Talent

Task Force On Innovation Asks For 1% Of U.S. GDP For R&D Investment

Feb. 16, 2005

At the National Press Club conference held Feb. 16, the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation presented a report called "The Knowledge Economy: Is the United States Losing Its Competitive Edge?" The report which includes 30 key benchmarks on five essential areas -- education, the workforce, knowledge creation and new ideas, R &D investments and the high-tech economy -- recommends federal R&D investment across all agencies to equal 1% of U.S. GDP. It also echoes the congressional authorization calling for a doubling the National Science Foundation's budget.

The conference occurred as testimony regarding the FY2006 research and development budgets before the House Science Committee concluded. John Engler, president of The National Association of Manufacturers, a task force member, said, "The U.S. cannot assume it is safely ahead of the world. Other countries are all trying to race up the technology ladder and stay on top of low-cost producers like China. But even China is rapidly increasing its R&D investments."

Some key findings include:

Education -- In 2000 89,000 of the 114,000 doctoral degrees in science and engineering worldwide were earned outside of the U.S.
Knowledge creation -- U.S. patent applications from China, India, Singapore, S. Korea and Taiwan grew 759% from 1989-2001, while U.S. applications grew at 116%
Research and Development -- From 1995-2001 China, S. Korea and Taiwan increased R& D funding by 140%, while U.S. increased by 34%

Task force members include various associations and companies including Miscrosoft, Intel, Texas Instruments, IBM and Hewlett Packard. The group's report will be posted at http://www.futureofinnovation.org.

The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation

About the Author

John McClenahen | Former Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

John S. McClenahen, is an occasional essayist on the Web site of IndustryWeek, the executive management publication from which he retired in 2006. He began his journalism career as a broadcast journalist at Westinghouse Broadcasting’s KYW in Cleveland, Ohio. In May 1967, he joined Penton Media Inc. in Cleveland and in September 1967 was transferred to Washington, DC, the base from which for nearly 40 years he wrote primarily about national and international economics and politics, and corporate social responsibility.

      McClenahen, a native of Ohio now residing in Maryland, is an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently An Unexpected Poet (2013), and several books of photographs, including Black, White, and Shades of Grey (2014). He also is the author of a children’s book, Henry at His Beach (2014).

      His photograph “Provincetown: Fog Rising 2004” was selected for the Smithsonian Institution’s 2011 juried exhibition Artists at Work and displayed in the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from June until October 2011. Five of his photographs are in the collection of St. Lawrence University and displayed on campus in Canton, New York.

      John McClenahen’s essay “Incorporating America: Whitman in Context” was designated one of the five best works published in The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies during the twelve-year editorship of R. Barry Leavis of Rollins College. John McClenahen’s several journalism prizes include the coveted Jesse H. Neal Award. He also is the author of the commemorative poem “Upon 50 Years,” celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Wolfson College Cambridge, and appearing in “The Wolfson Review.”

      John McClenahen received a B.A. (English with a minor in government) from St. Lawrence University, an M.A., (English) from Western Reserve University, and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University, where he also pursued doctoral studies. At St. Lawrence University, he was elected to academic honor societies in English and government and to Omicron Delta Kappa, the University’s highest undergraduate honor. John McClenahen was a participant in the 32nd Annual Wharton Seminars for Journalists at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Easter Term of the 1986 academic year, John McClenahen was the first American to hold a prestigious Press Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

      John McClenahen has served on the Editorial Board of Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and was co-founder and first editor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown. He has been a volunteer researcher on the William Steinway Diary Project at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and has been an assistant professorial lecturer at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.