at tOSU, of adding zampolits to each academic department to police faculty behavior and course syllabi.
Russia, with half our population, produces as many STEM graduates each year as we do, and they all are highly selected for ability and rigorously educated. China, with only four times our population, produces 10 times as many STEM degrees per year as we do, again all highly selected and well trained. They do not tolerate any woke nonsense in their schools.
Today, both Russia and China have erased any technological leads we once had, and modern Russian weaponry, especially rocketry, is at least one generation ahead of ours. Both Russia and China have modern, high-tech, diverse, comprehensive manufacturing sectors. China’s manufacturing sector is about 70% larger than ours, much more modern, and much more automated. China is now running out the Fourth Industrial Revolution based on the integration of AI and 5G. We’re not even in that race.
But they’re Byzantine on gay and transsexuals’ progress and rights.
the word is changing, steel and armaments are no longer our first line of defense. Solidarity with the transsexuals of the world is our best hope.
I can’t help but augment what bob sykes said. The profile of my professors was a bit different. Just one non-American: Prof Sato. A proverbial pulsating brain; smartest person I ever interacted with. Period, full stop. Japanese.
But bob and I come from similar perspective. We are talking blood and guts engineering. On a construction job site, in a design lab, on a factory floor. Real world. You find the people trained for this at tOSO (Hey! WTF happened at Mich two weeks ago?), Purdue, Mich, Mich State, IL, GA Tech, TX, Western MI, Lehigh etc. Do you note the prevalence of the MWest? Yes, Cornell, UCLA etc have fine programs. But you are not talking east/west coast “elites.” ‘Cause they ain’t elite. We buy into that bullshit in soft sciences.
You find the research types at Northwestern, MIT, Cal Tech etc. That’s fine. I chose a second tier industrial program at Illinois Institute of Technology for my Masters vs a materials science program at Northwestern because, well, I wasn’t going to specialize in exotic materials. I’m an industry man.
Give me the former all day long if I want to actually run a small to medium (500 employees) sized business. Sandia hires Cal Techers.
Do I think they engineers are underpaid? Yes I do. But that’s a value judgment. I think rappers and professional golfers are overpaid, too. But its the market.
But to the real point here: bob makes a crucial point. Wokeism is poison. The steves of the world don’t care, because he just regurgitates political talking points. Its all he cares about. But continue to infect science, like we have with covid, and we are in deep shit. China doesn’t give a shit if we self immolate. A nation needs a robust economy to be militarily safe. To have a robust economy it needs technological capability.
Not caring about what people with orange hair think.
Lot of wokeism where you work Drew? Me neither. When we do end up with some people who think systemic racism is real is it going to change what we do very much? Dont think so. We already hired some gay people and they work their 50 hours a week and do trauma like everyone else. Ok, the dyke does like to put pictures of pick up trucks on her mailbox but AFAICT that doesn’t affect work much. Having a hard time seeing whew would fall apart if we hire a trans person. Maybe you can explain that.
Steve
You wouldn’t have fit in in the Northwestern materials sciences department. Unless you speak Hindi then you would. At least that was true in my time.
It’s not that I don’t like folks from India. Actually I do and I get along quite well with them. But I dislike being cut out of conversations while people speak Hindi to each other and it happens to me all of the time.