What are the most important things the next U.S. president needs to do for science? To cut through the jargon and find an answer, we bring you the DISCOVER Science Policy Project, in which we give a group of the country’s most celebrated scientists and thinkers the chance to respond to the following question:
What are the three most important things the next president can do to positively impact scientific research in the United States?
In the November issue of DISCOVER, we compile and analyze the results. In the meantime, we will be posting each response in its entirety here on Reality Base. Feel free to offer your own ideas and analysis in the comments section. All past responses can be found here. CRAIG BARRETT Chairman of the Board of Intel Corp.
Get serious about fixing our K-12 education crises. Today, the average American high school graduate is weak in the basics of math and science when compared to his or her international peers. We need more well-trained math and science teachers, we need higher expectations for performance, and we need to put competition into the system to counter the vested interests of the educational establishment.
Basic R&D is the backbone of future economic growth. Dramatically increase NSF funding (double it within a few years). I would not try to pick between winners and losers re: technology investment, but would continue to support peer-based refereed research proposals. Leave the current system alone—just increase the funding level and let our bright researchers in the engineering and biotech areas explore new frontiers. There is nothing wrong with our universities—they are still the best in the world, we just need to fund them at a competitive level.
Structure an immigration policy to attract and retain the brightest researchers in the world. This means structuring investment and R&D tax credits to promote investments in innovation, it means a corporate tax policy that promotes investment in the U.S. and does not drive investment to other lower tax environments, and it means simplifying our intellectual property rules, streamlining our export rules, and continuing our free trade philosophy to promote growth of our local industries.
