Promoting opportunity and growth through science, technology, and innovation

The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution was launched to advance an economic strategy to restore America’s promise of opportunity, prosperity, and growth, and inject new policy options from leading thinkers across the country into the national economic debate. At a forum on December 5, 2006, The Hamilton Project examined the issue of the importance of science and technology to meeting the challenges of the 21st Century and introduced proposals to enhance U.S. expertise and competitiveness in these areas.

The first panel discussed a new strategy paper exploring the importance of investments in innovation, research, and in the education of a highly skilled American workforce to fueling American growth, prosperity, and competitiveness. It also highlighted papers on increasing the number of qualified U.S. students pursuing graduate degrees in science and engineering, expanding government use of prizes for innovative achievements in science and technology, and reforming and streamlining the review process for those patents offering the greatest technological and commercial impact.

The second panel explored how best to meet the challenges of an economy fueled by rapid scientific and technological advancements and how to address the increasing globalization of high-skill and high-wage technology sectors. Panelists included Hamilton Project Advisory Council Members Robert E. Rubin of Citigroup and Lawrence H. Summers of Harvard University, as well as William R. Brody, President of Johns Hopkins University, Michael Capellas, Former CEO of MCI and Compaq, and Harold Varmus, winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize for Medicine and former NIH Director, currently President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.