Localizing the Economic Impact of Research and Development: Policy Proposals for the Trump Administration and Congress

Stephen Ezell and Scott M. Andes

December 7, 2016

更多

Innovation drives countries’ long-term economic growth and improvements in quality of life. But the competition amongst nations for innovation leadership has intensified even as the increased complexity of technological innovation has made it more difficult to achieve. For these reasons, the federal government needs to step up its game when it comes to technology commercialization policies and programs.

If America is going to effectively compete with the world in the modern global innovation economy, it will need to do a better job of transforming knowledge into new companies and products here at home. Achieving this requires new policies that can help get technologies out of the laboratory and transfer them to market for commercialization by private-sector actors.

To help policymakers address these challenges, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Brookings Institution’s Bass Initiative on Innovation and Placemaking collaborated to propose 50 actions that the incoming Trump administration and new Congress can take to support tech transfer and commercialization nationwide. The paper’s recommendations range from prioritizing innovation districts in federal R&D outlays to implementing federal innovation vouchers to connect startups with research institutions.

The report’s 50 policy actions align with five major policy imperatives:

Strengthen innovation districts and regional technology clusters;

Bolster institutions supporting tech transfer, commercialization, and innovation;

Expand technology transfer and commercialization-related programs and investments;

Promote high-growth, tech-based entrepreneurship; and

Stimulate private-sector innovation.

The full list of policy actions is itemized below. Each is described in detail here.

Strengthen innovation districts and regional technology clusters

1. Prioritize innovation districts within federal R&D outlays

2. Task federal laboratories with a local economic development mission

3. Create off-campus “microlabs” to provide a front door to labs

4. Support technology clusters by assessing and managing local-level federal R&D investments

5. Assess federal real estate holdings and reallocate physical research assets to innovation districts

6. Allow labs to repurpose a small portion of existing funds for timely local collaboration

7. Standardize research partnership contracts within cities

8. Create NIH regional pre-competitive consortia to address national health concerns

9. Allow DOE labs to engage in non-federal funding partnerships that do not require DOE approval

10. Dismantle funding silos to support regional collaboration

11. Incentivize cross-purpose funding based on the economic strength of cities

12. Expand the national Regional Innovation Program

13. Support the innovation potential of rural areas

14. Facilitate regional makerspaces

15. Introduce an “Open Commercialization Infrastructure Act”

Bolster institutions supporting tech transfer, commercialization, and innovation

16. Establish a core of 20 “manufacturing universities”

17. Complete the buildout of Manufacturing USA to 45 Institutes of Manufacturing Innovation (IMIs)

18. Create a National Engineering and Innovation Foundation

19. Create an Office of Innovation Review within the Office of Management and Budget

20. Create a network of acquisition-oriented DoD labs based in regional technology clusters

21. Establish manufacturing development facilities

22. Establish a foundation for the national energy laboratories

Expand technology transfer and commercialization-related programs and investments

23. Increase the importance of commercialization activities at federal labs/research institutes

24. Allocate a share of federal funding to promote technology transfer and commercialization

25. Develop a proof-of-concept, or “Phase Zero,” individual and institutional grant award program within major federal research agencies

26. Fund pilot programs supporting experimental approaches to technology transfer and commercialization

27. Support university-based technology accelerators/incubators to commercialize faculty and student research

28. Allow a share of SBIR/STTR awards to be used for commercialization activities

29. Increase the allocation of federal agencies’ SBIR project budgets to commercialization activities

30. Modify the criteria and composition of SBIR review panels to make commercialization potential a more prominent factor in funding decisions

31. Encourage engagement of intermediary organizations in supporting the development of startups

32. Expand the NSF I-Corps program to additional federal agencies

33. Authorize and extend the Lab-Corps program

34. Provide federal matching funds for state and regional technology transfer and commercialization efforts

35. Incentivize universities to focus more on commercialization activities

36. Establish stronger university entrepreneurship metrics

37. Expand the collaborative R&D tax credit to spur research collaboration between industry and universities and labs

38. Increase funding for cooperative industry/university research programs at universities

39. Establish an International Patent Consortium

Promote high-growth, tech-based entrepreneurship

40. Encourage student entrepreneurship

41. Help nascent high-growth startups secure needed capital

42. Establish an entrepreneur-in-residence program with NIH

43. Implement immigration policies that advantage high-skill talent

44. Implement a research investor’s visa

Stimulate private-sector innovation

45. Implement innovation vouchers

46. Incentivize “megafunds” around high-risk research and development

47. Increase R&D tax credit generosity

48. Ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises are familiar with available R&D tax credits

49. Implement an innovation box to spur enterprises’ efforts to commercialize technologies

50. Revise the tax code to support innovation by research-intensive, pre-revenue companies

收起