FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NATION NEEDS SUSTAINED COMMITMENT TO INVESTMENT IN INNOVATION
Sept. 23, 2010 — The outlook for America's ability to compete for quality jobs in the global economy has continued to deteriorate in the last five years, and the nation needs a sustained investment in education and basic research to keep from slipping further, says a new report requested by the presidents of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, and authored by members of the committee that wrote the influential 2005 report Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.
What progress has been made in addressing America's competitiveness challenges came largely as the result of the America COMPETES Act and stimulus package spending advancing its provisions, but both are due to expire soon, warned authors of the new report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5.
"The Gathering Storm effort once again finds itself at a tipping point," said Norman R. Augustine, one of the new report's authors and chair of the original Gathering Storm committee. "Addressing
The report's authors concluded that the nation's competitive outlook has worsened since 2005, when Gathering Storm issued its call to strengthen K-12 education and double the federal basic-research budget. While progress has been made in certain areas, the latitude to fix the problems being confronted has been severely diminished by the economic recession and the growth of the national debt over this period from $8 trillion to $13 trillion, the report says. Moreover, other nations have been markedly progressing, thereby affecting
The report notes many indications that the
In addition, in spite of occasional bright spots, the nation's education system has shown little sign of improvement, particularly in math and science, the report says. According to the ACT College Readiness Report, 78 percent of
In 2007 Congress passed the America COMPETES Act, which authorized many recommendations from the Gathering Storm report. But most of the Act's measures went unfunded until the stimulus package was passed early in 2009, a package that increased total federal funding for K-12 education, provided scholarships for future math and science teachers, and funded the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which is dedicated to supporting transformational basic research on energy.
However, the America COMPETES Act is set to expire this year, and its funding -- which came from the stimulus package, presumed to be a one-time initiative -- is also nearing expiration. In order to sustain the progress that has begun, the report says, it will be necessary to both reauthorize the America COMPETES Act and "institutionalize" oversight and funding of Gathering Storm recommendations -- or others that accomplish the same purpose -- so that funding and policy changes will routinely be considered in future years' legislative processes.
The report's authors acknowledged the difficulty of carrying out the Gathering Storm recommendations, such as doubling the research budget, in the current fiscal environment. But such investments will need to be made if the nation is to maintain the economic strength to provide health care, social security, national security, and other basic services to its citizens, they said.
The study was funded by the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and
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Copies of Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 are available from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed below).
Contacts: Sara Frueh, Media Relations Officer
William Kearney, Director of Media Relations
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Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail <news@nas.edu>
Additional Resources:
Committee Chair Norman R. Augustine on CNBC
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[ This news release and report are available at http://national-academies.org ]
NATIONAL
2005 “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” Committee Members Participating in
“The Gathering Storm, Revisited”
Norman R. Augustine1 (chair)
Chairman and CEO (retired)
Lockheed Martin Corp.
Craig R. Barrett1
Chairman and CEO (retired)
Intel Corp.
Gail H. Cassell3
Vice President, Scientific Affairs, and
Distinguished Lilly Research Scholar
for Infectious Diseases
Eli Lilly and
Nancy S. Grasmick
State Superintendent
Maryland State Schools
Charles O. Holliday Jr. 1
Chairman of the Board and CEO (retired)
DuPont
Shirley Ann Jackson1
President
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Anita K. Jones1
University Professor Emerita
Richard C. Levin
President
C.D. (Dan) Mote Jr. 1
President Emeritus,
Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering
Cherry Murray1 2
Dean of Engineering and Applied Science
Peter O'Donnell Jr.
President
O'Donnell Foundation
Lee R. Raymond 1
Chairman and CEO (retired)
Exxon Mobil Corp.
Robert C. Richardson 2
F.R. Newman Professor of Physics, and
Vice Provost for Research
P. Roy Vagelos 2 3
Chairman and CEO (retired)
Merck & Co. Inc.
Charles M. Vest 1
President
National
George M. Whitesides 1 2
Woodford L. and
Richard N. Zare 2
Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Natural Science
STAFF
Tom Arrison
Senior Staff Officer
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1 Member, National
2 Member,
3 Member,
Additional members of the 2005 committee:
Steven Chu2 – Nobel laureate in physics, now serving as U.S. Secretary of Energy
Robert Gates – former president of
Joshua Lederberg2 – recipient of the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine, died Feb. 2, 2008