Report Calls for Creation of National Innovation Foundation
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program have collaborated on a report titled Boosting Productivity, Innovation and Growth Through a National Innovation Foundation.
Co-authored by Howard Wial of Brookings and ITIF's president Robert Atkinson (note: Dr. Atkinson was a Tech Policy Summit advisor in 2007 & 2008), the report argues that the United States needs to establish a National Innovation Foundation (NIF) to help companies and organizations be more innovative.
Atkinson and Wial believe that a coordinated federal effort like NIF, with a $1 billion to $2 billion+ annual budget, would help create more and better U.S. jobs and would boost America's leadership position in the global economy by:
- Providing national grants to encourage companies and universities to collaborate on research projects
- Providing state-level grants to expand innovation programs at the regional level in areas like technology commercialization and entrepreneurial support
- Encouraging technology adoption by helping small and mid-sized companies implement new practices
- Supporting regional industry clusters
- Conducting research and measurement on innovation
- Promoting innovation policy within the federal government
In making their case for NIF, they write:
Perhaps most striking of all the weaknesses in our [current] national innovation policy system is the fact that although there are a number of programs that help companies become more innovative or productive, there is no agency or organization that has firm-level innovation as its sole mission...With a few important exceptions, innovation is at best a byproduct of federal programs whose main purpose lies elsewhere.
You can find the entire 68-page report at ITIF's site. Published: April 22, 2008.
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