Bold Innovation Policy for 2025 and Beyond
While the United States remains the largest R&D spender in the world, it lags behind peer nations in both total and government R&D as a share of gross domestic product, long term science investments, and number of researchers (adjusted for labor force). Science, technology, and innovation policies are key to unlocking new frontiers of opportunity that drive economic growth, improve lives, and build a safer, more equitable and resilient world. We believe that this requires the public R&D ecosystem to be well-funded, open, inclusive of, and accessible to all people, eager to experiment, and willing to rigorously evaluate itself and correct course when evidence points to where we can further improve.
In this Day One 2025 category, FAS sought out policy ideas that support a dynamic and strategic R&D enterprise, emphasize diverse approaches to innovation, embed equity within innovation frameworks, and encourage uptake of modern education and workforce strategies. These policies are key to ensuring that social, economic, and environmental prosperity resulting from scientific advances are broadly and equitably shared across the United States.
R&D Enterprise & Metascience
The health of the U.S. science, technology, and innovation enterprise depends greatly on our ability to identify and pursue next generation capabilities that will transform the innovation landscape. In an era of constrained R&D budgets and political uncertainty, it is critical to explore innovative strategies that could maximize the efficiency and productivity of our existing R&D investments. Experimentation that increases the effectiveness of existing R&D spending could unlock large returns to science and technology.
Coming soon: Kickstarting Collaborative, AI-Ready Datasets in the Life Sciences with Government-funded Projects by Erika DeBenedictis
Micro-ARPAs: Enhancing Scientific Innovation Through Small Grant Programs by David Lang
Drawing inspiration from the ARPA model, which empowers program managers with funding discretion and contracting authority, there is an opportunity to revolutionize how small grants are administered through national research programs. The ARPA approach, characterized by high degrees of autonomy and focus on high-risk, high-reward projects, has already inspired successful initiatives beyond its initial form in the Department of Defense (DARPA), like ARPA-E for energy and ARPA-H for health. A similar “Micro-ARPA” approach — in which dedicated, empowered personnel manage these funds — could be transformative for ensuring that small grant programs within NSF reach their full potential.
Slow Aging, Extend Healthy Life: New incentives to lower the late-life disease burden through the discovery, validation, and approval of biomarkers and surrogate endpoints by Enlli Lewis, and Raiany Romanni
The new administration should establish a comprehensive framework to incentivize the discovery, validation, and regulatory approval of biomarkers as surrogate endpoints to accelerate clinical trials and increase the availability of health-extending drugs. Reliable biomarkers or surrogate endpoints could meaningfully reduce clinical trial durations, and enable new classes of therapeutics for non-disease conditions (e.g., biological aging).
Creating an HHS Loan Program Office to Fill Critical Gaps in Life Science and Health Financing by Abi Kulshreshtha, and Sandeep Patel
The next administration should establish an HHS Loan Programs Office (HHS LPO) that can fill critical and systematic gaps in financing that have continued to prevent innovative life saving medicines and other critical health technologies from reaching patients, improving health outcomes, and bolstering our public health. To be effective, the HHS LPO would require an authority to issue or guarantee loans, up to $5 billion in total. Federally financed debt can help fill critical funding gaps and can complement ongoing federal grants, contracts, reimbursement and regulatory policies, and catalyze private sector investment in innovation.
How to Replicate the Success of Operation Warp Speed by Jacob Robertson, and Alice Wu
Operation Warp Speed (OWS) was a public-private partnership that produced COVID-19 vaccines in the unprecedented timeline of less than one year. This unique success among typical government research and development (R&D) programs is attributed to OWS’s strong public-private partnerships, effective coordination, and command leadership structure. Policy entrepreneurs, leaders of federal agencies, and issue advocates will benefit from understanding what policy interventions were used and how they can be replicated.
Automating Scientific Discovery: A Research Agenda For Advancing Self-Driving Labs by Charles Yang
Despite significant advances in scientific tools and methods, the traditional, labor-intensive model of scientific research in materials discovery has seen little innovation. An emerging technology platform known as Self-Driving Labs (SDLs), which use commoditized robotics and artificial intelligence for automated experimentation, presents a potential solution to these challenges. An ARPA-E-funded Grand Challenge could drive funding, innovation, and development of SDLs, accelerating their integration into the scientific process. A Focused Research Organization (FRO) can also help create more modular and open-source components for SDLs and can be funded by philanthropies or the Department of Energy’s (DOE) new foundation.
Reforming Federal Rules on Corporate-Sponsored Research at Tax-Exempt University Facilities by Brian Darmody, and Bill Bates
Improving university/corporate research partnerships is key to advancing U.S. competitiveness. Reform of the IRS rules surrounding corporate sponsored research taking place in university facilities funded by tax-exempt bonds has long been sought by the higher education community and will stimulate more public-private partnerships. The next Congress should advance this reform agenda by amending IRS rules governing use of facilities financed by tax-exempt bonds.
The “FASTER” Act for the Federal Laboratory System by Brian Darmody, and Rich Bendis
The Federal Authority for Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Research (FASTER) Federal Labs Act will make it possible for all federal labs to use the tried-and-true tools that universities use for economic engagement and technology commercialization. The FASTER Federal Labs Act will do this by: (i) allowing surplus federal land to be used for public-private partnership facilities, (ii) creating clearer pathways for federal researchers to work with startup companies, and (iii) authorizing a federally chartered tech-transfer organization based on models established at leading research universities.
Focused Research Organizations to Accelerate Science, Technology, and Medicine by Sam Rodriques, and Adam Marblestone
The next administration should rapidly create new Focused Research Organizations (FROs) to tackle scientific and technological challenges that cannot be efficiently addressed by standard organizational structures including academia, industry, National Laboratories, or Advanced Research Project Agencies (e.g., DARPA). FROs would be independent from existing universities or labs, focused on a single basic science or technology problem, and organized similarly to a startup. FROs would fill a key structural gap in our nation’s research and development (R&D) system, enabling major advances in areas that (i) require levels of coordinated engineering or system-building inaccessible to academia, (ii) benefit society broadly in ways that industry cannot rapidly monetize, and (iii) harbor opportunities for acceleration through innovative new technologies and processes.
Leveraging Machine Learning To Reduce Cost & Burden of Reviewing Research Proposals at S&T Agencies by Ilana Harrus
Manual proposal review is time-consuming and expensive, costing an estimated $2,000–$10,000 per proposal. By helping filter out noncompetitive proposals early in the review process, machine learning could allow substantial financial and personnel resources to be repurposed for more valuable applications. The next administration should initiate and execute a pilot program that uses machine learning to triage scientific proposals. To demonstrate the reliability of a machine-learning-based approach, the pilot should be carried out in parallel with (and compared to) the traditional method of proposal selection.
Tilling the Federal SOIL for Transformative R&D: The Solution Oriented Innovation Liaison by Avery Sen
The federal government is increasingly embracing Advanced Research Projects Agencies (ARPAs) and other transformative research and engagement enterprises (TREEs) to connect innovators and create the breakthroughs needed to solve complex problems. Our innovation ecosystem needs more of these TREEs, especially for societal challenges that have not historically benefited from solution-oriented research and development. The National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships should establish a new Office of the Solution-Oriented Innovation Liaison (SOIL) to help TREEs share knowledge about complementary initiatives, establish a community of practice among breakthrough innovators, and seed a culture for exploring new models of research and development within the federal government.
Equitable Innovation
Good ideas can come from anywhere, but without an equitable, systemic approach to how we identify, develop, and propagate these ideas, we stifle our ability to provide the best solutions that benefit everyone in our nation. The memos in this category suggest ideas for broadening participation in our R&D ecosystem.
Not Accessible: Federal Policies Unnecessarily Complicate Funding to Support Differently Abled Researchers by Stephen Jacobs, and Kripa Kundaliya
Persons with disabilities (PWDs) are considered the largest minority in the nation and in the world. There are existing policies and procedures from agencies, directorates, or funding programs that provide support for Accessibility and Accommodations (A&A) in federally funded research efforts, but a lack of standardization can make it difficult to acquire the necessary support for PWDs. This memo proposes the development of a standardized, streamlined, rolling, post-award support mechanism to provide access and accommodations for PWDs as they conduct research and disseminate their work. OSTP should conduct an internal review of the A&A policies and procedures for grant programs from federal scientific research aligned agencies.
Coming soon: Embedding Engagement and Participation in the Federal Science R&D Ecosystem by Karen Andrade
Coming soon: Addressing the Needs of Caregivers in STEM to Foster a More Inclusive R&D Workforce by Karen Andrade
Workforce Modernization
In order for the U.S. to remain globally competitive, we must fully engage the people, places, and processes that will position us for success. That means that our approach to work and workforce development must be updated to include modern best practices for finding, training, upskilling, reskilling, recruiting, and advancing our domestic talent.
Coming soon: Securing American Business Ownership through Employee Ownership by Alison Lingane
Creating Competitive Career Pathways for Low-Income Americans through a Sector-Focused Employment Training Initiative by Vincent Quan, Sara van Nes, Bridget Mercier, and Kalila Jackson-Spieker
Sectoral employment training programs offer a proven, evidence-based way to generate substantial and long-term employment and earnings gains for participants. These programs provide low-income and non-traditional workers (i.e., workers without a high school or college degree) with access to higher-wage jobs in better paying sectors with opportunities for advancement. In order to help all American workers and strengthen the national economy, the next administration should establish a Sector-Focused Employment Training Initiative (SETI) to coordinate and expand evidence-based sectoral employment training programs across the US workforce. A SETI would help address persistent wage inequality and limited career advancement for low-income workers, equipping millions of Americans to contribute to and prosper alongside critical US industries.
Coming soon: Establishing a Cyber Workforce Action Plan by Alex Leader
Building an Evergreen $1 Billion Fund for Science and Technology Career Advancement by Lindsay Milliken, and Doug Rand
The H-1B visa for “specialty occupation” workers has become a significant element of the U.S. employment-based immigration system. Less well-known is that employers of H-1B workers annually pay hundreds of millions of dollars for domestic education and training programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), administered by the Department of Labor (DOL) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). This fee-based funding stream was created in the late 1990s and has not been meaningfully updated by Congress in the succeeding decades. The next administration can take even greater advantage of this funding to launch innovative programs that advance U.S. economic competitiveness and diversify the STEM talent pipeline—two mutually reinforcing goals.
Creating an Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-L) for the Department of Labor by Joshua Schoop, Arati Prabhakar, Jeff Kaplan, and Andrew Sosanya
To create fresh and powerful new approaches to the complex challenges that America’s workers face, Congress and the next Administration should invest $100 million per year for 5 years to launch an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Labor (ARPA-L). ARPA-L’s mission will be to conduct high-impact R&D programs that create breakthroughs to meet America’s workforce challenges.
“Quorkforce”: Developing a National Quantum Workforce by Elie Alhajjar
The next Administration should establish a national initiative to develop a workforce pipeline for the new and emerging quantum ecosystem – call it the “Quorkforce.” Due to the rapid growth in the fields of quantum computing and technology along with fears of losing competitiveness, both the public and private sectors are struggling to find skilled employees. Quantum skills are derived from a mixture of many disciplines such as physics, computer science, applied mathematics and engineering, and there is no unique path to enter the quantum sphere. Through partnerships between the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and the private quantum industry, the next Administration should establish an educational plan to train the next quantum generation across K-12, undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels. The Administration should initiate an open call to create ten national quantum education centers with a baseline funding of $300M over a period of 10-12 years.
Education Innovation
We must cultivate talent to meet the demands of an increasingly technical and scientific work ecosystem and position the US to stay on the cutting edge of R&D. Our education system should meet the moment by adopting these ideas for directed funding, teacher training, and work-based learning.
Using Title 1 to Unlock Equity-Focused Innovation for Students by Shannon Murtagh
Congress should approve a new allowable use of Title I spending that specifically enables and encourages school districts to use funds for activities that support and drive equity-focused innovation. The persistent equity gap between wealthy and poor students in our country, and the continuing challenges caused by the pandemic, demand new, more effective strategies to help the students who are most underserved by our public education system.
Reimagining the Enhancing Education Through Technology Program for the Modern Era by Julia Fallon, and Ji Soo Song
This memo proposes the modernization of the Enhancing Education Through Technology (E2T2) Program as part of the overdue Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s (ESEA) reauthorization. With the expiration of several programs that support technology-enabled teaching and learning—such as the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund, Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF), and the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP)—and the increasing prevalence of digital tools in educational settings, there is a pressing need for dedicated aid to states and districts. A reimagined E2T2 can address the digital use, design, and access divides identified in the 2024 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP).
Coming soon: Teacher Education in AI and Data Science by Stephanie Melville, and Maggie Beiting-Parrish
Work-Based Learning for All: Aligning K-12 Education and the Workplace for both Students and Teachers by Jeff Weld
The incoming presidential administration of 2025 should champion a policy position calling for strengthening of the connection between K-12 schools and community workplaces. Such connections result in a number of benefits including modernized curriculum, more meaningful lessons, more motivated students, more college and career readiness, more qualified applicants for local jobs, more vibrant communities, and a stronger nation. This position should include expanding externships for teachers in community workplaces and deploying Competency-Based Education (CBE) at scale.
Coming soon: Ensuring the Next Generation of STEM Talent through K–12 Research Programming by Maya Ajmera, and Rachel Goldman Alper
Investing in Apprenticeships to Fill Labor-Market Talent and Opportunity Gaps by Jan Jaro
Although the last three administrations have made significant strides towards expanding the number of pathways to high-earning jobs through apprenticeship programs, they remain under-utilized and have significant potential for growth. To maximize the potential of apprenticeship programs, the federal government should develop a cohesive approach to supporting “apprenticeships of the future,” such as those in cyber, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing. These apprenticeships provide high pay and upward mobility, support economic growth, and serve vital national interests. To maximize the benefits provided by an expansion of high-quality apprenticeships, the federal government should articulate degree pathways and credit equivalencies for individuals seeking further education, collaborate with industry associations to create standards for skills acquisition, and develop an innovation fund that supports cutting-edge labor market innovations, including those in apprenticeship programs.
Establishing White House Initiative For STEM Educational Excellence & Workforce Development At The U.S. Department Of Education by Melissa Moritz, and Jeff Weld
The next administration’s Department of Education (ED) has an incredible opportunity to support our nation’s youth – America’s current and future workforce – to succeed and thrive. Students, families and communities want and need more STEM learning experiences to realize the American Dream, and yet they cannot access them. The new administration could sign an inaugural executive order that establishes a new White House Initiative for STEM Education and Workforce (WHISEW) that could stand alongside other White House Initiatives and elevate STEM across the Department. This initiative would establish a STEM team at ED and could also name a list of advisors to ensure that ED could benefit from the expertise of non-government organizations. Or, the next Congress could appropriate the necessary funds to ensure adequate staffing and direct ED to establish the STEM team as requested in the former President’s FY25 Budget.
Making Computer Science Education Universal for All Students by Ruthe Farmer
The next administration should establish a national initiative to accelerate the implementation of rigorous computer science (CS) education for preschool through 12th grade (P–12) students in the United States. The initiative should include investments in evidence-based education pathways that incorporate computational thinking, computer programming (coding), cybersecurity, data science, social impacts of computing, and ethics. CS curricula should prepare students for future careers working with technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, virtual/augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, automation, cybersecurity, and other emerging and future technologies.
Investing in Community Learning Ecosystems by Gregg Behr
Developed during a different industrial era, today’s education system was never designed to meet modern learners’ needs. This incongruity has heaped systemic problems upon individual educators, blunted the effectiveness of reforms, and shortchanged the nation’s most vulnerable young people — outcomes exposed and exacerbated by COVID-19. Building back better in a post-pandemic United States will require federal investments not only in schools, but in “learning ecosystems” that leverage and connect the assets of entire communities. Tasked with studying, seeding, and scaling these ecosystems in communities across the country, a White House Initiative on Community Learning Ecosystems would signal a shift toward a new education model, positioning the United States as a global leader in learning.
Doubling the R&D Capacity of the Department of Education by Rujuta Pandit, Daniel Correa, Ulrich Boser, and Kumar Garg
Congress is actively interested in ensuring that the United States is educating the talent needed to maintain our global economic and national security leadership. A number of proposals being considered by Congress focus on putting the National Science Foundation’s Education division on a doubling path over the next 5-7 years. This memo recommends that the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) — the R&D agency housed within the Department of Education — be put on the similar doubling path with stepladder increases in authorization levels, and targeted program starts (e.g., an “ARPA” housed at ED) focused on major gaps that have been building for years but made even more evident during the pandemic.
Reform Education’s General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR) and Grants Administration Processes by Kathy Stack
By strengthening state and local capacity to use data analytics, evaluation, and evidence in formula grant programs, the Department of Education (ED) could significantly increase the impact of its major investments in pre-K, K-12, and community college systems. Important changes could be made through coordinated regulatory and administrative actions that do not require congressional action, laying the groundwork for future congressional action to fill critical gaps.
Turning Community Colleges Into Engines Of Economic Mobility And Dynamism by Jan Jaro
Community colleges should be drivers of economic mobility, employment, and dynamism in local communities. However, many community college degrees do not result in an economic return on investment (ROI) for their students, and many students will not recoup their investment within five years of completing a community college credential. To address these issues, policymakers should reform community colleges in two essential ways. First, community colleges should align curricula toward fields with high wages and strong employer demand while increasing the amount of work-based learning. Second, the federal government should provide greater financial assistance in the form of Pell Grants and funding for wraparound services such as transportation vouchers and textbooks, allowing more students to access high-quality community college programs and graduate on time.
Improving Learning through Data Standards for Educational Technologies by Aaron E. Silvers, Megan Bowe, and John Whitmer
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased use of educational technologies. There is evidence that this “emergency onlining” has already led to learning loss, especially among underserved communities. To understand and address the extent of learning loss—as well as to explore and support potential future uses of educational technologies—the U.S. Department of Education (ED) must systematically implement established open-data standards that allow us to understand how students engage with learning technologies. Widescale implementation of these standards will make it possible to combine and analyze validated data sets generated by multiple technologies. This in turn will provide unprecedented, on-demand reporting and research capabilities that can be used to precisely identify gaps and create targeted interventions.
Creating a Public System of National Laboratory Schools by Alec Resnick, and Shaunalynn Duffy
In light of a much-changed — and much-changing — society, we as a nation must revisit basic assumptions about what constitutes a “good” education. That means re-considering whether traditional school schedules still make sense, updating outdated curricula to emphasize in-demand skills (like computer programming), bringing current perspectives to old subjects (like computational biology); and piloting new pedagogies (like project-based approaches) better aligned to modern workplaces. To do this, the Federal Government should establish a system of National Laboratory Schools in parallel to its existing system of Federally Funded Research & Development Centers (FFRDCs).
Health Innovation
Despite significant advances in healthcare and medicine, many communities and demographics are still left out of the health research space. Additionally, there are solvable gaps in our health research and care infrastructure that could unlock major medical advancements if prioritized. The memos below suggest ideas to fill some of these gaps.
Coming soon: Creating a Commercial Public Health Emergency Payment System by Sandeep Patel
Coming soon: Immunological Observatory: Proactive Pathogen Surveillance for a Safer Future by Michael Mina, and Sandeep Patel
Coming soon: Protecting Infant Nutrition Security: Shifting the Paradigm on Breastfeeding to Build a Healthier Future for all Americans by Cheryl Lebedevitch
The Medicare Advance Healthcare Directive Enrollment (MAHDE) Initiative: Supporting Advance Care Planning for Older Medicare Beneficiaries by Dr. Tiffany Chioma Anaebere
Supporting Advance Care Planning for Older Medicare Beneficiaries: At least 40% of Medicare beneficiaries do not have a documented advanced healthcare directive (AHCD), which documents an individual’s preferences for medical treatment and end-of-life care. To address this gap, the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should launch The Medicare Advance Healthcare Directive Enrollment (MAHDE) Initiative to support all adults over age 65 who are enrolled in Medicare or Medicare Advantage plans to complete and annually renew, at no extra cost, an electronic AHCD made available and stored on Medicare.gov or an alternative CMS-approved secure ACP digital platform. This initiative would streamline the process and make it easier for Medicare enrollees to complete and store directives and for healthcare providers to access them when needed.
Driving Equitable Healthcare Innovations through an AI for Medicaid (AIM) Initiative by Pooja Joshi
Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformative potential in the public health space – in an era when millions of Americans have limited access to high-quality healthcare services, AI-based tools and applications can enable remote diagnostics, drive efficiencies in implementation of public health interventions, and support clinical decision-making in low-resource settings. However, innovation driven primarily by the private sector today may be exacerbating existing disparities by training models on homogenous datasets and building tools that primarily benefit high socioeconomic status (SES) populations. To address this gap, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) should create an AI for Medicaid (AIM) Initiative to distribute competitive grants to state Medicaid programs (in partnership with the private sector) for pilot AI solutions that lower costs and improve care delivery for rural and low-income populations covered by Medicaid.
Coming soon: Actionable Steps to Advance Generic Drug Repurposing by Laura Kleiman
Coming soon: Creating a National Exposome Project by Gurdane Bhutani, Gary Miller, and Sandeep Patel
Coming soon: A Nationalized and Centralized Peer Support Service by Samika Kumar
Coming soon: An Innovation Agenda for Addiction Policy by Nicholas Reville, and Willy Chertman
A Quantitative Imaging Infrastructure to Revolutionize AI-Enabled Precision Medicine by William Hollander, Callie Weiant, Caroline Chung, Sean Deoni, Nola Hylton, and Matthew S. Rosen
Despite the importance and widespread use of medical imaging, it is rarely standardized or quantitative. This leads to unnecessary costs due to repeat scans to achieve adequate image quality, and unharmonized and uncalibrated imaging datasets which are often unsuitable for AI/ML applications. In the nascent yet exponentially expanding world of AI in medical imaging, a well-defined standards and metrology framework is required to establish robust imaging datasets for true precision medicine – improving patient outcomes and reducing spiraling healthcare costs.
Promoting Fairness in Medical Innovation by Grace Wickerson
There is a crisis within healthcare technology research and development, wherein certain groups due to their age, gender, or race and ethnicity are under-researched in preclinical studies, under-represented in clinical trials, misunderstood by clinical practitioners, and harmed by biased medical technology. These issues in turn contribute to costly disparities in healthcare outcomes, leading to losses of $93 billion a year in excess medical-care costs, $42 billion a year in lost productivity, and $175 billion a year due to premature deaths. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, there’s a risk to encode and recreate existing biases at scale. The next Administration and Congress must act to address bias in medical technology at the development, testing and regulation, and market-deployment and evaluation phases.
Enabling Faster Funding Timelines in the National Institutes of Health by Lada Nuzhna, Alice Wu, and Matt Hourihan
Using the learnings of recent fast funding programs, this memo proposes actions that the NIH could take to accelerate research outcomes and reduce administrative burden. Specifically, the NIH director should consider pursuing one of the following approaches to integrate faster funding mechanisms into its extramural research programs: 1) Reform the existing R21 grant mechanism to bring it more in line with its own goals of funding high-reward, rapid-turnaround research; and 2) Direct NIH institutes and centers to independently develop and deploy new research programs with faster funding timelines.
Transforming Infant Nutrition to Give Every Baby a Strong, Healthy Foundation by Andrea Ippolito
Breastfeeding can provide important health and financial benefits for new families. But insufficient healthcare coverage, underlying medical conditions, and economic obstacles can make breastfeeding difficult or impossible for many parents. In this memo, a three-pronged approach is proposed—facilitated by an interagency collaboration through the National Advisory Council on Maternal, Infant, and Fetal Nutrition—to transform infant nutrition.
A Federal Adaptive, On-Demand Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Initiative by Geoffrey Ling
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgent need to address lags in American pharmaceutical manufacturing. An investment of $5 billion over five years will improve U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturing infrastructure, including the development of new technologies that will enable the responsive, end-to-end, on-demand production of up to half of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) list of 223 essential medicines by year two, and the entire portfolio by year five. Spearheading improvements in domestic manufacturing capacity, coupled with driving the advancement of new adaptive, on-demand, and other advanced medicine production technologies will ensure a safe, responsive, reliable, and affordable supply of quality medicines.
Adopting an Open-Source Approach to Pharmaceutical Research and Development by Michael Stebbins, Miranda Bain, Rena Conti, Nicholaos Krenteras, Nicoleta Krenteras, Jaykumar Menon, and Bernard Munos
The U.S. pharmaceutical industry conducts over half the world’s research and development (R&D) in pharmaceuticals and accounts for well over $1 trillion in economic output annually. Yet despite the industry’s massive size, there are still no approved therapies for approximately 95% of human diseases—diseases that affect hundreds of millions in the United States and around the world. To address these market failures and accelerate progress on addressing the overwhelming majority of human diseases, the next administration should launch a new program that takes an open-source approach to pharmaceutical R&D. Just as open-source software has proven a valuable complement to the proprietary systems developed by computer giants, a similar open source approach to pharmaceutical R&D would complement the efforts and activities of the for-profit pharmaceutical sector.
Curing Alzheimer’s by Investing in Aging Research by Eli Dourado, and Joanne Peng
Funds currently earmarked for Alzheimer’s research would be more productive if they were instead invested into deepening understanding of aging biology at the cell, tissue, and organ levels. Fundamental research advances in aging biology would directly support better outcomes for patients with Alzheimer’s as well as a plethora of other chronic diseases associated with aging — diseases that are the leading cause of mortality and disability, responsible for 71% of annual deaths worldwide and 79% of years lived with disability. Congress should allow the National Institute on Aging to spend funds currently restricted for research into Alzheimer’s specifically on research into aging biology more broadly. The result would be a society better prepared for the imminent health challenges of an aging population.
Establish a $100M National Lab of Neurotechnology for Brain Moonshots by Rafael Yuste, and Kenneth Shepard
Launched in 2013, the U.S. BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative has made significant progress toward harnessing the ingenuity and creativity of individual laboratories in developing neurotechnological methods. Given the BRAIN Initiative’s momentum, this is the moment to expand the Initiative by investing in a National Laboratory of Neurotechnology (NLN) that would bring together a multidisciplinary team of researchers and engineers with combined expertise in physical and biomedical sciences. The NLN team would develop large-scale instruments, tools, and methods for recording and manipulating the activity of complex neural circuits in living animals or humans — studies that would enable us to understand how the brain works at a deeper, more detailed level than ever before.
Economic & Regional Innovation
The innovation ecosystem of the future will require efficient transfer of new products and designs to market, as well as policies that incentivize and attract entrepreneurs to pursue potential opportunities that may have potential for tech transfer. In addition to commercialization, we must consider the processes and components that will help us to succeed in any sector of science, technology, and innovation. These building blocks to our future will require regional investment in innovation, advanced manufacturing and product development.
Promoting American Resilience Through a Strategic Investment Fund by Jan Jaro
The United States needs a strategic investment fund (SIF) to shepherd promising technologies in nationally vital sectors through the valley of death. An American SIF is not intended to provide subsidies, pick political winners or losers, or subvert the role of private capital markets. On the contrary, its role would be to “crowd in” capital by uniquely managing risk that no private or philanthropic entities have the capacity to do. In doing so, an SIF would ensure that the U.S. maintains an edge in critical technologies, promoting economic dynamism and national security in an agile, cost-efficient manner.
Strategies to Accelerate and Expand Access to the U.S. Innovation Economy by Phil Weilerstein, Mark Marino, Angela Russo, Beth Ward, Nadine Kavanaugh, and Courtney Drauschke
With targeted policy interventions, we can efficiently and effectively support the U.S. innovation economy through the translation of breakthrough scientific research from the lab to the market. Accelerating our innovation economy and expanding access to it can make our nation more globally competitive, increase economic development, address climate change, and improve health outcomes. The federal government should build on recent progress by focusing on supplying and preparing talent, supporting place-based innovation, increasing access to financing and capital, and shifting to a systems change orientation.
Establishing a National Water Technology Pipeline by Marc Santos
The next administration should establish a National Water Technology Pipeline to spur the innovation and commercialization of water technologies. The Pipeline would facilitate commercialization of later-stage water solutions by identifying innovative next-to-market technologies, proving technology through competitive demonstration projects, and deploying market-ready technology at full scale with federal funding support. An underlying objective of the Pipeline would be to improve water quality and access in the United States while addressing mounting infrastructure and maintenance costs.
Coming soon: Restoring U.S. Leadership in Manufacturing by William B. Bonvillian
Increasing Access To Capital By Expanding SBA’s Secondary Market Capacity by Evan Absher, and Melissa Roberts Chapman
To help entrepreneurs better and more reliably access capital no matter where in the country they are, the Small Business Administration (SBA) should work with the other Interagency Community Investment Committee (ICIC) agencies to expand the SBA’s secondary market capacity. The SBA’s secondary market allows lenders to sell the guaranteed portion of a loan backed by the SBA. This provides additional liquidity to lenders, which in turn expands the availability of commercial credit for small businesses. However, there is no large standardized secondary market for debt serviced by other federal agencies, so the benefits of a secondary market are limited to only a portion of federal lending programs that support entrepreneurship. Expanding SBA’s secondary market authority would increase access to large pools of private capital for a larger proportion of entrepreneurs and innovative small businesses.
Aligning Regional Economic Development Plans With Federal Priorities by Jan Jaro, Melissa Roberts Chapman, and Ryan Buscaglia
The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) manages existing processes that allow for certification of regional development organizations (RDOs) and the regular production of comprehensive economic development strategies (CEDS). Additional guidelines and incentives should be structured into these programs in order to build our national capacity for strategic planning around shared competitiveness priorities and to ensure that regional planning processes incorporate a cohesive national framework. This will allow local cluster development efforts to best capitalize upon their respective comparative advantages, setting up communities for success as they develop plans to build stronger local economies, create better jobs, and promote sustainable growth.
Putting Redlines in the Green: Economic Revitalization Through Innovative Neighborhood Markets by Christopher J. Gillespie
The systemic effects of past redlining in more than 200 U.S. cities continue to persist. Adverse impacts of redlining not only reduce quality of life for communities of color and low-income communities, but also have spillover effects that cost taxpayers upwards of $308 million per year. The next administration can combat the impacts of redlining through a new place-based program. Through this program, the federal government would repurpose a fraction of its thousands of excess and underutilized properties as rent-free or rent-subsidized sites for Innovative Neighborhood Markets (INMs): multipurpose, community-operated spaces that serve as grocery-delivery hubs, house culturally significant businesses, and support local entrepreneurs in historically redlined areas.
Bioeconomy
Bio R&D is the largest segment of the R&D enterprise, so ensuring that these federal research activities are best maximizing that investment will have a significant impact on our global competitiveness. Additionally, harnessing biotechnology to boost the bioeconomy will unlock new opportunities for innovation, cleaner energy, and a more resilient supply chain.
Project BOoST: A Biomanufacturing Test Facility Network for Bioprocess Optimization, Scaling, and Training by Ed Chung and Charles Fracchia
The U.S. bioeconomy commands millions of liters of bioproduction capacity, but only a tiny fraction of this capacity supports process optimization. Consequently, the biomanufacturing industry is often forced to juggle sensitive, brittle production processes that don’t scale easily and are prone to disruption. As some recent failures of prominent companies demonstrate, this increases risk for the entire bioeconomy, and especially for the development of new companies and products. To remedy this, the Department of Commerce should first allocate $80 million to seed a bioproduction R&D facility network that provides process optimization capability to the greater bioeconomy, followed by a $30 million process optimization challenge wherein participating facilities compete at workflow optimization, scaling, and transfer.
Advancing the U.S. Bioindustrial Production Sector by Michael A. Fisher
The U.S. government should create a Bio for America Program Office (BAPO) at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) to house a suite of initiatives that would lead to the creation of more well-paying U.S.-based biomanufacturing jobs, spur economic growth and development in areas of the country that haven’t historically benefited from biotech or biomanufacturing, and ensure more resilient U.S. supply chains, the more sustainable production of chemicals and other goods, and enhanced U.S. competitiveness.
A Matter of Trust: For the Bioeconomy to Reach its Full Potential, the Public Needs Translational Governance by Christopher J. Gillespie
The next administration should direct a Bioeconomy Initiative Coordination Office (BICO) to establish a public engagement mechanism parallel with the biotechnology regulatory system. Citizen engagement and transparency are key to building public trust, yet current public engagement mechanisms cannot convey trust to a public skeptical of a biotechnology’s rewards in light of perceived risks. Bioeconomy coordination efforts should therefore prioritize public trust by adopting a new public-facing biotechnology evaluation program that collects data from nontraditional audiences via participatory technology assessments (pTA) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA/MCDM) and provides insight that addresses limitations.
Strengthening the U.S. Biomanufacturing Sector Through Standardization by Chris Stowers
The advancement and commercialization of bioprocesses in the United States is hindered by a lack of suitable and available pilot-scale and manufacturing-scale facilities. This challenge stems in part from our inability to repurpose facilities that are no longer needed due to a lack of standardization and inadequate original design. Historically, most biomanufacturing facilities have been built with a single product in mind and with a focus on delivering a facility as cheaply and quickly as possible. While this might be the best approach for individual private companies, it is not the best approach for the bioeconomy as a whole. The next administration should establish a program to standardize the construction of biomanufacturing facilities across the United States that also permits facilities to be repurposed for different products in the future.
Meeting Biology’s “Sputnik Moment” by Dr. Natalie Kuldell
Biology is becoming a defining technology of the modern era: the bioeconomy is expected to contribute nearly 1.1 million jobs to the United States by 2030. Preparing the skilled workforce that our nation will need to fill these jobs requires a fundamental shift in how the field of biology is viewed. The next administration can position the United States as a world leader in the emerging bioeconomy by funding modernized biology education, establishing world-class entrepreneurial hubs for biotechnology in non-traditional regions of the country, and supporting equitable access to industry-recognized certificates and work-based training. Through this comprehensive Built with Biology Plan, the federal government can prepare and invite more Americans into skilled jobs that support the bioeconomy.
Conclusion
Unlocking the full potential of a dynamic and robust R&D and innovation ecosystem requires strategic investments across multiple fronts. From strengthening foundational research infrastructure and prioritizing innovative approaches to modernizing workforce strategies and enhancing educational pathways, the policies outlined in this report collectively address critical challenges and identify opportunities for progress. These recommendations not only position the United States to lead in scientific and technological advancements but also ensure that the economic, social, and environmental benefits of these innovations are shared by all Americans. By embracing these bold, evidence-based solutions, the next administration and Congress can pave the way for a more resilient and prosperous future.
About the Memos
We consider these ideas the starting point for new conversations on R&D, innovation, and US competitiveness, and invite dialogue about these or other ideas on the topics addressed.
Please note that each of these memos stands alone and is attributed to a specific contributor or team of contributors. These memos do not necessarily reflect the views of the full cohort or of the Federation of American Scientists. Additionally, the list of memos as a whole also does not necessarily reflect the views of the full cohort and does not constitute a consensus.
Finally, memos marked as “previously published” may contain outdated political references, but their core policy ideas remain evergreen.