New ITIF-Brookings Report: Policymakers Can Help Get Research Out of the Lab and Into the Marketplace by Better Aligning Federal Investment With Local Assets

WASHINGTON (PRWEB) December 07, 2016

The Trump administration and Congress should ensure federally funded research more effectively results in U.S. innovation and jobs by better connecting national research and development activities to local economies, according to a new paper released today by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the Brookings Institution's Bass Initiative on Innovation and Placemaking. ITIF and Brookings scholars propose 50 actions the Trump administration and Congress should take to increase tech transfer and commercialization nationwide.

The paper, "Localizing the Economic Impact of Research and Development: Policy Proposals for the Trump Administration and Congress," argues that supporting innovation around the country should be a top focus for the incoming administration and new Congress.

"America leads the world in supporting scientific research, but we are not capturing enough of the benefits from that in the form of new companies and products," said paper co-author and ITIF Vice President of Global Innovation Policy Stephen Ezell. "The federal government needs to take a much more active role to help move innovative new ideas out of the lab and into the economy. If America's innovation economy is to function at its peak, policymakers need to put in place smart policies that effectively work in concert at the city, regional, state, and national levels."

With significant new federal R&D funding unlikely given the current budgetary environment--despite substantial underinvestment relative to historical norms--the paper urges Washington to extract more return from its R&D investments by better connecting federal resources to firms, inventors, and others in the regions in which federal funds are disbursed and research centers are located.

"From the Department of Defense to the National Institutes of Health, the federal government can and should better align its research dollars with local assets," said paper co-author and Brookings Bass Initiative Associate Fellow Scott Andes. "Doing so would not only boost the national and regional economies, but also improve the outcomes of the U.S. government's defense, health, energy, and other research aims."

The paper's recommendations range from prioritizing innovation districts in federal R&D outlays to implementing federal innovation vouchers to connect small firms with research institutions.

Its 50 policy actions align with five major policy imperatives:
-Strengthen innovation districts and regional technology clusters;
-Bolster institutions supporting tech transfer, commercialization, and innovation;
-Expand technology transfer and commercialization-related programs and investments;
-Promote high-growth, tech-based entrepreneurship; and
-Stimulate private-sector innovation.

While the recommendations are directed at the federal government, many of the actions could also be pursued by states and should be better understood and advocated for by localities.

The full list of policy actions is itemized below. Each is described in detail here.

Strengthen innovation districts and regional technology clusters
1. Prioritize innovation districts within federal R&D outlays
2. Task federal laboratories with a local economic development mission
3. Create off-campus "microlabs" to provide a front door to labs
4. Support technology clusters by assessing and managing local-level federal R&D investments
5. Assess federal real estate holdings and reallocate physical research assets to innovation districts
6. Allow labs to repurpose a small portion of existing funds for timely local collaboration
7. Standardize research partnership contracts within cities
8. Create NIH regional pre-competitive consortia to address national health concerns
9. Allow DOE labs to engage in non-federal funding partnerships that do not require DOE approval
10. Dismantle funding silos to support regional collaboration
11. Incentivize cross-purpose funding based on the economic strength of cities
12. Expand the national Regional Innovation Program
13. Support the innovation potential of rural areas
14. Facilitate regional makerspaces
15. Introduce an "Open Commercialization Infrastructure Act"

Bolster institutions supporting tech transfer, commercialization, and innovation
16. Establish a core of 20 "manufacturing universities"
17. Complete the buildout of Manufacturing USA to 45 Institutes of Manufacturing Innovation (IMIs)
18. Create a National Engineering and Innovation Foundation
19. Create an Office of Innovation Review within the Office of Management and Budget
20. Create a network of acquisition-oriented DoD labs based in regional technology clusters
21. Establish manufacturing development facilities
22. Establish a foundation for the national energy laboratories

Expand technology transfer and commercialization-related programs and investments
23. Increase the importance of commercialization activities at federal labs/research institutes
24. Allocate a share of federal funding to promote technology transfer and commercialization
25. Develop a proof-of-concept, or "Phase Zero," individual and institutional grant award program within major federal research agencies
26. Fund pilot programs supporting experimental approaches to technology transfer and commercialization
27. Support university-based technology accelerators/incubators to commercialize faculty and student research
28. Allow a share of SBIR/STTR awards to be used for commercialization activities
29. Increase the allocation of federal agencies' SBIR project budgets to commercialization activities
30. Modify the criteria and composition of SBIR review panels to make commercialization potential a more prominent factor in funding decisions
31. Encourage engagement of intermediary organizations in supporting the development of startups
32. Expand the NSF I-Corps program to additional federal agencies
33. Authorize and extend the Lab-Corps program
34. Provide federal matching funds for state and regional technology transfer and commercialization efforts
35. Incentivize universities to focus more on commercialization activities
36. Establish stronger university entrepreneurship metrics
37. Expand the collaborative R&D tax credit to spur research collaboration between industry and universities and labs
38. Increase funding for cooperative industry/university research programs at universities
39. Establish an International Patent Consortium

Promote high-growth, tech-based entrepreneurship
40. Encourage student entrepreneurship
41. Help nascent high-growth startups secure needed capital
42. Establish an entrepreneur-in-residence program with NIH
43. Implement immigration policies that advantage high-skill talent
44. Implement a research investor's visa

Stimulate private-sector innovation
45. Implement innovation vouchers
46. Incentivize "megafunds" around high-risk research and development
47. Increase R&D tax credit generosity
48. Ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises are familiar with available R&D tax credits
49. Implement an innovation box to spur enterprises' efforts to commercialize technologies
50. Revise the tax code to support innovation by research-intensive, pre-revenue companies

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/12/prweb13909503.htm

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