CHAPTER 10.  National Science and Technology Policy Studies
 

"...The analysis of where one is overwhelms the consideration of where one is going."
Henry A. Kissinger

Policy Choices
At the end of World War II it was evident that science and technology were of prime importance to the military security of a country and strongly related to its economic strength.  In the postwar era the rivalry in science and technology development was a central feature of U.S.-USSR relations.  It was also apparent that science had become very expensive for all countries, but particularly so for smaller countries that tried to keep abreast of developments in many areas.

Instead of rivalry and competition, cooperation between countries became the mode in some fields.  Particularly successful was the Centre EuropÈen de Recherche NuclÈaire (CERN) in Europe in the costly field of nuclear physics.  The European Space Research Organization (ESRO)European Space Research Organization (ESRO) , later the European Space Agency (ESA), pooled European resources in space.  To a degree, both these institutions were reactions against U.S. monopolies or perceived monopolies in nuclear physics and space science as much as they were efforts to pool resources.6

Countries all over the world struggle with problems of rational use of limited national resources to achieve the economic benefits of science and technology.  What each country does in its science program will affect its economic competitiveness in ways that are not clear but are nevertheless certain.  Thus science and technology become economic factors in foreign affairs, a subject for study in foreign relations.  Science policyScience policy  experts, economists and analysts of all kinds in Washington depend on embassy reporting for a picture of host country plans, policies, priorities, budgets and evaluations.  These have become as important in their way as political and military analyses.

Since all aspects of science policy are so difficult to understand, no one country has an edge in the policy game, no one country has the answers to the main questions.  Study of other countries' attempts, successes and failures is vital to the development of one's own policy.  Yet until the 1960s there were few relevant statistical indices of success or failure available in any but a handful of countries and hardly any comparative studies or analyses.

Internationally, the OECD (and NATO to an extent) addressed questions of science policy of member countries.  The OECD recognized the importance of problems of science and education to a primarily economic organization and undertook examinations of individual countries' science policy programs.  It held meetings of science ministers that set up its Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy (CSTP):at OECD .  Countries were urged to establish ministries for science, and many did.  Science education was promoted.  The organization developed methods for comparing the statistics of science -- budgets, manpower, education -- of different countries.  OECD also fostered actual international S&T cooperation.

The acceptable size for national R&D budgets in developed countries settled down at two to three percent of gross domestic product.  "Research on research" addressed the concept of technology transfer in terms of the transfer of an idea from the research laboratory to the production line.  Countries compared notes on all these policy problems at NATO, OECD, other international organizations and private seminars and conferences.  Growth of science and its subsequent complexity, the increasing expectations of developed countries and their limited budgets all combined to promote the international comparisons alluded to above.  When the OECD science ministers (or approximate equivalents; the United States has never had a science department) first met in 1963, the three most important items on their agenda were i) national science policy, ii) international science policy and iii) science and economic growth.

Planning for the welfare of science itself is a core issue in national as well as international science policy.  The government, as a major financial supporter of science, believes it must have some control over what that science is, although the U.S. experience has been largely one in which the government has been sympathetic to the scientists' point of view.  That is, the government for many years took what is most likely the correct view: that the scientists themselves are the ones best qualified to decide what they should study.  This sounds to many like carte blanche, and is, of course, open to abuse.  But there has been no system designed better than the one that gives scientists more or less free rein.  Think of the advances in science in England during the nineteenth century, rarely underwritten, much less directed by the government.  Although a current-day government is justified in pointing out its areas of interest in military security, technology development, environmental protection and similar fields, particularly in expensive "big scienceBig science ," it is almost certainly better off for making the suggestion, then stepping back and letting the scientists think.  Government can help foment originality, novelty and interdisciplinary research (urging, for example, physicists to look at biology, or chemists to look at archaeology).  Naturally, government is impatient to direct technology toward today's problems and science toward something that is eminently useful, but such directed programs too often miss the mark.  Science policy archives amply portray failed government programs in the United States and abroad that have been undertaken for political rather than scientific reasons.

As the U.S. S&T budgetS&T budget:U.S.  grew to be considerable money7 -- sometime after 1965 the basic R&D budgetR&D budget:U.S.  exceeded $15 billion (it was less than $5 billion in 1955, but $66 billion in 1998) -- more and more people were taking an interest in it, in Congress, in the science community, in the government science agencies.8  This growth of science meant that important decisions affecting science and technology were then being made outside the agencies like Office of Naval ResearchOffice of Naval Research  and the National Science FoundationNational Science Foundation,9 which had primary responsibility for basic researchBasic research .10
Newer agencies like NASA (dating from 1958), EPA (1970), the Department of Energy (1977) and NOAA (1978) found themselves administering vast sums for S&T support.  A decision they made concerning S&T support for their missions could have tremendous impact on U.S. science as a whole, the relative strength of basic science and the available pool of scientists.  Each developed country had a similar experience.  How national S&T establishments grew and prospered was of interest to the United States from the standpoint of learning what policies worked and what the effects were on other countries' national economies.11

Picking the Winners
No topic has occupied science policy-makers more than what was commonly called picking the winners, more precisely termed influencing or supporting technical innovation.  Since after the war so much science and technology in most countries was directly or indirectly supported by the government, the temptation was obvious and irresistible to channel R&D funds into areas where success would benefit man directly (cancer research, for example) or indirectly (through economic betterment brought about by new developments in industry).  While most countries tried to some extent to pick such winners in allocating R&D funds, there was a sameness among the fields picked: biotechnology, microelectronics, automation.  No country among many working on the same area could expect to keep any lead for long, although it could achieve independence somewhat longer.  The idea of parceling out hot fields among countries to avoid duplication was unacceptable because of the danger of monopoly.  Nevertheless, smaller countries feared being overshadowed by big countries' achievements, forgetting that small countries like Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden have long produced outstanding scientists and inventors.  Still, the bandwagon effect was paramount.  Every country wanted to be in with winners, and nearly every country picked the same winners.

After most countries picked the same candidates for winning, like horses or lottery numbers, few actually became winners, just as the favorite often loses the race.  This was useful to know but hard to swallow.  BiotechnologyBiotechnology  was perhaps the greatest widespread disappointment.  Despite billions of dollars' investment beginning in the 1980s, by the end of the decade only a handful of firms (two in the United States) had annual sales exceeding a billion dollars.  By comparison U.S. software and computer industries in the same period grew to $100 billion sales annually.  MicroelectronicsMicroelectronics  was another field that failed to live up to policymakers' dreams in some countries.  Designing and making ever-denser integrated-circuit chips was a task that Europe's best firms (like Siemens and Philips) simply couldn't achieve, even with handsome government support.  JapanJapan:technology leader  fared well in applications like video cassette recorders but not in basic computer microprocessors.

This is not the place to discuss possible reasons for failure of picking the winners in any particular country: they include lack of competition, proprietary secrecy, excessive regulation, political interference, lack of proper technical base, unrealistic planning and limited seed funds for small firm start-ups.  Not to mention just plain bad guessing.  But the very fact that European countries and Japan particularly, and many other countries as well, were trying these routes to economic growth via technological development was of great interest to public and private-sector policy-makers in the United States.  All countries also face the problem of support of national versus private research laboratories, and the allocation of limited resources to international cooperative ventures like CERN or ESA at the cost of support to national research.  How they do this and how they evaluate the success of their choices is useful information in the United States with its huge federal R&D budget.

Policy Issues
Section III will describe how U.S. government agencies share in the formulation of U.S. international S&T policy, even though the State Department has the major role.  In most other countries, the equivalent of the U.S. State Department -- usually called the Foreign Ministry -- plays a much smaller role.  The position a country takes on nuclear nonproliferation, Antarctic affairs or space may be set mainly by the country's S&T agencies.  Conduct of foreign affairs in certain areas in such countries requires study and understanding of these associated agencies' policies.  For example, in ArgentinaArgentina:nuclear policy , nuclear policy is largely the province of the National Atomic Energy Commission, with formal if not always decisive input from the Foreign Ministry.  Primacy of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) on international technological issues in JapanJapan:primacy of MITI  is well-known.

Policy studies are useful to government S&T agencies with international programs because they need guidance (whether they realize it or not) concerning the impact of their programs on foreign policy.  Administrators at NASA, for example, needed to understand how the Argentine space program was run and tightly controlled by the Air Force.
Countries can, of course, choose to buy rather than develop their own science and technology, achieving short-term economic success.  But many economists and scientists believe that such a buying into the market must still be followed by national S&T development to achieve permanent success that is also economic.

Science has even become a full-fledged political issue in a few countries like GermanyGermany:Green Party  where the Green Party is based on pro-environmental and anti-nuclear issues (among others).  But by broadly construing science to include the environment, we can say that the Greens and similar parties are parties that have strongly politicized aspects of science.  In ArgentinaArgentina:anti-nuclear movement  there was such a vocal anti-nuclear movement that authorities heightened security at nuclear plants; such movements are, of course, common worldwide.  While such movements are mostly pro-environment, there is often a trace of anti-technology in them as well.