What is science and technology policy?

Science and technology policy is a dual-use phrase. It refers to the corpus of science and technology that inform public and private policies across multiple arenas. It also denotes the body of policies that affect the conduct of science, the development of technologies, the innovations that make their way into the marketplace of ideas and products and the societal impacts that ensue.

Now, conjure up an image of intersecting freeways, boulevards and streets, some with barriers and quick detours, some with high-speed lanes, each teeming with vehicles of different types and models traveling in different directions—all of it set among hills, ravines, and the occasional park. The picture fairly well describes the Los Angeles basin. It also describes the world of science and technology policy.

The roads are the policy arenas. The drivers of the vehicles are the policymakers; the legislators, and other elected officials; the bureaucrats; the science and technology practitioners; the industrialists; the bankers and venture capitalists; the influence peddlers; the advocates, and the lobbyists. The vehicles are the tools they use. And the hills, ravines, parks, barriers, and detours are all part of the political landscape on which they function. With that picture in mind, let’s zoom in on some of the details.

Science (the study of the natural world) and technology (the practical application of science) are two of the freeways. Engineering (the use of science for building and achieving practical applications) and mathematics (the abstract science of numbers, equations, functions, geometry, and the like) merit the same kind of designation. All four of them are essential pathways for policy formulation.

Three of them have well-defined lanes, one less so. Let’s begin with the domain of modern American technology.

At the risk of a slight oversimplification, we can divide technology into eight broad categories: aerospace, agricultural, bio-medical, communication and information, energy and environment, manufacturing, military, and transportation. Although they overlap to a small degree, for the most part, we can think of them as proceeding separately in eight individual lanes. We can do the same for engineering¹ and mathematics.²

It is tempting to treat the sciences in a similar fashion, using the major disciplines with which we are all familiar—astronomy, biology, chemistry, Earth science, and physics—for lane assignments. But even if we set aside other highways for the social sciences, which our short list ignores, we would still be making a major error. In the 21st century, we can no longer compartmentalize the natural sciences. They have become inexorably intertwined.

Harold Varmus, Nobel Laureate, former director of the National Institutes of Health, and later, president of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, made that point in an October 4, 2000 Washington Post Op-Ed when he wrote,

To use Varmus’s terminology, in the modern world the sciences are “interdependent.” Not only are major breakthroughs occurring at the boundaries of the individual disciplines—what policymakers call interdisciplinary advances—increasingly progress in one scientific field is dependent on progress in other fields. In some cases, scientists, themselves, move across the traditional disciplinary boundaries, bringing to bear the expertise they gained in one arena to the challenging problems in another.

In modern America, the traffic on the broad science freeway must be allowed to move unimpeded across the lane boundaries that have become increasingly blurred. Otherwise, technological progress will be stifled.

As we turn to other roads in the science and technology policy basin, we find more situations where the traffic must be able to shift lanes, as it does on a typical Los Angeles freeway. But in those cases, the movement will be more controlled and predictable. Let’s begin with research and development.

Usually abbreviated as R&D, it requires a wide, multilane road to accommodate its multifaceted components. Research—the R in R&D—is defined as creative, systematic studies aimed at increasing and improving knowledge writ large. It occupies three lanes, each representing one of three major classifications: “undirected” basic research, “directed” basic research, and applied research.

Basic research is often called fundamental research, and the “undirected” label refers to activities that focus solely on scientific discovery with little or no regard for any possible application. “Directed” basic research, by contrast, is fundamental research that carries with it the goal of obtaining new knowledge in a specific arena, such as energy, agriculture, or cures for disease. Applied research is far more targeted on the endgame. It begins with the identification of some practical problem, and proceeds with work leading to a set of possible solutions.

The D part of R&D refers to the development of new products and procedures, usually building on scientific discoveries and research outcomes. For successful developments, the R&D freeway off-ramp leads to the on-ramp of an engineering highway, on which testing and evaluation take place.

On the R&D freeway, itself, traffic moves from one lane to another, as the results of one activity create new opportunities or new challenges. In some cases, a basic research outcome leads to an applied research initiative or directly to a development program. In some cases, the results of an applied research or development program produce tools that enable new, basic research endeavors. And in some cases, new, unanticipated challenges emerge during a development program, requiring additional applied research or directed basic research.

We will explore the complex R&D relationships in Chapter 12 in more detail, when we compare Pasteur’s Quadrant with the linear model of innovation, attributed to Vannevar Bush’s view of the scientific enterprise—incorrectly, as a careful reading of his work reveals—described in Science, The Endless Frontier. But for now, let’s simply accept the need for R&D traffic to move across the freeway lane divides whenever progress dictates.

We turn to the education superhighway, which has its own distinctive characteristics, especially where it involves the STEM fields; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It starts as a very wide artery with lanes that have no identifiers and with all traffic moving in the same direction, but able to change lanes freely. Eventually, a STEM label appears on one or two of the lanes. And after some of the traffic exits, the highway bifurcates, with the well-defined STEM markings following only one branch. The narrowing of that branch continues, and by the time the highway reaches its terminus, only one of the remaining lanes carries the STEM signage.

As you have probably guessed by now, the education superhighway describes the STEM learning environment in modern America. We all begin school in very much the same way. And most of us are exposed to a common curriculum throughout our years in elementary and middle schools. In high school, we start to separate, and by the time we graduate, as 82% of us did in 2014, a STEM future will be largely foreclosed as a viable option, unless we took our science courses seriously.

If we terminate our education with only a high-school diploma, we are essentially lost to the STEM job market. And for those of us who choose to attend community college, our STEM aspirations will be significantly harder to achieve. Only if we attend 4-year colleges or universities, major in one of the STEM fields, and eventually enroll in a graduate or professional school, will the full panoply of STEM opportunities become readily apparent and accessible.

Policymakers who recognize that the health of the STEM workforce is integral to the modern American economy must travel the full length of the STEM superhighway if they want to make decisions that will be most beneficial to the nation. Focusing on only one segment of the highway—research universities, for example—is simply insufficient.

We’ve taken a close look at six key freeways that traverse the science and technology policy basin: science, technology, engineering, mathematics, R&D, and education. We now turn to other roads that crisscross the basin—those that represent the sectors of modern American life connected closely to technology. Healthcare, which accounted for 17.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States in 2015 is the largest artery. And although manufacturing’s portion of the GDP has been declining steadily since 1970, when it clocked in at 24.3%, it still claimed a 12.0% share in 2015. It warrants another major highway. Finance, which ballooned to 7.2% in 2015, plus energy³ and telecommunications,³ round out the big five highways carrying the technology traffic.

Although defense and transportation⁴ represented smaller percentages of the GDP, they are both technology intensive, and will continue to contribute a substantial portion of the movement on the science and technology policy roadway system. We will give them the designations of thoroughfares. Agriculture’s share of the GDP, both nationally and worldwide, has been shrinking for many years, but we will include it on our roadmap because of its historical role and its impact on other industries.⁵

Finally, although they do not appear as entries on a GDP ledger—at least not in any significant way—environmental issues, foreign affairs, global competitiveness, productivity, tax policies, trade pacts, union contracts, and wages all intersect the science and technology maze, each on its own road. Each of them informs, motivates, or constrains decision making, and their intersections with the freeways, highways, and thoroughfares occur at multiple points.

We’ll conclude the Introduction with a survey of the policy traffic that traverses the science and technology basin. Every issue attracts a multiplicity of drivers: from legislators, elected officials and bureaucrats, to industrialists, financiers, and practitioners. Sometimes their interests converge, and sometimes they diverge. At any moment, they are zipping around the highways, often at high speed, but always cognizant of the landscape and the other drivers around them. They drive both offensively and defensively, depending on the circumstances, and the best of them know how to navigate unexpected barriers and take advantage of quick detours.

The cars they drive, which represent the tools they employ, depend on the policymaking sector from which they come. Legislators, elected officials, and bureaucrats, for example, traditionally promulgate policies through budget requests and appropriations bills—both of which establish spending priorities—authorization bills, tax bills, regulations, executive orders, congressional hearings, technical analyses, reports, press briefings, and in 2016, most prominently, presidential Tweets.

Individuals, corporations and advocacy groups use a different set of tools: political contributions, which open doors to lawmakers’ offices; “grass-roots” lobbying, which exerts constituent pressure on elected officials; Op-Eds, which raise public awareness of a policy issue; and “grass-tops” lobbying, which employs well-known opinion makers to influence outcomes.

The STEM practitioners—the scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians—have had a spotty record of policy engagement, as we will see in the succeeding chapters. Although World War II produced a historical spike in their behavior, its effect was short lived. Not until the last decade of the 20th century did the STEM community see the need for participation in the policy dialogs that shape the nature of their very work.

Whether that community remains permanently engaged is too early to forecast. But to the extent they have helped formulate, promulgate, and advance science and technology policies, they have used the same tools as any interest group, running the gamut from political contributions and grass-roots lobbying to media promotion and grass-tops lobbying.

Up to this point we have focused on policymaking in the public sector. But science and technology policymaking has a private-sector side, as well. There, however, it tends to be specific to leaders of technology companies, entrepreneurs, bankers, and venture capitalists who all make investment and strategic decisions based upon market projections, trade and tax policies, the regulatory environment, and the innovations they see on the horizon.

Regardless of the arena, public or private, policymaking must take the political landscape into account. The uphills and downhills, the barriers and quick detours, the potholes and well-paved roadways all reflect the political landscape. Ultimately, that landscape determines the incentives and disincentives that define effective science and technology policy in modern America. Healthcare, economic growth, environmental stewardship, energy production and usage, transportation, and national security are all affected by the science and technology decisions we make in the politically fraught policy arena.