The Proposed U.S. Endless Frontier Act -- An Excellent Idea!

This is an excellent idea—and with bipartisan support!  Over US $100 billion for innovation.  It would benefit from additional funding and this is the time to do it. Love the title! The press release follows. 

April 21, 2021

Washington, D.C.— Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senator Todd Young (R-IN), Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA), and Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI) today reintroduced the bipartisan Endless Frontier Act. The bill is a bold initiative to advance and solidify the United States’ leadership in scientific and technological innovation through increased investments in the discovery, creation, and manufacturing of technology critical to U.S. national security and economic competitiveness. The bipartisan legislation further targets support to ensure new research investments translate into American industries and manufacturing and high-tech jobs in regions across the country to become global centers of emerging technology.

In addition to Senators Schumer and Young and Representatives Khanna and Gallagher, the Endless Frontier Act is cosponsored in the Senate by Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Susan Collins (R-ME), Chris Coons (D-DE), Rob Portman (R-OH), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Gary Peters (D-MI), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Steve Daines (R-MT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mitt Romney (R-UT), and Mark Kelly (D-AZ). The bill is cosponsored in the House by Representatives Susan Wild (D-PA), Mike Turner (R-OH), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ).

“I am proud to reintroduce the bold, bipartisan and bicameral Endless Frontier Act today with Senator Todd Young and Representatives Ro Khanna and Mike Gallagher to address several dangerous weak spots in America’s economic and national security that threaten our global technological leadership,” said Majority Leader Schumer. “This legislation will enhance American competitiveness with China and other countries by investing in American innovation, building up regions across the country to lead in the innovation economy, creating good-paying American manufacturing and high-tech jobs, and strengthening America’s research, development, and manufacturing capabilities. The Endless Frontier Act is the key to preserving America’s position on the world stage as a current and future technological leader in the 21^st Century. In the coming weeks, the Senate will turn to this legislation and other pieces of bipartisan China related legislation to ensure that the U.S. Government’s hand at home and abroad is as strong as possible as we compete with China on all fronts.”

“We face a pivotal time in history. Right now, the Chinese Communist Party is emphasizing to the world that the United States is a divided nation. This is a rare opportunity to show the authoritarians in Beijing, and the rest of the world, that when it comes to our national security, and most importantly our China policy, we are united. The Endless Frontier Act is our path forward. I’ve worked with my colleagues to ensure the Endless Frontier Act will help invest in innovative small businesses that create jobs, invest in critical emerging technologies, and put America in a position to outgrow, out-innovate, and out-compete our leading geopolitical foe,” said Senator Young.

“The era of endless wars is coming to a close and, in its place, we are set to embark upon a 21st century full of mass investment in scientific discovery & technological innovation,” said Representative Khanna. “This bicameral, bipartisan legislation is the first step on making that future a reality for our country. Grateful for Majority Leader Schumer’s leadership, as well as the partnership of Sen. Young & Rep. Gallagher, as we bring together the innovations of Silicon Valley, the fortitude of the American Midwest, and the wealth of the Empire State under one proposal. President Biden is in an ideal position to sign the Endless Frontiers Act & make it a pillar of efforts to revive our post-COVID economy. We must win the technology race.”

“While America has long been the global leader in science and technology, our superiority is at risk. The Chinese Communist Party has used decades of intellectual property theft and industrial espionage to close this technological-gap in a way that threatens not only our economic security, but our also our way of life,” said Representative Gallagher. “Just as we did at the outset of the Cold War, we have to substantially increase federal investment in technologies essential for our national survival. This bill makes a down payment on our national leadership and will translate into new American companies, manufacturing and high-tech jobs, and opportunities for the regions across the country – most importantly the Midwest – to become a global center of emerging industry--all while ensuring that America, and not the Chinese Communist Party, dominates the critical technologies of the future.”

The Endless Frontier Act bill text can be found HERE and a summary can be found HERE.

Additional Background on the Bipartisan Endless Frontier Act

Today, the United States’ position as the unequivocal global leader in scientific and technological ingenuity and innovation is under pressure from China and is eroding. U.S. competitiveness and national security are being threatened by decades of U.S. underinvestment in research, manufacturing, and workforce development, coupled with foreign competitors stealing American intellectual property and aggressively investing to dominate the key technology fields of today and of the future.

The Endless Frontier Act will reinvigorate the U.S. innovation economy, support research and development throughout the country, help lead to the creation of new jobs of the future here in America, and keep the U.S. economically competitive against China and other countries. The members of Congress emphasize that without a significant and sustained increase in investment in research, education and training, technology transfer and entrepreneurship, manufacturing, and the broader U.S. innovation ecosystem across the nation, it is only a matter of time before America’s global competitors overtake the U.S. in terms of technological primacy, threatening national security and prosperity.

Specifically, the Endless Frontier Act proposes an expansion of the National Science Foundation (NSF) with the establishment of a new Technology and Innovation Directorate within NSF to advance research and development in 10 key technology focus areas, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing, advanced communications, biotechnology, and advanced energy.

The newly-established Technology and Innovation Directorate would receive $100 billion over five years to invest in basic and advanced research, commercialization, and education and training programs in technology areas critical to national leadership. An additional $10 billion would be authorized at the Department of Commerce to support regional technology strategies and to designate at least 10 regional technology hubs, awarding funds for comprehensive investment initiatives that position regions across the country as global centers for the research, development, entrepreneurship, and manufacturing of new key technologies.

The Endless Frontier Act also establishes a new Supply Chain Resiliency and Crisis Response Program with the national security mission of strengthening critical technology supply chains in the U.S. and with global allies and partners. Additionally, the bill invests in U.S. manufacturing innovation and competitiveness with over $2.4 billion in funding to enhance and expand the Manufacturing USA network to ensure global leadership in the manufacturing of key technologies. To support the country’s national security capabilities, the bill mandates a strategy on national competitiveness and ingenuity in science, research, and manufacturing to support the national security strategy.

Federal Funding for National Institutes of Health in the United States will likely Continue to Decline

The Trump Administration is seeking cuts to the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for Fiscal Year 2019.  In dollars adjusted for inflation, the decrease is from FY 2018 38.349 billion dollars to 34.767 billion dollars, as described by Judith Johnson’s Congressional Research Service NIH Funding FY1994-2019 report (CRS Report).  Trump also requested a decrease in the NIH’s budget in the FY 2018 budget; however, Congress increased the budget by 2 billion dollars.  Notably, the CRS Report outlines how in inflation adjusted dollars the budget for the NIH has decreased over the last 14 years from the 2003 budget high point of 43.198 billion inflation adjusted dollars.  From 2011 to 2018, the budget for the NIH has decreased in double-digits in inflation adjusted dollars from the 2003 high point.  The years 2013, 2014 and 2015 saw decreases from the 2003 high point of 21.7%, 21.2% and 22.4% respectively.  The Trump 2019 request would be a 19.5% decrease in inflation adjusted dollars from the 2003 high point. 

UK Spending Review & IP

Crickets - by Billy Hathorn

The UK Spending Review happened today – also known as the Autumn Statement – basically it's an update on the economic state of the nation in the UK and a staging post for economic, tax, etc announcements.

In past years, the Spending Review (or whatever it was known as in that particular year, the name changes) has brought us things like the patent box, R&D relief, and so on.

This year … crickets, from a tax perspective. Nothing much, really (a small change on entering into the intangibles tax regime for corporate partners).

There's some spending announcements though (with the usual caveat that it's a bit hard to tell what's new money and what's been announced before):

• £5bn in health R&D, including £50m in antimicrobial resistance research; 
• £150m to launch a Dementia Institute (presumably to do R&D);
• investing £6.9bn in capital (capital what?) to ensure that the UK remains a world leader in science and research, and protecting the current £4.7bn research funding "in real terms" for the same purpose - but note that £6.9bn includes the £150m for the Dementia Institute;
• investing £250m in a nuclear R&D programme (looks like it will be mostly for small modular reactor development, and focussed on spending in the North of England);
• protecting funding for the arts in real cash terms for 5 years;
• the £1bn Ross Fund investing in R&D in drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and treatments for infectious diseases – patterned with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, so not all of that £1bn is coming out of UK pockets;
• playing a leading role in international research efforts to reduce the costs of low carbon energy (no £ information indicated, though);
• a new entity called "Research UK", based on the Paul Nurse review recommendations. This will work across (not with? maybe just poor wording …) the Research Councils to promote a strategic approach to science funding. Innovate UK will be integrated into Research UK. The Research Excellence Framework will be reviewed.

[ETA 26/11/15 – the Innovate UK grants are to be replaced by loans, according to a press release from BIS, which doesn't have more detail on the point]

The Review also notes that scientific R&D has grown by 21.3% and architecture and engineering activities by 38.8% (possibly since the beginning of 2010, although that's not entirely clear, and neither is it clear what metric they are measuring – employment numbers? capital expenditure? revenue expenditure?).

Stats for the curious: "research" is mentioned 46 times, "science" 35 times, and "technology" 30 times in the policy paper (PDF).

Money for Nothing (?) and the IP for Free: Crowdfunding Science

Inside Higher Ed recently published an article about several entities with websites which allow crowdfunding for scientific research projects, most by academics, in Kickstarter style.  Here are a few: Petridish.org; Microryza.com; and Fundageek.com.   Do the funders obtain IP rights?  I suppose they could as an incentive for funding depending on the rules of the entity.  Although travelling with a researcher to Peru may be more fun!

Fundageek.com is thoughtful about protecting the IP of the submitters of research.  Here is a link to their IP site and they have a “special IP guidelines document” by Daniel L. Dawes.   Clearly, employers of researchers will want to know if they have researchers submitting proposals to these types of sites.

The Inside Higher Ed article also highlights the launch of the University of Virginia’s own crowdfunding site—great idea!  Here is the site.  And, they’ve already started getting funding!  Know of any other similar sites?

Money to spend on innovation?

UK-IPO e-zine IP Insight reports that, over the next three years, the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) in the UK will have £1bn to spend on accelerating business innovation. The TSB is an executive non-departmental public body, established in 2007 and sponsored by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). I think this is what used to be called a quango. Can someone please advise?

Anyway, in this article the TSB Director of strategy Allyson Reed discusses how high-growth enterprises and intellectual property fit into her plans. She explains that the TSB "lies at the juncture of government, public research, corporations and enterprises". Significantly, any projects that fall within its brief "will be run on a collaborative basis with the TSB matching any funding from its partners in government, research and commerce". The article concludes:

"In helping to make growth projects happen, the TSB is not looking to take any IP itself. ‘The consortium owns it. How they develop it is up to them. We are investing where we can make a difference and where there is a return for the UK’".

A billion pounds over three years sounds great, particularly from a backer that doesn't seek any IP rights in return. But there are at least a couple of things to think about:

* How easy will it be for potential applicants for funding and support to fill in the forms and satisfy the formal criteria? If at the end of three years much of the sum set aside remains unallocated, we may have an answer to those questions.

* Are there any hidden issues of EU competition law? The Commission is not notably fond of state subsidies in supposedly open commercial sectors?