Manufacturing: Key to the 'Next Economy'
The Brookings meeting coincided with a series of proposals released by the think tank to promote manufacturing in the United States. Brookings put manufacturing at the forefront of creating a "next economy," one that "exports more and wastes less, innovates in what matters, produces more of what it invents and ensures that the economy actually works for working families."
One idea put forward is to create 20 "U.S. Manufacturing Universities" similar to to the land-grant colleges created by the Morrill Act in 1862. Each university would receive at least $25 million annually from the National Science Foundation plus preferred consideration for NSF grants.
These schools would be required to revamp their engineering programs so they put more emphasis on manufacturing engineering. The schools would stress joint university-industry research projects, cooperative education experiences and Ph.D. programs designed to produce more engineers who will work in industry.
"These universities would view doctoral training as akin to high-level apprenticeships (as is often the case in Germany) and would not allow the conferral of a Ph.D. unless one has done some work in industry," explained Robert D. Atkinson and Stephen Ezell in a paper describing the program.
A nationwide network of advanced industries innovation hubs was also proposed to accelerate innovation and strengthen U.S. competitiveness in industries such as aerospace, automotive assembly, advanced energy systems, information technology and medical devices. Brookings pointed out that these advanced industries "comprise over 10% of the overall economy, generate 45% of U.S. goods exports and support over 4 million high-skilled, and several million more ancillary, jobs."
Brookings said private companies may not adequately support innovation because the risks are considered too high or the commercial benefits are undetermined. It proposed that the federal government build out the Department of Energy's Energy Innovation Hubs an
d fund at least 20 hubs under the Commerce Department’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation initiative.
Brookings recommended that to ensure their commercial relevance, these regional applied research centers must have strong private sector participation and funding would be contingent on investment from businesses and other non-federal organizations. It suggested that the hubs could focus on issues such as carbon capture and storage, solar photovoltaics, smart grid, nanomanufacturing and industrial robotics.
Another proposal was to create a "Race to the Shop" competition to support workforce education and skills training for advanced manufacturing. The competition would call on leaders from the public and private sector to develop plans for strengthening advanced manufacturing in their states or metropolitan areas and then propose projects and investments to carry out the plan. The involvement of local manufacturing companies would be required and performance measures would be created to gauge progress on the plan.
