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Beyond Dominance

It is almost a matter of faith among U.S. policy makers and scientists that the United States should dominate the global scientific enterprise. Concerns are frequently expressed about the U.S. losing it dominance. In a commentary in yesterday’s Financial Times Caroline Wagner, of the Rand Corp and the University of Amsterdam, and Yee-Cheong Lee, president of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations, challenge this perspective. They write:

“…some still see the quest for scientific advancement and technological innovation as a race between nations. A recent report by the National Science Board of the US raised questions about whether America is at risk of losing its role as the world's centre of science and technology innovation.

This is the wrong question to ask in the 21st century. Today science has become a global phenomenon. Nations are part of an expanding knowledge network that has no borders. In the 21st century, security requires sharing rather than protecting knowledge. No country can work at the frontiers of all fields of science. The expanding knowledge frontier means that co-operation is the means of knowledge creation…

The US needs to break out of the "dominance" box of the last century and think beyond a national model of scientific or technological capacity… America stands to benefit more from knowledge and ideas flowing through a networked world than from a world in which countries are competing against each other.”

This op-ed will no doubt be warmly received by those who think that too often science and technology policy is portrayed as a competition – for more funding, for more publications, for more citations, for more prestige, etc., rather than as a means to organize the scientific enterprise to better achieve society’s goals. Wagner and Lee raise some important questions worth thinking about. Their commentary can be found here.