ACS Position Statement

Statement on U.S. Innovation: Critical Needs for a Sustainable and Secure Future

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Position in Brief

  • The U.S. is losing ground to global competitors that invest more in STEM research and education.
  • The U.S. should focus on sustained investment in STEM education, commitment to long-term basic research, and programs that produce new products and job opportunities in America.

Innovation is built upon a solid, basic-research effort in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Fundamental advances in these fields feed applied research, which ultimately creates new marketable products and enabling technologies, fuels creation of new jobs, and stimulates economic expansion. A trained workforce with strong math and science skills is critical to this process.

Innovation does not happen overnight; it is fostered by a sustained commitment to every step of the innovation process. America’s heretofore unmatched ability and capacity to innovate—to create new products, processes, markets, and industries that change the world—has been built on:

  • creative ideas that flow from a strong, diverse, basic research enterprise,
  • a robust applied research enterprise that develops novel applications from basic discoveries,
  • a well-trained and determined workforce that can nurture and develop those ideas, and
  • an environment that facilitates and helps sustain innovations being brought to market.

ACS Actions

We are at a critical point in our nation’s history. The rapidly changing global economy demands swift and decisive action to ensure that the U.S. remains the world’s recognized economic and innovation leader. It is vital to the nation’s future prosperity and security that sustained attention is focused on research and development; science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education; and policies that encourage innovation. A sound, strong, and forward-looking innovation strategy is crucial to ensure long-term economic growth.

As noted in past reports such as Benchmarks of our Innovation Future (released by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation), the U.S. continues to lose ground to strategic global competitors like China and India, which are investing in STEM research and education at a faster rate than the U.S. In addition, these global competitors are rapidly producing a STEM-focused workforce, dramatically increasing publications in scientific journals, and patenting more and more new technologies.

The National Academies report, Rising above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, predicted many of the current trends would result from a lack of stable and significant investment in the foundation areas for U.S. innovation, research, and education. The American Chemical Society supports this report’s action plan.

Future innovation requires a substantial and sustained investment in STEM education, a return to the nation’s traditional commitment to long-term basic research, and programs to assure that research results in new products and job opportunities here in America. While the U.S. is facing many immediate issues and must make tough decisions, it is critical to remember that long-term investment in innovation is the path to a brighter economic future.

The Council on Competitiveness report, Innovate America, highlighted three requirements for a healthy economy: 1) a talented workforce, 2) investment in research and development (R&D) and long-term innovation strategies, and 3) infrastructure support and maintenance. The federal government plays a critical role in all three of these areas. A renewed commitment to re-establishing support for science and technology is a crucial need for sustainable innovation.

The American Chemical Society asks policymakers to support U.S. innovation through the following strategies:

Investment in a Talented Workforce through Education and Training

  • Strengthening effective science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education programs at all levels: K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education
  • Recruiting and retaining highly skilled STEM teachers, improving the content knowledge skills of the K-12 STEM teacher workforce, and improving the resources available in STEM classrooms
  • Encouraging more of our best and brightest students, including those from under-represented or disadvantaged groups, to study in STEM fields
  • Enabling lifelong inquiry-based science education for everyone, in both formal and informal settings, to improve the scientific literacy of all U.S. citizens
  • Enhancing training opportunities, retirement security, and quality of life for STEM professionals.

Long Term Commitments to Basic Research and Technology Development

  • Increasing and sustaining federal investments in basic STEM research and R&D infrastructure to encourage the development of fundamental ideas and directions as the foundation for innovation.
  • Increasing and sustaining federal investments in applied R&D to address immediate and future economic and national security needs
  • Encouraging open interactions among scientists, engineers, and students from all nations
  • Promoting a strong scientific publishing enterprise that enables open, economical exchange of scientific ideas with appropriate peer review, management, searchability, and archiving of information

Development of a Sustainable Infrastructure for Innovation

  • Minimizing the impact of a shifting, global, job environment by promoting incentives to reduce economic and regulatory barriers to the development of new technologies and the manufacture of related products in the U.S.
  • Fostering improvements in the American and international systems for patent protection and voluntary consensus standards
  • Ensuring appropriate, balanced use of voluntary and regulatory measures in achieving policy goals
  • Fostering the development and adoption of economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable products and processes
  • Promoting institutions and guidelines to ensure that government makes appropriate and transparent use of scientific and technological information in making policy decisions

Science and technology make the United States strong by creating millions of high-skill, high-wage jobs and enhancing the American quality of life—longer, healthier, and more productive lives. The strategies listed above will help ensure that these benefits continue into the future and that the U.S. remains the world’s recognized economic and innovation leader.

References

1. Business Roundtable, Tapping America’s Potential: The Education for Innovation Initiative, July 2005.

2. Council on Competitiveness, National Innovation Initiative (NII), Innovate America Report, December 2004.

3. National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, October 2005.

4. National Association of Manufacturers, Looming Workforce Crisis: Preparing American Workers for 21st Century Competition, September 2005.

5. National Bureau of Economic Research, Does Globalization of the Scientific/Engineering Workforce Threaten U.S. Economic Leadership?, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 11457, July 2005.

6. National Science Board, The Science and Engineering Workforce: Realizing America’s Potential, August 2003

7. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Sustaining the Nation’s Innovation Ecosystems, Information Technology Manufacturing and Competitiveness, January 2004.

8. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Sustaining the Nation’s Innovation Ecosystem: Information Maintaining the Strength of Our Science and Engineering Capabilities, June 2004.

9. Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, Benchmarks of Our Innovation Future: The Knowledge Economy: Is the United States Losing Its Competitive Edge?, February 2005.