133 Organizations Ask Congress to Close the Innovation Deficit

Dear Member of Congress: The 133 undersigned national business, higher education, scientific, patient, and other organizations write to strongly urge you to pass an omnibus FY2015 appropriations bill this year that includes increased investments in scientific research and higher education needed to help close our nation's innovation deficit. Members of the Senate and House from both political parties have highlighted the need to address the innovation deficit. Congress has already taken some preliminary steps in this direction. In most instances, individual appropriations bills considered by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees would provide for increased investments in scientific research at the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the Department of Defense's science and technology programs, and other federal research agencies. However, none of this matters if Congress makes FY2015 appropriations through a continuing resolution. As many of us noted in our testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this year, the innovation deficit is the widening gap between the actual level of federal government funding for research and higher education and what the investment needs to be if the United States is to remain the world's innovation leader. As the global innovation leader, we produce more discoveries and patents, and more technological and health advances, than any other nat...
Source: ActionBioscience - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news