The American Chemical Society (ACS) has issued a report that maps critical steps to pioneer new economic growth among deepening concerns about the US job situation. Innovation, Chemistry, and Jobs details how one of US’s most valuable economic sectors – the chemical enterprise – can shift from a historically commodity-based industry to a highly productive engine capitalising on scientific innovations to stimulate powerful economic growth.
The report identifies chemical entrepreneurs as uniquely positioned to take high-value innovations and commercialise new products and processes that will greatly stimulate economic productivity – bottom line: to create jobs.
The report, publicly released on August 29, is the product of an ACS Presidential task force appointed by 2010 ACS President Dr. Joseph S. Francisco, William E. Moore Distinguished Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Science and Chemistry, Purdue University. The task force consisted of eminent scientists from industry, academia and government, all with experience in entrepreneurship, and was chaired by Dr. George M. Whitesides, Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor, Harvard University.
The report recommends four main thrusts. This includes ACS should develop a single organisational unit to help entrepreneurs; ACS should increase advocacy of policies at the federal and state level to improve the business environment for entrepreneurs and startup companies; ACS should work with academic institutions and other organisations to promote career pathways and educational opportunities that include entrepreneurship; and ACS should increase public awareness of the value of early-stage entrepreneurship.
The US is unique among major industrial economies in that it relies heavily on the market system to create growth. However, chemical innovations with the strongest potential to be highly economically productive require entrepreneurs to operate through complex collaborations across multiple economic sectors.
The biotech and technology industries have pursued similar models with great success, which has allowed them to more thoroughly embrace technological advancements than other industries in recent years. This ability to truly capitalise, develop, and commercialise innovations is where the US has fallen down in the last 20 years and that has stymied productivity and limited economic growth, particularly for the chemical industry.
Readers may visit www.acs.org/CreatingJobs to download Innovation, Chemistry, and Jobs and access a wide array of materials and information regarding innovation and entrepreneurship.
To access our daily STM news feed through your iPhone, iPad, or other smartphones, please visit www.myscoope.com for a mobile friendly reading experience.
