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This volume examines the role of scientific and technical information in the innovation process. The authors are primarily concerned with federally supported scientific and technical information which can be used to improve technology development for nondefense purposes--and thus help improve the international economic competitiveness of the United States. As the authors note at the outset, the federal government already makes a substantial investment in creating scientific and technical information. Their study is designed to first evaluate the ways in which this investment can be better used to improve our innovation capacity and then to assess the policy implications for the federal government and private sector R&D firms.

Divided into three principal parts, the book begins by discussing the relationship between information and innovation, with particular emphasis on the use of information in the private sector. Part II characterizes existing federal policy related to information, technology transfer, and innovation and examines whether federally supported R&D is responsive to the needs of technological development and economic competitiveness. The final section addresses federal strategies to improve the use of federal R&D in these areas. Throughout, the authors pay special attention to issues surrounding the relationships between information providers and users. An important contribution to the ongoing debate on U.S. competitiveness abroad, this book offers important new insights into the ways in which government policy might be redesigned to help foster higher levels of technological innovation among U.S. firms.