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| Invitee Comments: Professor Louis Branscomb | ||
| (Return to Comment Selection) I am delighted there will be a thoughtful reprise on the Carnegie Commission. My service on that commission was one of the more rewarding experiences in policy studies. I credit the commission with raising more issues than it settled. No one else did as good a job as early on S&T and the Congress, the S&T issues facing the judiciary, the issues of innovation and technical development, and the sad state of affairs in S&T and foreign relations. The K-12 work, some of which I led, was important, but not as important as the major study the Carnegie launched under my leadership, leading to Teachers for the 21st Century which came out in 1986, was adopted by the NGA over other own study, and was the seminal contribution to the acceptance of the principle that teachers should have authority over academic matters, should be treated like professionals, and should be accountable for outcomes. My own view is that the group on November 7-8 should look to the future and ask what are the current S&T institutional capacity issues that are (a) most important, (b) are timely, and (c) have some hope of being actionable. By those criteria I would list the following: a) the capability of the new (anticipated) Department of Homeland Security to carry out its mission, which clearly requires a level of S&T capability unknown to the constituent agencies. A biproduct of this project would necessarily be a major contribution to federal - state - municipality relations in S&T and a new view of the role of federal government to industries providing critical infrastructure. b) the ability of a combination of the NEC, the Office of the USTR, the Department of Commerce and NIST to build on the policy consensus developed (largely by DOC Deputy Secretary Sam Bodman) on the merits of the ATP program to create a more enduring ability of the federal government to address the issues of commercialization of S&T assets in an economically efficient way. The policy research is far ahead of the institutional development now. c) The vacuum left by the demise of OTA: does the NRC offer an adequate substitute? What are the needs of Congress and what will it take to satisfy them in a practical way? d) How enduring is the capability that Norman Neuriter has built -- with a lot of help from NAS and AAAS -- and two sympathetic secretaries of state? What can be done to strengthen this capability and get it institutionalized? (Return to Top) Posted 9.24.02 |
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