A Report to the President: Analytic Perspectives on Science and Technology Issues Facing the Nation
Abstract
During the late 1980s, many policymakers voiced concerns about the U.S. trade deficit, the challenges to U.S. technology leadership posed by competitors, and the growing importance of technology to global competitiveness as the Cold War drew to a close and a globalized information-based economy began to emerge. Given the federal government's central role in the U.S. national innovation system, there was a growing belief that federal S&T policy needed to address civilian technology development more explicitly and also factor industrial perspectives and concerns into policy formulation. As a result, during the administration of President George H. W Bush, government attention to civilian technology development began to increase. This occurrence marked a shift in the traditional focus of federal S&T policy. Since the creation of a large-scale federally funded research and development (R&D) enterprise following - World War II, the federal government had typically focused on basic science and military systems development. Space was the only area where the government had undertaken nonmilitary technology development on a large scale, and even there a quasi-national security rationale prevailed even before the time of Sputnik.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA426977
Entities
Organizations
- RAND Corporation