OPINION:
The steps under way as part of the federal budget process to slash support for basic technological research are bewildering at best.
Lost among proposed budget cuts is the fact that America’s ace in the hole - university research - isn’t a spigot that can be turned off and on without hamstringing the nation’s future economy. Consider that the United States has been the locus of discovery and innovation that created industries including aerospace, biotechnology, information technology and all of that is enabled by the Internet. Those high-tech industries, which today share the semiconductor as their empowering workhorse, have created tremendous economic growth and millions of highly skilled and highly paid jobs. Their life-giving computer chips were born in the United States, thanks to farsighted investment in basic research by the federal government.
Today’s technology-based economy can help put the country back on its feet - but it depends on a robust university research enterprise that produces fundamental scientific advances and, just as importantly, well-educated scientists and engineers. Lessons from the past 50 years demonstrate that the flow in this talent pipeline can either enable or hobble the country’s economic prospects a short decade from now.
Those lessons also teach that global competition is increasingly focused on moving the world’s technological leadership to other regions. The reality is that science research in America - supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institute for Standards and Technology and other mission-critical agencies - makes up a tiny fraction of the federal budget, yet provides a return on investment for the earliest stages of innovation that far exceeds the cost. This means the nation can’t afford not to plant the seeds of future knowledge, technology and talent.
For the sake of tomorrow’s prosperity, our government must demand funding for this economic engine.
LARRY W. SUMNEY
President & Chief Executive Officer
Semiconductor Research Corporation
Durham, N.C.
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