Is America Losing its Innovation Edge?
August 6, 2020
Google borrowing money, dwindling university funding, a trend toward working from home, and a less than welcoming immigration policy combine to spell trouble for the United States. The Atlantic tells us why in, “America’s Innovation Engine is Slowing.” Writer and R Street resident fellow Caleb Watney begins by describing a recent event that contributed to doubt in education: ICE’s announcement that, should universities switch to online-only classes this fall, their international students would be booted from the country. The agency has since backed down from that stance, but not before it unnerved many current and potential students that might have contributed much to our nation. Watney writes:
“The visa debacle was only the latest of many ominous signs for the United States, long the world’s primary incubator of new technologies, new drugs, new therapies, and new business models. The coronavirus pandemic and the administration’s botched response to it are damaging the engine of American innovation in three major ways: The flow of talented people from overseas is slowing; the university hubs that produce basic research and development are in financial turmoil; and the circulation of people and ideas in high-productivity industrial clusters, such as Silicon Valley, has been impeded.
We noted:
“All three trends started before the coronavirus arrived, but the pandemic has accelerated them in ways that, if left unaddressed, could cripple the U.S. economy for decades. During the difficult economic recovery from COVID-19, closed businesses will be able to reopen and rehire their furloughed workers, and delayed investments will resume. But if the nation’s capacity for economic and technological innovation is diminished, Americans will feel the loss for decades to come—not just in lower GDP but in slower progress toward a vaccine for COVID-19, solutions to climate change, a cure for cancer, and more.”
Bright students from other countries have sought education in the U.S. over the last century, and many have settled here. These folks have made considerable contributions to our country’s progress and economy. Universities, long the sources of academic research that has propelled us forward, will be forced to shutter their labs as funding continues to dwindle. Finally, the trend toward working from home is pulling people away from central meeting places where great ideas are shared and evolve, often during “off” hours. As we are finding out, virtual meetups just aren’t the same. The article covers each of these three factors in some depth, so navigate there for more details.
Watney paints a pretty bleak picture, but ends with a little hope—we have the power to invert these trends, if we choose. First, he advises, we should reverse the current administration’s immigration freeze to communicate to the rest of the world we welcome their inquiring minds. We should also inject a huge chunk of change into university research labs. Packed central meeting places cannot return until we’ve beaten the pandemic, of course. Once that is done, though, we could set the stage for collaboration by building affordable housing in dense cities, Watney suggests. Will we do what it takes to correct our course and avoid falling behind the rest of the world? We shall see.
Cynthia Murrell, August 6, 2020
Comments
One Response to “Is America Losing its Innovation Edge?”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
I know this web site offers quality based articles or reviews and additional material, is there
any other web page which presents these kinds of information in quality?