Innovation Is Central to Our National Prosperity
Building Bridges to the 22nd Century
SOURCE: USPTO
A century ago, the New Jersey inventor Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb, an invention that created a new industry and radically improved the quality of life for millions of Americans. Now is the time to invest in our innovation infrastructure and the new generation of researchers.
History repeatedly demonstrates that America’s entrepreneurial spirit and our capacity for innovation are what drive our economy. To get out of the current recession and to sustain our long-term prosperity we need to invest in innovations that will supply our businesses with a steady stream of new ideas. These new ideas come from basic scientific research.
Rush Holt represents the 12th congressional district of New Jersey.
A recent analysis by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found that 77 percent of the award-winning innovative technologies in 2006 were derived from ideas generated from federally funded scientific research. Those innovations substantially improve the productivity of our economy, as Federal Reserve Board researchers found that two-thirds of productivity growth between 1995 and 1999 was a result of innovation and capital investment in technology.
A century ago, the New Jersey inventor Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb, an invention that created a new industry and radically improved the quality of life for millions of Americans. A little over a decade ago, two graduate students working on a National Science Foundation project discovered an innovative method for webpage searches. Those students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, went on to found Google, now one of the dominant American companies.
Investing in a new generation of researchers and innovation would create jobs now. According to Families USA, grants from the National Institutes of Health supported more than 350,000 jobs in 2007. A recent report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation estimated that an additional $20 billion investment in research in the recovery package would create approximately 402,000 American jobs for one year. Those jobs would go to scientists in white coats, but also to graduate students, electricians, construction workers, and clerical staff.
Recognizing the centrality of innovation to our national prosperity, I hosted a roundtable in December with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman. That roundtable included senior members of Congress, university presidents, industry leaders, and research scientists, who were all brought together to look at the state of basic research. What we concluded was that our innovation infrastructure, which has served our nation so well for 50 years, is showing signs of age and disrepair. In fact, the American share of world research investment has been falling since 1998 and our R&D intensity, as measured by the percentage of our GDP invested in research, trails many other nations.
Last week, the House of Representatives took an important step in reversing this trend by including $15.7 billion for scientific research in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That funding, directed to the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy, would repair decaying research labs, manufacture new scientific instruments, and accelerate projects that save energy and create new sources of energy. I urge the Senate to maintain this robust and historic investment in science.
In his inaugural address, President Obama said, “We will restore science to its rightful place.” That rightful place is at the center of our economic recovery strategy to help America get back on its feet and keep it strong for decades to come.
Rush Holt represents the 12th congressional district of New Jersey.
Comments on this article
By clicking and submitting a comment I acknowledge the Science Progress Privacy Policy and agree to the Science Progress Terms of Use. I understand that my comments are also being governed by Facebook's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
