Keeping Research and Leadership at Home

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Dr. Ralph Wyndrum Jr., Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers advocacy group (IEEE-USA) president

Vivek Wadhwa has it right when he notes that offshoring of technical services jobs is a reality and that it isn't being driven by a shortage of qualified engineers in the U.S., as some would assert. The business logic that drives the offshoring of technical services jobs makes it imperative for American engineers to hone their competitive edge through continuing education to keep pace with rapidly changing technology and by focusing on productivity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

But it's not just engineering jobs that are at stake. According to one estimate, nearly half of U.S. engineers work in the manufacturing sector, which accounts for over 60% of the total U.S. R&D investment. Because the prevailing management practice is to locate R&D as close to manufacturing production as possible, as manufacturing moves overseas, engineering design and R&D will follow. Recent studies have already confirmed this trend is under way in such areas as materials, software, semiconductors, and electronics design.

As a nation, we need to look closely at the movement of R&D abroad and the implications for continued U.S. technological leadership. The first step is to ask our government to collect better data about these trends. The federal R&D tax credit should be made permanent so that it influences corporate planning. We need to increase our national R&D investments in the physical sciences, especially in areas of new and emerging technology with commercial potential. And we need better tools to protect intellectual property.

America's leadership in technology has underpinned our economic prosperity for the past half century. But we have no monopoly on smart people, capital investment, or the will to succeed. As developing economies use comparative labor cost and other advantages to build competing industries based on mature technologies, the U.S. can best create new jobs and new opportunity by leading the way with new technology.

Wadhwa is Wertheim Fellow at the Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University. He is a tech entrepreneur who founded two technology companies. His research can be found at www.globalizationresearch.com .