A STRATEGY FOR AMERICAN INNOVATION

"America has long been a nation of innovators. The United States is the birthplace of the Internet, which today connects three billion people around the world. American scientists and engineers sequenced the human genome, invented the semiconductor, and sent humankind to the moon. And America is not done yet.

For an advanced economy such as the United States, innovation is a wellspring of economic growth. While many countries can grow by adopting existing technologies and business practices, America must continually innovate because our workers and firms are often operating at the technological frontier. Innovation is also a powerful tool for addressing our most pressing challenges as a nation, such as enabling more Americans to lead longer, healthier lives, and accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy..."
Innovation

Federal Policies and Innovation

"Innovation is a central driver of economic growth in the United States. Workers become more productive when they can make use of improved equipment and

processes, and consumers benefit when new goods and services become available or when existing ones become better or cheaper—although the transition can be disruptive to established firms and workers as new products and processes supersede old ones. Looking ahead, innovation will continue to be important for economic growth, in part because the supply of workers to the economy is expected to increase at a much slower rate in the future..."

Federal policies and Innovation

The Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States

"The U.S. economy reigned supreme in the 20th century, becoming the largest, most productive, and most competitive in the world; amazing new technologies were invented and commercialized; the workforce became the most educated in the world; and incomes soared while a large middle class emerged and thrived. As the 21st century approached, however, alarms began to sound about the U.S.
economy’s ability to remain in this preeminent position. Incomes stagnated and job growth slowed. Other countries became better educated and our manufacturing sector lost ground to foreign competitors. Observers have expressed concern that the scientific and technological building blocks critical to our economic leadership have been eroding at a time when many other nations are actively laying strong foundations in these same areas. In short, some elements of the U.S.
economy are losing their competitive edge which may mean that future generations of Americans will not enjoy a higher standard of living than is enjoyed in the United States today..."

Strategy for American Innovation: Executive Summary
"America’s future economic growth and international competitiveness depend on our capacity to innovate. We can create the jobs and industries of the future by doing what America does best – investing in the creativity and imagination of our people. To win the future, we must out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We also must take responsibility for our deficit, by investing in what makes America stronger, cutting what doesn’t, and reforming how our government operates so it focuses on promoting our economic growth and preparing for the challenges of a new century.

President Obama’s Strategy for American Innovation seeks to harness the inherent ingenuity of the American people to ensure that our economic growth is rapid, broad-based, and sustained. Innovation-based economic growth will bring greater income, higher quality jobs, and improved health and quality of life to all U.S. citizens. The Strategy for American Innovation provides a multifaceted, commonsense, and sustained approach to ensuring America’s future prosperity..."

Report Finds Investments in Innovation are Paying Off
"Vice President Joe Biden unveiled a new report, “The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy through Innovation,” which finds that the Recovery Act’s investments in science, technology and innovation are creating new jobs and strengthening advances in science that will create cost cuts for consumers.

Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) offered the following statement:

“This report reiterates that investments in innovation have a direct and positive impact on our economy. Innovation—especially new energy technology—is the path to solving climate change, meeting our growing needs for energy, reinvigorating our economy, and ensuring our competitiveness over the long-term by creating good jobs in America. The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, which passed the House of Representatives in May, authorizes important investments in science, innovation, and education. These investments will support employers today while encouraging the growth of the new industries of tomorrow, and the jobs that come with them. Thanks to investments like those in COMPETES and the Recovery Act, the US is better positioned to maintain its scientific and economic global leadership.”.."

Vice President Biden Releases Report on Recovery Act Impact on Innovation
"Vice President Joe Biden today unveiled a new report, “The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy through Innovation,” which finds that the Recovery Act’s $100 billion investment in innovation is not only transforming the economy and creating new jobs, but helping accelerate significant advances in science and technology that cut costs for consumers, save lives and help keep America competitive in the 21st century economy. The report can be viewed in full HERE.

“From the beginning, we have been a nation of discovery and innovation – and today we continue in that tradition as Recovery Act investments pave the way for game-changing breakthroughs in transportation, energy and medical research,” said Vice President Biden. “We’re planting the seeds of innovation, but private companies and the nation’s top researchers are helping them grow, launching entire new industries, transforming our economy and creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the process.”

According to this new analysis, the U.S. is now on-track to achieve four major innovation breakthroughs thanks to Recovery Act investments:

Cutting the cost of solar power in half by 2015, putting it on par with the cost of retail electricity from the grid.
Cutting the cost of batteries for electric vehicles by 70 percent between 2009 and 2015, putting the lifetime cost of an electric vehicle on-par with that of its non-electric counterpart.
Doubling U.S. renewable energy generation capacity and U.S. renewable manufacturing capacity by 2012, a breakthrough that would not be possible without the Recovery Act.
Bringing the cost of a personal human genome map to under $1,000 in five years, allowing researchers to sequence 50 human genomes for the same cost as sequencing just one today..."