Today’s modes of discovery and innovation are more complicated, more beautiful, and more powerful than our predecessors ever imagined. Our greatest differentiator as a nation is the combined strength of our sectors, our people, and our openness.
An All-Of-America Science & Technology Enterprise
OUR vision
We must use these advantages to write the next chapter in American science and technology with an All-of-America approach, mobilizing and empowering our people to create a future in which...
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America leads the world in science and technology research, development, engineering, and application, with all Americans benefitting from a science and technology enterprise that is responsive to our needs and worthy of our trust, so that current and future generations can live more prosperous, healthier, and secure lives.
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Throughout the nation, all sectors – private, public, and nonprofit – contribute to American research, development, and translation of research and technology into products and services. Actors across these sectors engage in ways that play to their strengths, with flexibility and incentives to solve problems collaboratively (see contributors below).
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Local, regional, national, and international science, technology, and manufacturing partnerships continuously expand opportunities for all Americans to participate in and benefit from science, technology, and manufacturing, delivering good jobs and spurring innovation.
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Our renewed national commitment to fundamental research continues producing cutting-edge discoveries and knowledge that is the foundation of applied research that leads to new products and services and economic growth.
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Every policy prescription, decision, and action strengthen our ability to act across sector boundaries with ease and speed.
We envision a supercharged American scientific enterprise that ensures our global competitiveness and national security and addresses the big challenges of our time: existential threats to our health; food supply and water security; environmental resilience; energy production, utilization, and storage; and our overall wellbeing.
ASPIRATIONS FOR contributors to the science and technology enterprise
ACHIEVING OUR VISION REQUIRES THAT…
The federal government sets national research priorities and invests in fundamental discovery research, applied research, and research infrastructure vital to America’s national security and prosperity and to expanding the frontiers of human knowledge. Government agencies use evidence-based policies and regulation, tax structures, and other mechanisms to stimulate the delivery of critical products and solutions and to organize long-term, cross-disciplinary programs at scale. The federal government minimizes the regulatory and administrative burden placed on scientists and the enterprise so that both can focus on discovery and innovation.
State and local governments create tax and regulatory environments that are pro-innovation and tailored to the needs and strengths of their communities, improving public services and infrastructure, supporting research and education, and delivering pathways to prosperity.
Industry performs R&D and advances knowledge to solve problems and bring scientific and technological discoveries to market in the form of useful products and services. Companies generate jobs and invest in workforce development, often collaborating with educational institutions and non-profits. Private sector success generates profits and corresponding tax revenue that are, in part, reinvested in the scientific and technology enterprise.
The science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) workforce expands our understanding of how the world works and what is possible. Capitalizing on the complementary contributions of all disciplines, workers apply that knowledge to create technologies and services, take part in research and education, craft data-driven policies, and more. Scientists and engineers work across sectors, demonstrating the power of discovery and data and bringing learnings from industry to academia and vice versa. Scientists, engineers, technicians, and the many other types of workers in STEMM show up in their communities to lead with integrity, building trust in the enterprise.
High-quality education prepares and inspires all students – from K-12 schools, community and technical colleges, colleges, and universities – to be globally competitive, equipped with the skills needed to reach their potential, meet the country’s most pressing challenges, and fill critical STEMM workforce needs. Our educational system instills awe and wonderment, encourages a culture of integrity, recognizes the role of science and technology in every sector, and serves people throughout their lifetimes.
Markets and capital identify opportunities for economic growth and development, drive and direct innovation, and provide resources and investments. With their broad range of risk tolerance, they incentivize advances and connections across sectors, phases of research, industries, regions, and time.
Philanthropies strategically invest in interdisciplinary, emerging, high-risk, and often-underfunded fields and projects that have the potential to produce enormous benefits for all Americans. They act as a critical and complementary support to the public and private sectors.