US-based think tank outlines actions to counter Trump's STI policy vacuum

The science, technology and innovation (STI) vision of the incoming administration of US president-elect Donald Trump is dark and opaque with few stated positions on issues ranging from federal R&D funding and support for start-ups to digital economy challenges such as open data and copyright. The murky picture of Trump's views on STI were assembled by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) which gleaned what's known to date about policies directly and indirectly related to innovation in eight key areas.

On the vast majority of issues, the Trump administration's STI positions are weak or non-existent, reflecting its pro-business, free enterprise perspective coupled with little stated interest in the role of government policy and its impact on the knowledge economy.

ITIF has been proactive throughout the recent US election campaign and afterwards in encouraging politicians to specify policies that would help to foster innovation, boost productivity and remain globally competitive in the face on increasingly fierce competition. It found nearly 50 countries that have either a national innovation strategy or innovation foundation. Not only does the US not have a strategy, it has cut federal support for R&D in recent years and now ranks 24th among 39 OECD nations in federal support for university research.

"To restore the federal R&D-to-GDP ratio to average levels in the 1980s, the federal government would need to invest $65 billion more – per year," ITIF notes in a 2016 briefing document entitled President-Elect Trump's Positions on Technology and Innovation Policy.

The ITIF followed up that document with a Memo to President-Elect Trump.

"America's economic future will depend on successfully driving innovation, productivity growth, and competitiveness (with) new and more creative approaches to public policy," states the memo. "Critically, this will depend on ensuring that economic policy is guided by a new "innovation economics," rather than the dominant neoclassical approach to economics or a resurgent Keynesian populism."

To that end, ITIF recommends taking steps to: "limit corporate short-termism and encourage corporate leaders to invest for the future"; appoint chief innovation officers in every federal agency and charge them with developing and implementing formal innovation strategies; refocus and rename the Office of Science and Technology Policy to be the Office of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy; establish a formal process for evaluating how regulatory proposals impact innovation; launch an Innovation Attaches program in US embassies; and, create set-asides to support hybrid digital infrastructure.

ITIF is a Washington DC-based, non-profit think tank focused on public policies that encourage technological innovation. A 2014 Think Tank Index Report produced by the Univ of Pennsylvania ranked the ITIF second in the world behind Germany's Max Planck Institutes.

FMI: www.itif.org.