Over the Horizon: The Powerful Context for Future R&D Initiatives
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Dr. Joseph Bordogna
Deputy Director
Chief Operating Officer National Science Foundation
Biography
Remarks, Engineering R&D Symposium
Washington, DC
March 8, 2004
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Thank you, Arden, 1 for
your warm welcome, and good afternoon to all of you. (One engineer always
appreciates being introduced by another!)
I also want to thank ASME and the numerous societies that have
joined in collective leadership to co-sponsor this 2 nd Annual
Engineering R&D Symposium. 2 And
I want to congratulate Harry Armen on becoming President-elect
of ASME. I have great respect for Harry and wish him well.
Today's event under the rubric of "engineering" provides a terrific
opportunity for us to focus on expanding the strength, vitality
and capacity of our Nation's discovery and innovation enterprise.
This is the kind of project that engineers live for!
Or as Vannevar Bush, an engineer and visionary of our enterprise,
described it: "...the free play of initiative of a vigorous people
under democracy... [supported by] the advance of science and its
application." 3 Today's
symposium would have been one Vannevar Bush insisted on attending!
Here, designers, makers, researchers, innovators, and policymakers
converge from a rich spectrum of perspectives. I am delighted for
the invitation to speak, and eagerly anticipate the spirited controversy
I hope to "engineer."
To begin, I want to share with you a poem by British poet, Wendy
Cope, both for a bit of levity to set our compass, and also to
focus on the importance of the whole being greater than the sum
of the parts.
I was given this poem by a colleague of mine, Dan Hoffman, who
studied engineering as an undergraduate, became an English professor,
and crowned his career as Poet Laureate at the University of Pennsylvania.
Wendy Cope's poem plays on themes of function, beauty, and reward,
and their integration in our culture. Titled "Engineer's Corner," it
was composed as a response to a lament by a U.K. engineers' council
letter posted in the London Times, to wit:
"Why isn't there an Engineers' Corner in Westminster Abbey? In
Britain we've always made more fuss of a ballad than a blueprint...."
The posting went on to suggest that sans recognition in the Abbey,
engineers do not enjoy the presence in society enjoyed by other
careers and are thus minimized. In response to the posting, Wendy,
with lighthearted humor, wrote:
We make more fuss of ballads than of blueprints –
That's why so many poets end up rich,
While engineers scrape by in cheerless garrets.
Who needs a bridge or dam? Who needs a ditch?
Whereas the person who can write a sonnet
Has got it made. It's always been the way,
For everybody knows that we need poems
And everybody reads them every day.
Yes, life is hard if you choose engineering –
You're sure to need another job as well;
You'll have to plan your projects in the evenings
Instead of going out. (It isn't swell).
While well-heeled poets ride around in Daimler's,
You'll burn the midnight oil to earn a crust,
With no hope of a statue in the Abbey,
With no hope, even, of a modest bust.
No wonder small (tots) dream of writing couplets
And spurn the bike, the lorry and the train,
There's far too much encouragement for poets –
That's why this country's going down the drain.
Wendy's observations are astute. Notwithstanding the lack of recognition
for engineers in the Abbey, both poets and engineers are creative
and share common traits: they create lovely things that thrill
our senses, enliven our souls, and add quality to our lives ...
all for a "modest" fee of course. Both seek to improve the quality
of life, make us see the world whole, and propel us to actions
we otherwise would not take.
The poem also reveals that poets and engineers suffer misconceptions
about each other, as do most specialized groups in our society.
These misconceptions disrupt the lines of understanding and yield
narrow vision, especially about societal trends. Examples of misinformed
vision abound and illustrate how easy it is for a specialized person
to miss something that might be obvious to someone with a more
holistic understanding of the world and its parts.
Today's occasion, prompted by mechanical engineers, allows us
to re-envision the classic definition of what constitutes an engine.
Our earliest dictionaries taught us: an engine is a device that
converts energy to mechanical force and motion. The essence of
that definition is creative transformation – energy to momentum.
That process – energy to momentum – speaks directly to the excitement
and inspiration of 21 st century science and engineering innovation
at the frontier. Propelled by advances in genomics, materials,
computer-communications, and advances in cognition, mathematics
and social science, our profession is on the verge of new, exhilarating
frontiers.
At those frontiers we look for the integration of vast computing
power, massive data sets, and simulation science that will enable
us to model, understand, and manage the most complex of systems – physical,
biological, environmental and virtual. Moreover, with emerging
nanomanufacturing techniques, new materials and systems can be
designed and constructed atom by atom. And so on ... These new
capabilities promise to shape and benefit the way we live, work,
and progress.
Clearly, regardless of our individual fields, we are stewards,
advocates, and builders of the future prosperity, security, and
welfare of our Nation, and the complex societal engine that it
is. Which brings me to the theme of my remarks: "Over the Horizon:
The Powerful Context for Future R&D Initiatives."
Our nation's need for highest performance in every sector is expanding – "over
the horizon." In creating his tome, The Endless Frontier, Vannevar
Bush in a May 31, 1945 letter to the Chairs of the four Committees
he had chartered to help him in his task, wrote about the covenant
of "[s]tability of [research] support" from the commonweal, justified
by the consequent "healthy flow of new scientific knowledge," resulting
in an increase of "new products and industries and jobs, and in
the flowering of scientific talent." Indeed, he was setting our
compass "over the horizon" big time.
We have watched with great satisfaction, the subsequent growth
and development of our nation's Science, Engineering and Technology
("S, E & T") enterprise. The investment in R&D of the past
half-century gives ample testimony to the progress made in bringing
benefits to the nation and its citizens.
Warmed by a genuine sense of satisfaction, we are in a position
to look toward the future and ask, "What next?" In answering this
question, we should be aware of two characteristics that will determine
how well we are able to meet the challenge of innovation in our
21 st century world: how adept we are in anticipating the future
, and how wise we are in shaping it to our ends.
First, some stocktaking.
The early 1980's were difficult days. The nation was facing a
stunning wave of global competition and the resultant restructuring
of industry. Today, we see technological innovation blossoming
at a breathtaking pace. Competition will remain fierce, but we
face it today with a new confidence in our capacity to rise to
its most difficult demands. Yet life is made more complex by geopolitical
demands to contain new aspects of tyranny.
Here, Benjamin Franklin gave us advice tuned to strategic elements
of our nation's S, E &T intent. He wrote in his Autobiography
: "It is in the regions of ignorance that tyranny reigns. It flies
before the light of science. Let the citizens of America, then,
encourage institutions calculated to diffuse knowledge amongst
the people...." Here again, we hear that democratically-diffused
knowledge is indeed power.
Looking back, we are struck above all by how startling and visionary
the ideas were that shaped our nation's R&D enterprise – and
equally by how much we take it for granted today!
We are so steeped now in the rhetoric of "innovation" that it's
something of a struggle just to imagine how little salience it
had in the early 1980's.
That's an indication of the extraordinary transformations that
have swept through our society and our lives during the past two
decades. Changes that we scarcely could have imagined 20 years
ago are now our common currency. Today, new technologies – and
whole industries – emerge in what seems like the blink of an eye.
Many threads intertwined to produce the innovative tapestry that
is our nation's S, E & T investment. I'll mention just three
that will be familiar to you all.
The first is the realization that universities and their science
and engineering faculty and students are critical resources that
can make a valuable contribution to economic development – much
the same way that agricultural, industrial and natural resources
did in the 19 th and 20 th centuries. New knowledge at the frontier
is our new capital, our engine of innovation.
The second is the notion that partnerships – among academe, business
and government – can speed the transformation of new knowledge
into new products, processes and services, and in their wake produce
new jobs, create wealth, and improve our social well being. The
wise advice of Woodrow Wilson applies here. "I not only use all
the brains that I have," he said, "but all the brains I can borrow."
Third, and perhaps the most radical of the three, is the idea
that we can design partnerships and institutions to achieve common,
long-term goals – in this instance, to bolster economic development
and raise the standard of living and security of the nation.
"Design," says the architect and ecologist William McDonough, "is
the manifestation of human intent." As engineers, we are accustomed
to thinking in terms of systems designed to meet specific ends.
Applying this directly to the larger context of economic and social
prosperity is the radical step.
These three conceptual innovations – knowledge as capital, partnerships
as transformational, and design as intent – are the heart and soul
of what drives today's S, E & T investment.
In anticipating the future, we must recognize that civilization
is on the brink of a new industrial world order. The big winners
in the increasingly fierce global scramble for supremacy will not
be those who simply make commodities faster and cheaper than the
competition. They will be those who develop talent, techniques
and tools so advanced that there is no competition.
That means securing unquestioned superiority in nanotechnology,
biotechnology, and information science and engineering. And it
means upgrading and protecting the investments that have given
us our present national stature and unsurpassed standard of living.
How will we get from here to there? Standing at the nexus of accelerating
scientific and technological change, engineers are expected to
foster progress toward a daunting array of ends – creating new
knowledge, products, and systems; stimulating economic development;
creating wealth and jobs; sharpening the nation's competitive and
leading edges; raising our prospects for more creative and satisfying
lives; caring for the environment; and strengthening the security
of our nation and its myriad infrastructures – from education to
transportation. I hope I haven't left anything out.
At the center of our efforts are the practices that continue to
focus our activities. These practices are at the core of all forward-looking
decisions about R&D investments: priority setting, inclusion,
peer review, and competition for funds.
What underlies and pulls those practices forward in the 21 st
century is the support of four critical imperatives.
First, increasing the outreach and collaboration between research,
education, industry, and governmental partners.
As Vannevar Bush advised: "Science...can be effective in the national
welfare only as a member of a team." Bush foresaw that the complexity
and vitality of American R&D could not be restricted to any
single part, discipline, or institution of our inter-related system
and infrastructure. All partners are integral and inter-related.
Second, expanding the interactions and contributions of multi-
faceted teams within the S, E &T universe.
Third, increasing the use of advanced computing systems and computational
science to establish broader, more-responsive networks, and generate
new discovery.
I want to pause here and give a specific challenge to the nation's
engineers on an issue that seems ubiquitous to universal prosperity
issues, ranging over the entire spectrum of societal parameters,
from next generation manufacturing to developing human capital.
The practice of science and engineering at the research frontier
has changed markedly in recent years, owing in large measure to
the impact of increasingly powerful and pervasive computer-communications
tools. Today, simulation and modeling are as important to discovery
as are theory and experimentation.
Advances in sensor technologies and the availability of affordable
mass data storage devices are making possible the collection, creation
and federation of large complex datasets. Pervasive networking
technology is enriching collaborations and providing broad access
to a multitude of scientific resources, and providing new opportunities
to promote and advance learning, expand human cognition and enable
distributed learning.
We need to create and support an integrated cyberinfrastructure
that will enrich and continue to revolutionize discovery, learning
and innovation in all science and engineering domains.
This distributed infrastructure would integrate a range of heterogeneous
tools into a common, persistent and widely accessible national
infrastructure, which would include advanced computing engines,
federated data archives and digital libraries, observing and sensor
systems, and other instrumentation.
And now returning to the critical imperatives, the fourth: deepening
the integration of research and education activities at all levels
for the benefit of the entire learning continuum.
Today's workers will spend their lifetimes in a world that presents
complex and open-ended challenges. To thrive in this environment,
they must be taught the powerful concept of continuous learning
in a discovery-rich environment.
All stakeholders must do everything we can to re-invigorate, design
and build that flexible, multi-doored environment for them. In
all educational programs, we must continue to aim at and be committed
to engaging and exciting students within the context of up-to-the-minute
discovery.
Research is an invaluable paradigm for lifelong learning. All
of us have the privilege and the responsibility to convey the excitement
of the opportunities and challenges that are presented in this
new century. We must effectively communicate why the research – its
questions, approaches and the resulting knowledge – is so important.
One of the hallmarks of our nation's excellence has always been
its capacity for reinvention and reinvigoration. This is how we
trace the arcs and leaps of American ingenuity. As the poet Robert
Frost observed, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall," and
nature doesn't appear to, either.
Each of us needs to remove the artificial barriers between the
science and engineering disciplines, between the specialties within
disciplines, and between the different segments of our educational
networks.
Historians have frequently referred to enormous strides in knowledge-creation
and innovation in terms of "revolutions." We've traced the leaps:
from the Industrial Revolution to the Information Revolution to
today's Knowledge Revolution. Each of those leaps has enabled human
beings to travel and learn at greater distances and speeds. From
local to global, our nation's infrastructure reflects the evidence
of these successive revolutions – in the multiplicity of point-to-point
transmission -- railroads, highways, power-lines, satellites, glass
cables, and the Internet.
Today, when we look over the horizon – it's through a world-wide
window. Some have asked: what comes after knowledge? Others have
replied: There's nothing after knowledge. Deepening our knowledge
is everything.
But is it knowledge or data? Our view beyond the horizon intimates
that the acceleration of our knowledge and its complexity, and
the ever-growing appreciation for the interrelated nature of knowledge,
already proscribes the parameters of the next revolution: that
of the Integration of Knowledge. This is the universal window we
are knocking upon now.
All partners must act as the true colleagues we are. We must approach
our needs from a collective and integrated perspective. Argument
that capitalizes on understanding and integrating our differences
is of value; argument that enhances our division is not and works
against the inherent unity of our enterprise.
When we describe the nature of our achievements and the scope
of our present and future efforts, we do well to remember former
Science Advisor Neal Lane's advice: "Let us not take this as cause
to be arrogant about our contribution but rather as reason to be
articulate about that contribution."
In closing, I suggest our thoughts follow something that Bill
Wulf asserted eloquently in a 1998 speech he gave during the National
Academy of Engineering Annual Meeting: "...in any creative profession,
what comes out is a function of the life experiences of the people
who do it."
Wulf continues: "...sans diversity, we limit the set of life experiences
that are applied, and as a result we pay an opportunity cost v a
cost in products not built, in designs not considered, in constraints
not understood, in processes not invented."
We must proceed with full and determined energy to nurture the
rich diversity of our Nation's talent. We must encourage that talent
to integrate and unify its vision for the benefit of our Nation
as a whole, our highest concern. That concern should guide all
our future R&D initiatives.
I want to end on this note and urge the professional engineering
societies to sign on to the human capital diversity statement drafted
with a lot of fervor this past year at the Engineering Societies
Diversity Summits.
Thank you.
1 Arden Bement, Acting Director, National Science Foundation.
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2 AIAA, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American
Society of Civil Engineers, ASME, ASHRAE, IEEE*USA, SSTI and SWE.
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3 Vannevar Bush, Science--The Endless Frontier: A Report to
the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research, July 1945.
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Return to a list of Dr. Bordogna's speeches.
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