By Martin Grueber, Research Leader, Battelle, Cleveland, Ohio and Tim Studt, Editor in Chief, Advantage Business Media
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
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Steve Kelly, President
Battelle National Security Global Business
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In the summer of 1945, Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, delivered a report to President Roosevelt that laid the foundation to establish the National Science Foundation. It also articulated the rationale for basic research as a critical basis for national security in the broadest sense, not only for defense, but also for a robust economy. Many of Bush’s recommendations, particularly the need for close, open dialogue between industry, government, and academia, remain timely and challenging.
In the intervening six decades, the scale, scope and complexity of national security challenges have grown at an accelerating pace. Violent movements that lack national identity, information space as an arena of conflict, and environmental changes that destabilize political structures, all have generated pressing needs for research in both physical and social sciences.
Stretching across the sixty years from the 1940s to today is a constant co-evolutionary imperative, the so-called “Red Queen” effect: we must evolve faster and more effectively than our adversaries or fall behind them.
Can the research and development community provide more rapid innovation? Yes, but we must have two essential elements for success: first, an effective, continuous dialogue with national security organizations; and second, an effective arena for an unbiased, risk-tolerant examination of technologies in a realistic environment.
Accelerating innovation into the marketplace often comes as much from inspirations provided by failure and serendipity as it does from planned actions. Serendipity doesn’t show up on most project charts. It has to be incorporated into the ethos of research. After all, a culture of innovation must provide for creativity to reach its full potential.
