http://scienceblogs.com/nosenada/2006/02/a_debate_worth_having_what_the.php

For me, the focus in the RAGS report on competitiveness rather than collaboration is both depressing and shortsighted, especially in relation to the growing scientific capabilities of China and India.

Such constant banging of the competitiveness drum thrteatens to drown out the opportunities that are being created by the emergence of new centres of excellence. Science is not a zero sum game: more in Asia doesn’t mean less in Europe or the US. To pretend otherwise is to misunderstand the nature of innovation.

In ‘the new geography of science’, it is those who are good at sharing knowledge who will increasingly flourish. So rather than shoring up our scientific defences – whether in the US or Europe – our priority should be developing better mechanisms for orchestrating research across international networks, and supporting our scientists to undertake joint research with their counterparts in Asia.

It seems to me that this crucial dimension of the debate is largely ignored in the RAGS report. It is as if they are only interested in the ‘threat’ from Asia insofar as it bolsters the case for more US science spending, rather than as the basis for a serious, textured analysis of what is happening in Asian science, and what the implications (no doubt, some negative but also many positive) might be for the US.

Now this may just mean that the opportunities are in smaller companies, but I do think that what will happen is that in many large established companies in 15 years the majority of R&D will not be done in the US, in fact since the factories are also moving or already gone, I see the US portions of the companies becoming shells. The reason is emerging markets and simple costs, so I really do not see a good solution. I think the US technical community has been squeezed, and will continue to be in the future even more so regardless of government promotion. The size of the community will be smaller per capita I think, even if it grows in total and the salaries will not increase.

Personally I think the government research push might be better spent on some large scale ecological surveys and ecosystem design and understanding a la The Nature Conservancy. This is basic research in a sense, but perhaps the real work here would be developing tools to allow easy surveys. I do actually like at least the start of new energy policy as well, at least the fact that all parties are realizing the future won’t be the same as today.

In the longer run (30 years) the overseas economies and technical prowess will be equal or better than the US, and planning now for that future might indicate risking money in ways that don’t seem obvious now, and leveraging the global knowledge base more.

An aside. Roger suggests:

“For example, one way to encourage “riskier” research in NSF would be to do away with the second review criterion focused on broader societal impacts and focus narrowly on scientific merit.”

Let me also suggest that another way to encourage “riskier” research in NSF would be to truly address requirement two, or even shift emphasis toward greater societal impacts. It all depends on how you define your risk. Seems that RAGS did a lousy job of defining its terms and assumptions. Bad policy work.