Corporate Management of RD—Lessons for the U.S. Government

Changes that U.S. companies have been making in the way they conduct R&D suggest ways of improving the effectiveness of federal laboratories: (1) Federal laboratories must increase the strategic value of their R&D to the taxpayer by becoming more involved in the development of public policies. This, in turn, will require them to expand their skill base beyond the physical sciences; (2) Federal labs must find ways to make the world-class basic research funded by the taxpayer preferentially advantage the U.S. taxpayer and U.S.-based companies; (3) The federal laboratories must be reengineered and the federal agencies that control them must be reinvented; (4) The R&D that is conducted at federal laboratories must be designed to be compatible with the way technology is commercialized; (5) The laboratories must increase their emphasis on the collection of research innovation from around the world and assist in the extension and transfer of that innovation to U.S. industry .