A day before a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in which heads of the nation's major research agencies will jointly testify on the need for federal research investments to drive innovation and economic growth, a group of 50 leading business, higher education, scientific, and patient organizations urged members of that panel to make strong, sustained investments in research in order to close what they call an "innovation deficit."
In written testimony submitted to the Senate committee, the coalition—which includes Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels and Ralph Semmel, director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory—described the links between basic research and economic growth, improved medical treatments, and national security. They noted that lagging U.S. investment in research and higher education combined with the significant increase in such investment by other nations has created an innovation deficit, threatening the nation's international competitiveness.