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Innovation Lightbulb: Basic Research for Breakthrough Innovations
Photo: Mdisk via Adobe Stock
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In our era of intense innovation-based global competition, policymakers increasingly look for demonstrable connections between public investment in research and tangible economic and security benefits. In this context, it is worth noting that advances in science have both direct and indirect impacts on innovation. The nation’s economic leadership and security advantages derive from a long-term portfolio strategy that makes sustained and substantial investments in science and harvests them for the nation’s benefit.
What does the U.S. landscape for basic science research look like, what are its funding dynamics, and how do these affect the innovation economy?
Basic research (sometimes called “fundamental” or “pure” research) aims to uncover knowledge without a specific application in mind. In contrast, applied research is directed towards solving specific problems, while experimental development involves creating or improving products and processes. These three categories of research often intersect and inform each other.
In 2022, U.S. basic research expenditures totaled approximately $129 billion, or 14.6 percent of total R&D spending. The share of R&D dedicated to basic research has fluctuated over time, rising from about 9 percent in the 1950s to around 17 percent in the 1990s, then staying relatively constant before starting to decline after 2016.
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While the majority of total R&D expenditures in the U.S. comes from industry, federal funding contributes the most to basic research. Historically, the federal government has been the dominant source of basic research funding in the U.S., peaking at 60.5 percent in 2004. However, by 2022, federal contributions had dropped to below 40 percent, while industry and nonprofit sectors significantly increased their funding. In 2022, industry accounted for 37 percent of basic research funding.
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Federal funding for basic science research sends a powerful signal of commitment to long-term innovation. By funding fundamental science, the government lays the groundwork for breakthroughs that fuel future cures and technological advancements. For example, CRISPR gene-editing technology emerged from basic research on the iap gene in E. coli that studied how bacteria deal with viral attacks—research initially unrelated to any immediate application. Similarly, research on atomic clocks and hydrogen movement forms the foundation of satellite-based GPS systems.
As Vannevar Bush, the head of the U.S. Office of Scientific R&D during World War II and a key architect of the modern U.S. R&D enterprise, once said, basic research "builds scientific capital." It is the "pace-maker of technological progress." Even when its technological benefits are not immediately obvious (by design!), basic research lays the foundation for transformative innovations with spillover effects that can reshape industries and improve lives.
How should we support basic research—and, by extension, transformative, long-term innovation? First, policymakers should ensure that public support for basic science is steady and sustained, backed by an understanding that discoveries will continue to yield stochastic as well linear returns on investment. Second, there needs to be sustained policy support for the innovation system that develops and scales up research ideas. This innovation system is reinforced through partnership programs as varied as SBIR and DARPA that connect ideas, spur entrepreneurship, and accelerate new ideas to market. It also includes a key role for regional technology hubs that build up and connect local assets, creating the infrastructure for breakthroughs that can support the globally competitive technologies of the future.
Data visualization by Sabina Hung