|
The Power of Place
A National Strategy for Building America’s Communities of Innovation Association of University Research Parks Innovation fuels a healthy economy and provides for future growth. For decades, the United States has led the world in innovation that has yielded technological and scientific advances, created countless jobs, enhanced the nation’s real and intellectual capital, and improved the lives and livelihoods of people around the world. Today, however, the United States is losing that lead. In these difficult times, more attention, not less, needs to be given to creating a climate where innovators can flourish— and, more than that, places where they can do so. In this work, the federal government has a critically important role. AURP recommends: •the establishment of American Innovation Zones, a nationwide network of research parks, science and technology incubators, universities, federal laboratories, and other entities via a program of federal grants, tax incentives, and other instruments in collaboration with private-sector groups and other public agencies; •enactment of the Federal Innovation Zone Partnership Program; •reform of federal tax provisions for facilities funded by taxexempt bonds to allow greater flexibility in intellectual-property transfers; •approval of S. 1373, which amends the Stevenson-Wydler Act to authorize grants for the development of feasibility studies and plans for building and expanding science parks; •reauthorization of the Research and Development Tax Credit and expansion of its reach to include American Innovation Zones; •creation of a foundation for federal laboratories to facilitate technology transfer, commercialization, and related work; •renewed funding for RaDIUS, a database of research grants funded by the federal government; •restructuring of the H-1B visa cap for foreign researchers to allow the enhanced recruitment and retention of highly skilled researchers and technicians from other countries; and support for “soft-landing” centers to assist international knowledge workers in relocating to the United States and becoming familiar with its laws, cultural norms, language, and related matters; •full funding of the America COMPETES Act, which authorizes substantial federal investment in innovative research.
|
|
|