How the FSIP initiative is uncovering what it will take for the U.S. to lead in research and technology, from smarter public-private partnerships to forward-thinking policies on talent and investment
Three years ago, experts at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy’s (GPS’s) Peter F. Cowhey Center on Global Transformation (CCGT) teamed up to examine the inner workings of the American R&D system, forming a new initiative at the center: Frontiers in Science and Innovation Policy (FSIP).
Simply put, FSIP is charged with exploring the economic and political forces shaping scientific innovation and examining how the U.S. can revitalize its research and innovation system to address the challenges of today’s world.
Over the past few years, the team has produced a diverse portfolio of reports, articles and commentaries tackling the forces reshaping American research and innovation.
Their work spans collaborations with the Science Philanthropy Alliance on how private giving can sustain U.S. leadership in discovery and calls for stronger alignment between government and philanthropic funding. They have also highlighted the risks to national competitiveness posed by restrictive policies on foreign-born students and shared insights on how universities can adapt to the sweeping changes transforming the research enterprise.
Can philanthropy fill the gap when federal funding falters?
Reflecting on FSIP’s start, Robert Conn, Jacobs School of Engineering dean emeritus and center fellow, shared that he recognized the effect of endowment yield, otherwise known as legacy philanthropy, was so large that people hadn’t fully recognized its total impact on the funding of American innovation research.
“From that basic notion that we had going in, we developed a much more sophisticated understanding, based on the sort of stuff that GPS is good at, which is linking money to incentives and organizational strategies,” said Peter Cowhey, GPS dean emeritus and FSIP co-director.
Their initial findings were surprising: legacy philanthropy totaled almost 40% of the annual spending of the government on basic science research.
Conn, Cowhey and co-authors Chris Martin and Josh Graff Zivin went on to publish a paper with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) on the importance of philanthropic giving for the U.S. to maintain its competitive edge in scientific research.
Fast forward to today, when the very foundations of the American R&D system have been upended by what Cowhey calls the “Trumpian earthquake.” The current administration is reversing course on up to billions of dollars in federal research funding — putting American innovation at a huge risk and disadvantage.
“How do you adapt to the undermining of much of that structure, that system?” Cowhey said. “No matter what happens after Trump in the next presidential election, the system is now shaken — and now the question is how to stir it.”
Going hand-in-hand with the fallout of revoking billions in federal funding is the administration’s restrictions on and confusion surrounding international student visas, both renewals and new — beginning what some fear is a “brain drain” in the U.S.
“Foreign talent is the equivalent of all-star talent,” Cowhey said. “What America was good at was getting the cream of the crop from around the world, and the new Trump approach deeply endangers that.”
Conn points out one silver lining amid the shakeup: philanthropic giving hasn’t been impacted nearly as much by the policy of the federal government.
“Philanthropic giving will continue at its own pace, which is good, and I think there will be shifts in what philanthropy is likely to be supporting over the next three or four years,” Conn said. “There’s more and more concern about support for students.”
Though Cowhey and Conn agree that philanthropic giving cannot fully replace the reduction in federal funding or the crippling loss of international talent in American R&D, FSIP has a role to play in bringing the biggest players in science together to discuss how to mitigate the dire issues on the horizon.
“Our aim should be to undertake a more systematic examination of the key points of vulnerability that threaten the foundations of basic research,” Cowhey said. “And by that, we mean that we would like the biggest science philanthropy institutions to get together and collectively do assessments on looming, if you would, potholes — big potholes for the basic science enterprise in America — and start talking collaboratively about how they might fill or modify those potholes.”
Informing U.S. strategy on innovation, plus a new focus on global economics and migration
On another front, CCGT Director Joshua Graff Zivin is leading NSF-funded research on how to better incentivize productive risk-taking in federal R&D. Working with colleagues, he is using new econometric and survey methods to understand how life scientists make research portfolio decisions, with the goal of helping agencies balance incremental progress with breakthrough innovation.
Graff Zivin and team also contributed to the NSF’s Technology Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate, helping assess national challenges and needed tech investments. His research underscored the role of philanthropy in backing early high-risk research and revealed that philanthropic support for critical technologies remains limited and focused primarily on AI, robotics and data.
Next up for FSIP is expanding its focus and tackling issues at the intersection of digital regulatory policy and international economic policy. Cowhey explores this topic in two recent works: one on emerging patterns of digital regulation and trade policy in the Asia-Pacific region and another that analyzes the choices facing Korea on these issues. In the pipeline, he and colleagues are looking at some of these issues for the European Union, especially in relation to China.
With an eye to the future, Graff Zivin said the initiative is expanding its scholarship team to tackle emerging challenges in digital trade and AI governance, key forces shaping the next era of international collaboration and competitiveness.
“I’m excited to announce we will be supporting an interdisciplinary team of faculty working on the topic of migration, including a focus on high-skill migration to the U.S.,” Graff Zivin said. “The team’s work spans topics such as the ripple effects of China’s college expansion on American universities, patterns of internal migration in China and remittances to the Philippines, with more to come.”
Learn more about how FSIP engages in science and technology policy by visiting their website.
