To Truly Build Back Better, the US Must Create New R&D Consortia

Eion Lys

As competitive pressures mount in areas like wireless technology, digital epidemiology, and supply chain design, international collaboration is critical to the US’s success

The global, rapidly evolving nature of COVID-19 has put international collaboration to the test—with mixed results. On the one hand, we saw unprecedented data and knowledge sharing, powerful public–private partnerships, and accelerated vaccine development. On the other, the pandemic exposed real deficits in collaboration, with, for instance, the World Health Organization warning early last year that vaccine nationalism is leading to “catastrophic moral failure.”

The successes and failures of the past two years underscore the same conclusions: that societal progress and economic security depend on scientific innovation—and that collaboration is critical to plans to “build back better” and maintain national well-being in our global, high-tech era.

One way to do so is through research and development (R&D) consortia that bring together universities, companies, and governments to forge winning results in late-stage R&D. Late-stage R&D—including design, prototyping, scale-up, and testing, with frequent and often informal communication among stakeholders—makes up a key step in the R&D pathway, transforming what appears promising in a lab into something that can be implemented at scale as products or services.

Now is an ideal moment to expand funding and support for public–private and cross-border R&D consortia. New challenges in areas such as wireless technology, digital epidemiology, and supply chain design require innovative solutions. And collaborative efforts would align well with the US government’s active pursuit of new approaches for science and technology (S&T) policy, be it the proposed America Competes Act, the Build Back Better Act, or international alliances with strong technological components, such as the Quad with Australia, India, and Japan.

The benefits of R&D consortia

For at least a half-century, R&D consortia have helped forge successful results in late-stage R&D, through cooperation and knowledge sharing on technical questions too complex, expensive, or pressing (e.g., semiconductors or rapid vaccine development) for any one company or nation to pursue successfully on its own.

These consortia, when successfully implemented and continually managed among allied countries, also can benefit national interests and economic security in two vital ways:

First, through cross-border engagement and partnerships with researchers and S&T organizations among liberal democracies, consortia foster personnel exchange, prevent duplication of work and investment, and yield new knowledge for common benefit, while strengthening relationships among like-minded nations.

Second, consortia promote broad talent development and job creation—for not just scientists, but engineers, designers, technicians, and operational staff. With careful funding and planning, consortia can help spur regional economic development and anchor new technology hubs. It is no coincidence that Silicon Valley emerged in a region with considerable academic, corporate, and government R&D entities in active cross-collaboration.

There are numerous other examples that spotlight how such consortia can provide benefits.

In the late 1970s, the Japanese Very Large Scale Integrated Semiconductor Project (VLSI) enabled Japan to become the world’s leader in circuits. The project centered on a cooperative research lab, with shared access from companies including Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Toshiba. VLSI enabled early career and highly capable researchers to work in a collaborative and solutions-focused environment; it resulted in substantial advances in technical R&D knowledge within Japan in a few years. Its work helped propel Japanese leadership in semiconductors and the country’s overall emergence as the global electronics innovation powerhouse of the 1980s.

The success of VLSI, in fact, came to be so great that the US felt its advantage in semiconductor know-how was slipping away. In the mid-1980s, SEMATECH formed as a collaboration between fourteen US companies and the federal government, with an operating culture of urgency: “If it’s not competitive, change it.” Just as with VLSI, after several years—the mid-1990s in this case—the US had made up for the global semiconductor market share it had lost to Japan in the prior decade.

Today, such consortia exist in virtually every S&T-intensive nation. In the UK, the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) employs five hundred technical staffers in eleven core capabilities, including integrated manufacturing, additive manufacturing, and manufacturing intelligence. It counts more than one hundred industrial members, including aerospace leaders Boeing, Airbus, BAE Systems, and Rolls Royce. A 2019 report indicated more than half of the jobs on site at AMRC were newly created since 2012, as opposed to existing or relocated positions.

As another example, IMI Europe operates as a public–private partnership between the European Union and the European Federation for Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations. It aims to expedite and improve development and patient access to innovative medicines, for health challenges including Alzheimer’s, diabetes, Ebola, and antimicrobial resistance. The institute received €5.3 billion EUR in funding through 2020, split between public EU funding and corporate and partner contributions.

Three key areas for new consortia

R&D consortia can play a critical role in numerous areas in society today, from energy to medicine to defense. Three high-potential possibilities include:

Future wireless systems
The development and deployment path for 6G will drive both enormous opportunity for new technologies and benefits, as well as an array of hardware, software, and data security vulnerabilities. Yet a new report from the Center for a New American Security says the US is underinvesting in this technology, especially compared to China. A wireless consortium can ensure liberal democracies retain leadership positions in information and communications technology (ICT) hardware, software, and standards.

Digital epidemiology
Public health agencies, academic researchers, and biotech companies need massive datasets of epidemiological information to foresee and respond to both pandemics and noncommunicable ailments. An epidemiology consortia could allow health-sector stakeholders un-siloed access to the best, current, and most comprehensive data, with common rules and regulations to protect individual privacy and the well-being of communities.

Cross-border supply chain design and management
Recent logistics challenges, including those stemming from COVID-19 and Brexit, have shown the need for better predictive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and digitalization, and operational management of complex and mission-critical international supply chains. A research consortium could investigate new pathways for oversight and analysis of international logistics networks. With engagement and data from different stakeholders—government, academia, industry, and trade and labor associations—scholarly investigations could provide new insights for rapid testing and deployment of more sophisticated and responsive supply chains.

Some might argue that consortia are noncompetitive in the American landscape. But in fact, these collaborations actually enable competition by making new advanced technologies, services, and products possible. Moreover, in the US, federal regulations specifically permit them—and exempt them from antitrust liabilities, through the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 and subsequent laws in 1993 and 2004.

Now is the time for Congress, state legislatures, universities, private companies, trade associations, and philanthropic entities to get behind these vital alliances. They should be both geographically distributed and attentive to local community benefits to the greatest extent possible—all with the aim of promoting knowledge sharing, generating new technical innovation, and ensuring future economic security.

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