A federal commission is warning that the U.S. is losing its innovative edge, arguing that the nation needs to “reimagine the federal science enterprise” by streamlining funding and incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into processes.
The new recommendations come from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB), a congressionally created entity tasked with providing strategies to strengthen U.S. biotechnology leadership for both national security and economic resilience.
Created in 2022, the commission released its first set of recommendations this April, including a call for a $15 billion government commitment to the sector over the next five years.
Now, the group is back with specific policies aimed at securing the U.S. position as the global innovation leader and using taxpayer dollars more efficiently.
For the new report (PDF), NSCEB met with thousands of scientists, company executives, academic leaders, philanthropists and government officials, writing that the discussions revealed “clear warning signs” that the U.S. is relinquishing its innovative edge.
“American leadership in scientific innovation is no longer guaranteed,” the commission report reads. “While U.S. funding stagnates and researchers are bogged down in complex funding application processes, China is doubling down on science, racing to position itself as the innovation engine of the world.”
The group argues that America’s innovation system is outdated and requires new approaches to modernize it.
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More specifically, NSCEB recommends three strategies to maintain the nation’s leadership position: making the federal government a better partner; enabling autonomous scientific discovery; and unlocking science across the U.S.
The commission specifically took aim at grant processes, writing that the federal financing system is “overloaded with administrative and regulatory burdens,” and adding that federal research databases are poorly maintained and that government agencies are failing to communicate clearly and act quickly.
NSCEB called for continued federal investment in basic scientific research and for updates to existing federal programs so they can be more efficient and impactful.
“The funders and performers of research in the United States today mainly operate independently, with little visibility on each other’s goals and outcomes,” the report reads. “The federal government can reposition itself as the coordinator and catalyst for burden-sharing and collaboration among funders.”
The paper also detailed the complexities of securing federal funding and recommended overhauling the processes for both how scientists apply for funding and how agencies evaluate research ideas.
The commission pointed out that the government could lean on new funding mechanisms to provide research money.
“It must also rebalance existing funds between effective, traditional funding mechanisms and novel ones,” the group writes. “These new mechanisms would encourage innovation and establish important infrastructure that would unlock collaboration and investments from the private sector.”
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Another key component of the report is the use of AI—including in the funding realm—with recommendations to incorporate automation alongside human review processes.
AI, robotics, high-performance computing, and automation are also transforming the research landscape, a development that will “transition scientific experimentation from a largely hands-on manual process into an automated one, where AI-driven robots can run thousands of experiments in a fraction of the time with high reproducibility.”
The federal government must recognize the potential these technologies hold and empower researchers to use them, according to NSCEB.
“Strengthening the United States’ commitment to scientific discovery requires a modernized scientific ecosystem, one that fosters collaboration across sectors and directs funding toward high-impact research,” the commission concludes. “Now is the time to secure the future of science and ensure that the American people enjoy greater prosperity, better health and increased safety for generations to come.”