Policy for Science, Technology and Innovation
This course will examine the science and technology innovation system, including case studies on energy, computing, advanced manufacturing and health sectors, with an emphasis on public policy and the federal government’s R&D role in that system
Course Information
Certificate Track
Learn for Free
About this Course
Innovation and accompanying science and technology are now seen not only to have a profound connection to our health and daily life, but also to the society’s economic growth and its corresponding ability to generate societal wellbeing and solve societal challenges -- and these economic and societal issues are deeply interrelated. This course focuses on science and technology policy – it will examine the science and technology innovation system, including case studies on energy, computing, advanced manufacturing and health sectors, with an emphasis on public policy and the federal government’s R&D role in that system. It will review the foundations of economic growth theory, innovation systems theory and innovation organization theory, as well as the basic approaches to science and technology policy, building toward a sophisticated understanding of these areas. The class will review a theory of direct and indirect economic factors in the innovation system, note the innovation-based competitive and advanced manufacturing challenges now facing the U.S. economy, review comparative efforts in other nations, study the varied models for how federal science and technology mission agencies are organized, and the growth of public-private partnership models as a way for science mission agencies to pursue mission agendas. Emphasis will also be placed on examining the organization and role of medical science and energy innovation agencies and gaps in the health, energy, and advanced production innovation economic models, as well as related innovation systems policy issues. The course will close with an examination of the science and technology talent base as a factor in growth and the education approaches that support it, and a discussion of the future of jobs and employment given increasing automation.
Prerequisites
None
Meet your instructors
William B. Bonvillian
Lecturer - Science, Technology and Society Department
William B. Bonvillian, is a Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, teaching innovation policy courses in the Science Technology and Society and Political Science Departments. He is also Senior Director for Special Projects at MIT Open Learning, leading a major research project and report on workforce education. Previously, from 2006-2017, he was Director of MIT’s Washington Office, reporting to MIT’s President. There he worked to support MIT’s strong and historic relations with federal R&D agencies, and its role on national science policy. He assisted with major MIT technology policy initiatives on energy technology, the “convergence” of life, engineering and physical sciences, advanced manufacturing and online higher education. Prior to MIT, he served for seventeen years as a senior policy advisor in the U.S. Senate. His legislative efforts included science and technology policy and innovation issues. He worked extensively on national competitiveness and innovation legislation leading to the America Competes Act in 2007, as well as legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security, on Intelligence reform, on climate change, on defense and life science R&D.
He is on the National Academies of Sciences’ standing committee for its Innovation Policy Forum, served for seven years on its Board on Science Education of the Academies, and on sixother Academies’ Committees. He chairs the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) standing Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (COSEPP), and serves on the Board of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). He was the recipient of the IEEE Distinguished Public Service Award in 2007 and was elected a Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011. He has degrees from Columbia, Yale and Columbia Law.
Areas of expertise
- Science and Technology Policy; Federal R&D System; Advanced Manufacturing; Energy Technology Policy; Workforce Education
Major works
Books:
Workforce Education – A New Roadmap (w/Sanjay Sarma) (MIT Press 2020)
Advanced Manufacturing – The New American Innovation Policies (w/Peter Singer) (MIT Press 2018)
The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies (w/P. Windham and R. VanAtta) (Open Book Publishing 2020)
Technology Innovation in Legacy Sectors (w/ Charles Weiss) (Oxford Univ. Press 2015)
Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution (w/Charles Weiss) (MIT Press 2009)
Website: www.bonvillian.org
