Innovative Companies Get Their Best Ideas from Academic Research — Here’s How They Do It

Since World War II, the U.S. has been an innovation superpower. In virtually every advanced field, whether it’s information technology, biotechnology, agriculture, or renewable energy, America holds a leading position. Other nations may challenge in one field or another, but no one can match its depth and breadth.

To account for its success, many point to America’s entrepreneurial culture, its tolerance for failure and its unique ecosystem of venture funding. Those factors do play important roles, but the most important thing driving America’s success has been its unparalleled scientific leadership.

While private companies employ some excellent scientists, most of America’s scientific research is publicly funded. Take a look at any significant innovation, such as an iPhone, and you’ll find that most, if not all, of the technology came from some government program. Google got its start from a federal grant. This is no accident, but the result of the national strategy that Vannevar Bush outlined in his 1945 report to President Truman, “Science, The Endless Frontier” that led to government agencies such as The National Science Foundation (NSF), The National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).