• “Applying science and technology strategies to drive economic recovery, job creation and economic growth”
• “Promoting innovative energy technologies”
• “Applying biomedical science and information technology to help Americans live longer, healthier lives, while reducing health care costs”
• “Assuring we have the technologies needed to protect our troops, citizens, and interests.”

These challenges focus on the knowledge flow, diffusion of information, and technology transfer required for effective application and commercialization of science and engineering advances. To exploit the competitive advantage that the United States has in basic R&D, we must make a major commitment to knowledge and technology transfer efforts, and support innovation in its fullest sense.

To be responsive, federal agencies need to prioritize a coherent strategy for knowledge transfer and application and address intermediate organizational structures that accelerate the transfer and application process. This is no easy task. Decades of focusing on research and the outputs it generates, such as journal articles, patents, and licenses, has not prepared the agencies to identify organizational structures that translate knowledge and measure impacts, such as jobs created or lives improved.

As a former research administrator in the National Science Foundation (Sociology) and at Cornell University and Washington State Universities, and as an agricultural experiment station director and then dean of agricultural, human, and natural resource sciences, I know the disciplinary mindset of research administrators as well as scientists and engineers. Within universities, we also must work to change this mindset.

Processes of knowledge translation, transfer, and communication are often unique to each agency or very specialized even within departments of each agency. Take the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with its Rural Development outreach programs, the Agricultural Research Service with its technology transfer function, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture with its State Cooperative Extension programs. Coordination of strategy even within a single agency is exceedingly difficult.

One approach, however, is to strengthen the links, cooperation, and partnerships of the technology extension and outreach programs and functions of the federal government and universities around the country. USDA and state Cooperative Extension programs, the SBA Small Business Development Centers, and the Department of Commerce Manufacturing Extension Partnerships, administered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, all need more professionals co-located in communities where they meet the four challenges set by OMB and OSTP every day. As place-based organizations, they would have a distinct competitive advantage to achieving the desired outcomes.

At the same time, the federal government needs to embrace the open innovation model as a way to accelerate the technology and knowledge transfer process from idea to execution, from laboratories to businesses and consumer use. The open innovation model assumes high levels of communication, careful listening, reciprocity among the parties, mutual commitment, and serious engagement to achieve the goals. It also requires proximity, as well as virtual connectivity, to accomplish place-based programming, as Orszag points out.

Innovation and knowledge transfer have a rich history in America. An early application was the state Cooperative Extension Services, which sent county agents into agricultural areas to demonstrate new methods to farmers, their families, and communities; to listen to farmers about local problems; and to link relevant university faculty and researchers, who provided research-based solutions. The goal was to provide educational and technical assistance about agriculture, natural resources, and nutrition and consumer economics, as well as community-building skills to rural residents who could not attend the university.

A similar philosophy created the Small Business Development Centers, often co-located in universities, community colleges, or nonprofit organizations, to provide technical assistance, access to capital, coaching, and counseling to strengthen local small businesses. In North Carolina, the governor’s office recently called on our Small Business and Technology Development Center to lead a statewide job retention and growth initiative which will help the state’s existing small-to-medium-sized businesses enhance their competitiveness.

A third example reflects the commitment to manufacturing from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, called the Manufacturing Extension Program, in which nonprofit organizations and universities provide engineering outreach and technical assistance, training, and educational support to the manufacturing sector. Professionals in this program reside within local communities and support economic growth.

Each of these organizations practices the translation of expert knowledge into usable knowledge for their constituencies.

The 21^st century goals of economic development, “green” energy lifestyles, improved health and well being, and better national security do not require new extension services. Rather, they require agencies to revisit organizational mechanisms already in place, to be creative in adopting what works, to fund, and to deliver needed programs.

The Department of Energy does not need to invent an Energy Extension Service to achieve energy conservation in homes, agricultural, commercial, and industrial sectors. The adoption of new technologies, the use of energy conservation practices, and the implementation of renewable energy strategies could benefit from added investments in Cooperative Extension, Small Business Development Centers, and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership to focus on these priorities. Inter-agency grants or cooperative agreements could provide funding. These well-established programs have already earned the trust of consumers, community leaders, business and industry leaders, non-profits, and governmental partners.

Universities also must reciprocate with innovative programs of their own. And they are. Witness the establishment of incubators for new startups, business accelerators, and joint venture efforts at commercializing inventions. The federal government provides much of the basic R&D money, to be sure, but universities and the private sector are now working more closely to commercialize the results.

Programs exist at many public universities to provide targeted educational programs. An example at North Carolina State University is the Small Business and Technology Development Center, which provides startups with training on “Becoming an Investor-ready Entrepreneur.” It also provides investors with a course called “The Power of Angel Investing.” Bringing these two sectors together can yield increased capital for new startups. Additionally, the SBTDC provided 48 workshops in 2009 on “Business Success in Tough Times” in which strategies for marketing, managing finances, and improved manufacturing processes are the focus.

With over 70 active startup companies and 110 commercialized products adding to the global economy, NC State, and its Centennial Campus, is among the nation’s most significant entrepreneurial universities. An example is the success of LaamScience, a startup company developing a textile coating that kills most viruses and bacteria when exposed to light. The technology, licensed from NC State University, has multiple markets—surgical and respirator masks, hospital disposables and supplies, and filters and air purifiers.

NC State’s Industrial Extension Service, which manages the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, provides training and technical assistance to increase the competitiveness of manufacturing firms, the health sector, and state agencies through Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, and the International Standards Organization, or ISO certification.

These organizations, as well as others within the university, can also provide consulting services, feasibility studies, market analysis, supply chain analysis, and access to student internships.

An integrative approach might establish a research collaborative in which private companies join and annually provide funds for pre-commercial research, advise the faculty and graduate students on industry priorities, and evaluate the results at annual reviews, for example, in the NC State’s Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center.

Evaluation is also useful for feedback to companies. The evaluation of company processes and continuous improvement can lead to greater efficiencies and awards of excellence such as the Shingo Prize in North Carolina and the National Baldridge Award.

Examples of impact from the Industrial Extension Service include the North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources, which implemented lean office processes and increased the number of air quality permits processed by 52 percent, and provided them 40 percent quicker, with no added staff. Another example is the nonprofit RLCB, formerly the Raleigh Lions Club for the Blind, which showed a $4 million increase in sales, gains in productivity, and new products as a result of IES services. RCLB also added 40 jobs in one year, including a full R&D department.

Demonstrations, educational efforts, and technical assistance have a long track record of generating successful diffusion and adoption of innovations. It is the practical application of science and technology via these knowledge transfer mechanisms and partnerships that builds on research and drives economic recovery, job creation, and economic growth.

These programs deserve high priority for continued and additional funding as agencies and universities prioritize their budget requests for 2011.

James J. Zuiches is Vice Chancellor of Extension, Engagement and Economic Development at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.

The Act addresses many of the critical areas that politicians and economists alike have been discussing in recent weeks. It makes investments in clean energy that will form a solid foundation upon which to build a 21st-century low-carbon economy. It addresses the creaking infrastructure needs that are slowing down U.S. business competitiveness. It helps those most hurt by the recession, invests in education, lowers health care costs, and provides necessary funds to save vital public services at the state level.

But as outlined in the Center for American Progress report, “A National Innovation Agenda,” the Act also recognizes the importance of science, technology and innovation, which “have long provided the foundation for America’s prosperity.”

A key part of this agenda is ensuring that the United States has the innovation infrastructure necessary for it to compete on the global stage.

Getting the economy back on track is not enough unless the recovery is sustained and living standards once again rise in line with economic growth and increases in productivity. The steps necessary to achieve this were set out in the CAP report, “Progressive Growth.” A key part of this agenda is ensuring that the United States has the innovation infrastructure necessary for it to compete on the global stage. Although the United States remains the world’s most innovative economy, other countries particularly in East Asia are quickly catching up. Underinvestment in recent years has precipitated this decline.

To address this, the Recovery Act announced several critical investments, including $6 billion for broadband and wireless services, $20 billion for health information technology, $1 billion for technology improvements for a more efficient and secure government, $1 billion for education technology, and $11.7 billion for scientific research.

The stimulus proposal also includes significant funds supporting research and development efforts across the physical, environmental, and life sciences. Despite a modest supplemental boost in June, assistance here comes at a time when total budgetary authority for R&D has been dropping in real dollars; adjusted for inflation, it declined 1.9 percent overall in fiscal year 2007-2008. In biomedical research, the situation is more severe. Continuous flat funding for the National Institutes of Health has dropped its inflation-adjusted research budget to a level 13 percent lower than where it was five years ago.

The Recovery Act would allot $2 billion for NIH, the amount CAP Senior Fellow Rick Weiss recommended last October. This funding can support researchers who are working on cures for a healthier country. It can potentially help the younger generation of scientists who have been squeezed out of the NIH funding process because of the tightening budgets. Some 80 percent of grant requests go unfunded at the agency, and the competitive process favors established researchers—the average age of a scientist winning his or her first NIH grant is 42 years.

Additional funding through the National Science Foundation—$3 billion—will expand opportunities for scientists working on America’s energy and health challenges, while investing in research for the future.

But just as grantmaking agencies can create and sustain good jobs with additional funding, they also have to maintain the facilities where scientists work. Just like the highway system, much of our country’s research infrastructure needs upgrading. Chairman Obey’s bill includes construction funds to renovate existing facilities at universities and institutes and build new ones: $400 million for the National Science Foundation, $1.5 billion for NIH, $462 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $300 million for the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, and $50 million to repair hurricane-damaged NASA facilities.

Support for basic research in the physical sciences will help maintain U.S. competitiveness in the field. While the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland may have blown a gasket before going into operation last September, it nonetheless pulled the gravitational center of particle research away from the United States. The Recovery Act provides $1.9 billion for basic research through the Department of Energy, along with $400 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which pursues potentially transformative high-risk, high return work—a critical approach that has fallen, all too often, out of federal funding favor.

As a complement to the $73 billion the stimulus package proposes for clean energy projects, the Act provides for Earth sciences research to better understand the state of our planet. This includes $400 million for NASA Earth scientists and $600 million for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite equipment and climate modeling, which will be crucial for global warming mitigation and adaptation policy.

To help translate discoveries from lab to market, there are also funds that can support regional technology-based economic development: $100 million for NIST labs to coordinate manufacturing standards, and another $100 million for the Technology Innovation Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

As Science Progress contributors explain in several recent features on regional centers of innovation, developing prosperous regional innovation clusters yields dividends to the domestic and world economies—whether it be information technology or life-saving medical advances. Regional centers also benefit local communities by attracting a talented and high-paid workforce, cultural organizations, and start-up businesses that generate tax revenue and support the cycle of growth—all key stepping stones on the path to economic recovery.

Will Straw is the Associate Director for Economic Growth at the Center for American Progress. Andrew Plemmons Pratt is the Assistant Editor for Science Progress.