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
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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
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