Playing The R&D Blame Game

THE LIVELY DEBATE ABOUT OUR NATION'S WILLingness to fund research and development-or to invest in the U.S. innovation infrastructure, to use the updated terms-got another shot in the arm just as I was filing my last column, and I can't let it go by without comment.

A formidable group of industry

and academic leaders, calling themselves the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, released a report that distills into 14 pages the numerous areas where the U.S. is failing to maintain its leadership, which it says, in turn, threatens the U.S.' global leadership in innovation. The report's release, says the task force, was the kick-off event of an "advocacy campaign" targeted at policy makers and the public that seeks to "reverse a decline in federal investment in basic research in the physical sciences and engineering that puts at risk the development of new technologies, new industries, and high-value jobs." Coming as hearings on the Hill parsed the details of the Bush Administration's 2006 Budget-which, as expected, short-changed investment in industrial R&D-the campaign is just the type of coordinated effort that I and many others have called for.