0.12 The bush-41 years: 1989-93  (Page 8/8)

In addition to universities, industry and government, capital to move a promising idea to a stage where industry canafford the applied research and development required for commercialization is vital. To this end, the National Science Foundation created programs in theearly 1990s for small businesses, providing funds for aspiring entrepreneurs to conduct “proof of concept” research that might lead large companies either tofund further research or to acquire the entrepreneurial firm.

Along the same lines, venture capital firms were identified as an important component of national innovation systems. Suchfirms support new companies during their early stages of development and provide vital financial and management experience. Almost unique to the United States,venture capital firms’ existence may be closely linked to the almost unique concept of risk in this country. An individual who fails in one business mayraise the necessary funds to start another—business failure is not seen as moral failure in the United States.

Mowery and Rosenberg also identified the U.S. research university system as an essential element in the national innovationsystem. David C. Mowery and Nathan Rosenberg, “The U.S. National Innovation System,” from Richard R. Nelson and NathanRosenberg, eds., National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 29- 52. The American research university system is, by several measures, by far the best in the world. They also pointed to data demonstrating that smalland medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United States develop more potentially innovative ideas than larger firms. They suggested that SMEs wouldcontinue to play a significant role in the U.S. national innovation system. In their article in the Nelson-Rosenberg collection, Hiroyuki Odagiri and Akira Goto ( op. cit. ) ignore university-industry research cooperation as important to Japan’s national innovation system, citing the importance of universities onlyas a source of skilled manpower. Yet beginning in 1996, the Japanese government embarked on a series of five-year Science and Technology Basic Plans which,among other things, took measures to encourage university-industry research cooperation. In 2004, universities became autonomous organizations, largelyunregulated by the government’s Ministry of Education— Monbukogausho , or MEXT—and permitted to compete on the basis of their own competitive niches.

Council on competitiveness

The Council on Competitiveness (CoC) was created in 1986 during a time when the United States appeared to be laggingbehind other nations—particularly Japan—in its ability to compete in a number of key industries. It consists of major company CEOs, labor leaders, universitypresidents, and the heads of the principal science and technology agencies of the federal government.

Even as the national innovation concept broadened the way research and development was conceived, so meetings of theCouncil on Competitiveness were considerably broader than conventional professional science society meetings, such as those of the American Associationfor the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society. That is, CoC meetings involved other actors in the innovation process in addition toscientists and engineers.

Although established during the first Bush administration, the CoC did not become a recognized organization until well intothe Clinton administration, during which it held three notable conferences. The first was held on February 24, 1997, at the University of California, San Diego,and was billed as “California and the Future of American Innovation.” Jon Cohen, “U.S. Science Policy: All Start Group Prescribes Partnerships for R&D Woes,” Science (March 7, 1997), 1410-11. California Governor Pete Wilson participated, as did John Gibbons, the first ofClinton’s two science advisors, NSF Director Neal Lane (later Clinton’s second science advisor), Congressman George Brown (D-CA), Steven Schiff (R-NM), and theheads of several universities and corporations. Ibid. The two subsequent conferences took place in Atlanta on March 3 and in Indianapolis on April 1-2.