Obama’s State of the Union Speech: Science as a Priority

Every commentary has noticed the emphasis made by Barack Obama, in his State of the Union Address on January 25, on the importance of science and technology in allowing America to remain competitive in the world. This is not a new theme for him, but it was worth his bringing it back up.

In his effort to take back power in the face of representatives from all sides who are pushing for reductions in federal spending, Barack Obama is using the argument that it’s research and development, which America needs more than ever, that would suffer the most. If he accepts the freezing of federal expenses, he asks that the money saved (mostly in grants to the oil industry) be used on green technology and newly emerging sciences.

Only science and innovation, he affirmed, can save America, along with an effort previously without precedent in the domain of science education for students. He put a particular emphasis on biotechnology, referring to a recent report from MIT, which calls biotechnology the essential factor for making progress in the world of public health (see our preceding editorial, http://www.admiroutes.asso.fr/larevue/2011/114/edito2.htm).

But it’s not only biotechnology. Another target is nanotechnology. The Kavli Futures Symposium, held by Caltech in January 2011, has also pointed this out (http://www.kni.caltech.edu/middle/). Potential research applications in the field of nanotechnology continue to touch upon new sectors of activity. The reflection circle of the “Nanotechnology Innovation Summit” (http://www.nsti.org/events/NNI/) had demonstrated them a few days before, in December of 2010. The approach taken during these symposiums is strongly nationalistic, and rightly so. Reporters repeated that if experts and capital are mobilized, the race in research and development becomes global, and the shock could be brutal between the three economic world powers (Europe, the United States and Asia). And yet, it seems as though America isn’t really concerned about the danger.

The federal budget should decrease by 5 percent, and pessimism seems to have hit private investments in capital risk. The participation of foreign researchers is halted by American measures of combating immigration and opening research and development centers in several developing countries. The resources necessary to grow research and development are threatened by several factors, among which are the weak student average, the disinterest of young people in scientific careers, the absence of multidisciplinary training and the fact that America has fallen behind Europe in the fields of health care and environmental policy.

In the field of nanotechnology, among many possible applications, certain ones have been deemed a higher priority because of their strategic interests. These include energy independence (the production of electricity, artificial photosynthesis and energy storage), water purification, devising low-energy electronics with Memristors, optic communication, quantum computers, NEMS, and improving medical and therapeutic diagnostics taking into account a person’s genetic data. These are the fields that largely make up the overall domain of biotechnology. The two approaches, just as Obama has always emphasized, are convergent. No need to say that, in this list of projects, applications tied to defense will play an important role, if not a predominant one. They’ll be the first to benefit from budgetary efforts, even if Obama hasn’t said so outright.

It’s too early to know if the State of the Union speech, which we must admit was worthy of a true statesman, will have any influence on apparently indomitable political adversaries. Will it contribute to slowing down the descent of the system into hell by reminding us of its previous value? We say here that we would like to hear this same speech from European political leaders, but that has yet to happen. If America is right to worry about research and development in Asia, it would be wrong to do so about its equivalent in Europe.

In the thin budgets dedicated by the Commission, as well as those of European universities and big businesses, we don’t see the equivalent of what’s happening in America or even Asia. Nicolas Sarkozy, who claims that he will play a big role in future G-20 and G-8 summits, is completely incapable of even understanding what scientific development is about. And it is we who will suffer all the consequences in terms of de-localization and unemployment.