Scientists in the US remain the best funded in the world, but they say falling federal investment and cuts due to sequestration, coupled with the enormous resources other countries are lavishing on research, are creating an “innovation deficit”.

美国科学家的科研经费仍然是全世界最充裕的，但他们说，美国联邦科研投入的不断减少、自动减支导致的经费削减，再加上其他国家在研发上的大举投资，正导致美国出现“创新赤字”。

The consequence, say the presidents of more than 200 US universities, will be fewer US scientific and technological breakthroughs, fewer US patents and fewer US start-ups, products and jobs. Investment in research is not inconsistent with deficit reduction, indeed it is vital to it, they said in an open letter to President Barack Obama and members of Congress last summer.

两百多所美国大学的校长们表示，这种状况导致的结果是，美国在科学技术方面的重要发现减少，申请的专利数减少，创办的企业数量减少，生产的产品种类减少，创造的就业岗位减少。在去年夏天致美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)和国会的一封公开信中，这些大学校长们称，科研投入与减赤并不矛盾，事实上它对后者至关重要。

The pressure researchers are coming under to justify federal funding was underlined last month in Chicago at one of their big annual conferences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The meeting, held every year since 1848, is intended to showcase the latest from the laboratory. This year however, the focus was not on research, but on innovation, entrepreneurship and the economy.

美国科研人员面临着很大压力，他们必须证明联邦科研经费支出是合理有益的。上月在芝加哥举行的美国科学促进会(AAAS)年会上，这一点就彰显无遗。AAAS年会是美国科学界年度盛会，自1848年以来每年都举行。会议召开的目的是展示最新科研成果，然而今年的会议焦点不是科研，而是创新、企业家精神和经济。

“I suspect that this may be the first AAAS meeting in which these three topics are so specifically highlighted,” said Phillip Sharp, AAAS president, Nobel laureate and biotechnology entrepreneur.

AAAS主席、诺贝尔奖得主菲利普•夏普(Phillip Sharp)表示：“我觉得，这可能是AAAS有史以来头一次如此特别强调这三个主题。”夏普还创办有生物科学公司。

In the past, it was assumed that investment in research would inevitably yield innovation at some unspecified point in the future. To take a topical example, back in 1979 the US Department of Energy published a report called “Commercialisation plan for the recovery of gas from unconventional resources” and began to sponsor R&D in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for extracting shale-bound oil and gas reserves.

过去人们认为，科研投入肯定会在未来某个时候产生创新成果。举个贴近当下的例子：早在1979年，美国能源部(US Department of Energy)就发布了一份报告，叫做“非常规天然气资源开发的商业化计划”，并开始资助水力压裂法方面的研发——压裂法可用于开采页岩油气。

It took more than 30 years, but this research underpinned the exploitation of shale resources that previously were considered irrecoverable, prompting the current US oil and gas boom.

这项研究历时三十多年，但正是这项研究为开采之前被认为不可开采的页岩资源提供了理论基础，催生了目前美国的这场油气繁荣。

Now it is no longer sufficient to make a discovery and wait for others to commercialise it. Scientists in universities and public research institutes are being called on to take a greater role in translating their findings into new products and services.

如今，研究出成果、然后等待别人将其商业化对科学家来说已经不够了。现在呼声越来越大，要求大学和公共研究机构的科学家在将自己的发现转化为产品和服务方面扮演更重要的角色。

What is needed, said Dr Sharp in his AAAS presidential address, is better integration of the discovery process with the entrepreneurial translation process, which turns discoveries into products and devices.

夏普在AAAS年会上发表主席致辞时表示，必须将科学发现的过程与将科学成果转化为产品和服务的商业化阶段更好地整合在一起。

It is ironic that this soul-searching and loss of confidence in the great American innovation machine comes at a time when so many other countries are banking on research spending to expand their economies.

讽刺的是，在巨大的美国创新机器开始自省和丧失信心之际，其他许多国家纷纷寄望于通过增加研发支出来扩张经济。

Alongside investing in R&D as an explicit part of economic development policy, these countries have looked at the US model as they have set out to create innovation systems capable of taking basic research through to the market.

除了将研发投资明确列为一项经济发展政策之外，这些国家还以美国为范本，着手创建将基础研究推向市场的创新体制。

China, for example, has tripled its R&D intensity since 1998, according to the OECD. The result, as Rongping Mu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences told the AAAS, has been to push China to second position in the number of scientific papers it publishes and to sixth in the number of citations to these papers.

经合组织(OECD)的数据显示，中国自1998年以来研发投入增加了两倍。中国科学院的穆荣平在AAAS上就说，研发投入增加，推动中国成为了全世界科学论文发表数量排名第二、论文被引用数量排名第六的国家。

At the same time as developing an excellent science base, China has put in place a policy framework to couple research and commercialisation and integrate all aspects of the innovation process.

在发展优秀科研基础力量的同时，中国还制定了促进科研与商业化对接、将创新过程的各个环节整合在一起的政策框架。

The aim “is to build an innovation-driven country to promote economic development in a more efficient, fair and sustainable way,” said Dr Mu. “There were a lot of criticisms of China, saying China is a copier and so on. But in the past 10 years, there has been fundamental change.”

穆荣平说，这一政策的目标是“把中国建设成一个创新驱动型国家，以更有效、更公平和更可持续的方式推动经济发展。”他说，过去有很多针对中国的批评，说中国只会模仿等等，但过去10年里中国发生了非常大的变化。

Similarly Kanetaka Maki of the University of California, San Diego, described how the Japanese government deliberately emulated the US system when it introduced a national innovation system in 1998. “A central pillar was the launch of the university technology transfer office,” said Dr Maki.

美国加州大学圣地亚哥分校(University of California, San Diego)的牧兼充(Kanetaka Maki)介绍了日本政府的做法：1998年，日本刻意模仿美国，引入了国家创新体制。牧兼充说：“该体制的一个核心支柱，就是高校技术转移办公室的设立。”

The South Korean government too, has put the focus on academic knowledge transfer as part of a new national agenda called The Creative Economy. The ambition is to replace “the catch-up paradigm”, said Jong-Guk Song of the Science and Technology Policy Institute in Seoul.

韩国政府也把重点放到学术知识的转移上，这是一项新的国家计划——发展“创新经济”(Creative Economy)的一部分。韩国的首尔科技政策研究所(STPI)的Jong-Guk Song说，韩国希望转变现有的“追赶范式”。

Universities are expected to lead this economic paradigm shift. “If they don’t collaborate with industry, they don’t get research funds from the government,” said Dr Song.

韩国期望高校在转换经济范式中发挥带头作用。Jong-Guk Song说：“如果高校不与产业界合作，它们就得不到政府的科研拨款。”

Until a decade ago, the size and quality of the US research establishment meant its scientists seldom faced international competition for new ideas. Now, large investments in the scientific fabric elsewhere in the world are shifting the balance of power.

10年前，美国科研机构的规模和质量都很可观，在提出新思想方面很少遇到国际竞争。如今，世界其他地区大举投资科研机构，正在改变世界科研实力对比。

At the same time, the US is witnessing “stagnation” in R&D funding, Dr Sharp said. While it will take some time to become evident, it will lead to a slowing of economic growth. In the face of this, “we have no choice but to become better at linking discovery, innovation and entrepreneurship,” he concluded.

另一方面，夏普说，美国研发经费增长陷入“停滞”。其后果要一段时间之后才会显现，但终将导致美国经济增长放缓。他总结称，面对这种局面，“我们只能将研究发现、创新和创业等环节更好地衔接起来。”