Advanced Technology Program Challenges and Opportunities (1999) / Chapter Skim
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Introduction
Introduction
Pages 11-25
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12-40. For a review of the main features of the East Asian economic success story, see The East Asian Economic Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy, World Bank Policy Research Report, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993.
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Government funds had supported the demonstration and development of the telegraph in the last century, and after World War I, the federal government fostered an independent radio industry.4 As noted in the preface, the federal government also provided active support through a variety of mechanisms for military and civil aviation and the electronics industry.5 Yet the 1980s and early 1990s saw a conscious effort to expand cooperation, in part by using federal R&D funding more effectively, to meet what were seen as unprecedented competitive challenges. A series of public and private initiatives in the 1980s demonstrate the renewed emphasis on cooperation.
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INTRODUCTION 13 6 Drawn, with NRC modifications, from Berglund and Coburn, op.cit., p.
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, in part as a response to Japan's Fifth Generation Computer project.7 In 1987, two parallel study efforts in the public and private sectors recommended the establishment of a consortium to improve manufacturing technology in the semiconductor industry, which had lost leadership in manufacturing and was losing market share to Japanese firms at a rapid rate. The result was SEMATECH, a $200 million per year consortium funded half by the government and half by the private sector.8 While perhaps one of the most successful, SEMATECH was by no means the only technology development program launched by the federal government.
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A Report to the President and the Congress, Semiconductor Industry Association, Washington, D.C., 1989. See also National Advisory Committee on Semiconductors, Toward a National Strategy for Semiconductors.
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i6AMTEX stands for the American Textile Partnership, a consortium of five industry research, education, and technology transfer organizations, and eight national laboratories. Established in 1993, the agreement is designed to bring the resources of the DOE laboratories to the American fibers, textiles, and fabricated products industry.
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This is particularly challenging for agencies responsible for research activities and makes the NIST evaluation effort, as well as this study of government-industry partnerships, particularly relevant. For a review of the issues in applying GPRA to federal research, see Evaluating Federal Research Programs: Research and the Government Performance and Results Act, National Academy Press: Washington, D.C., 1999.
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The assessment studies conducted for ATP have shown positive economic returns to these projects, most companies say that ATP grants have accelerated R&D cycles, and nearly two-fifths report that they would not have undertaken the research at all without the ATP grant. While quoting Commerce Secretary William Daley that recent ATP assessments present "a portrait of a program that works," Mr.
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The Clinton Administration did initiate the PNGV program and the Environmental Technology program. Recent initiatives include the expanded support for human genome research and information technology programs such as Next Generation Internet and IT2.
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Powell, search for projects that will generate private benefits, whereas ATP, with the focus on pre-compe~citive technologies, seeks out projects whose economic benefits will be significant, but also have the potential to disuse across a sector or the economy as a whole. 23 In a recent article discussing the challenges facing the SBIR program, James Turner and the late Congressman, George Brown, argue that the ATP has addressed assessment issues more effectively than the substantially larger SBIR program.
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The program also funds proposals by larger companies with widespread applications. For example, at the Honeywell Technology Center, ATP funded a joint Honeywell-SEMATECH-Advanced Micro Devices effort to develop an Advanced Process Control Framework to reduce semiconductor fabrication costs.
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Rosalie Ruegg, the Director of the ATP's Economic Assessment Office, outlined the ATP evaluation program, saying that the program evaluates projects in light of its congressionally authorized mission to support the creation of generic technologies with widespread economic impact to facilitate their rapid commercialization. Given the need for rapid commercialization, time figures prominently into ATP evaluation; if commercial benefits fall outside the window for a relevant market impact, then the benefits are likely to be seen as insufficient.
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Genometrix' technology has in fact proven to have substantial social benefits, as it provides a quick and inexpensive test for whether individuals may be allergic to certain drugs. For Osiris Therapeutics, a company commercializing mesenchymal stem cell technology for tissue regeneration, the ATP grant allowed it to pursue research in areas that its constrained resources would otherwise prohibit.
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One objective in using case study techniques is to determine the indirect effects of the ATP, e.g., organizational or sectoral learning, which participants said are likely to be a substantial portion of all ATP impacts. By encouraging collaboration through the ATP application process, the program may foster collaboration and learning in ways not directly related to the research eventually undertaken under the ATP grant.
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Dr. Barry Bozeman remarked that the careful scrutiny and analysis to which ATP has been subject may well be valuable, but will not, by itself, create sufficient political support to sustain the program.
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