Technology and Sihua (I)

Looking at the investment policies and effects of government R&D (research and development) in developed countries, emerging countries, and developing countries, it is not difficult to find that government investment in science and technology is showing some very interesting features. While the country is organizing the formulation of national medium and long-term science and technology development plans, it is important to fully understand these characteristics and selectively incorporate them into relevant science and technology input policies.
I. Investment in Economics In the early days, science and technology innovation activities were mainly based on investments made by enterprises, private individuals, civil society, or churches, and government intervention in science and technology investment activities was relatively small. When some of the achievements in scientific and technological innovation were applied to the military, economy and achieved major results, the government began to attach importance to support for scientific and technological innovation activities. This support is mainly in the basic fields of scientific and technological innovation activities and in areas related to the military and other goals. The goal is to acquire more advanced weapons, advanced production tools, and production methods, which are not directly integrated with the social wealth creation process. stand up. For those R&D activities that can directly create wealth, the government usually gives way to the corporate sector.
The institutional reasons for this government investment preference for science and technology are mainly based on such assumptions:
(1) Scientific research is the exploration of natural laws and the source of new knowledge. However, this new knowledge does not directly lead to an increase in social wealth.
(2) There is only a relatively small “intersection” between the R&D investment process of common technology, basic technology, and publicly-applicable technology, and the use process of their input. There is a large asymmetry between input and output.
(3) The premise of maintaining the fairness of government activities is to reduce the intervention of private investment as much as possible, and applied R&D activities are linked with the ultimate creation of wealth.
(4) Government investment in science and technology as an active public policy arrangement, while focusing on basic research, common technologies, and publicly applicable technologies, on the one hand, it is necessary to increase the ability to create and use new technologies by increasing the spillover of technology; On the other hand, it is necessary to increase the opportunities and capabilities for creating new wealth by supporting entrepreneurial activities of private and small enterprises.
After entering the 1990s, the above three assumptions that determined the government’s investment in science and technology have changed. Both the developed countries, the emerging countries, and the government’s scientific and technological investment in developing countries have increasingly exhibited “economic characteristics.”
In recent years, various countries have invested a considerable proportion of their investment in the allocation of resources for government science and technology. From 2000 to 2001, the federal government of Canada invested 6.68 billion Canadian dollars in science and technology, and the proportion of science and technology investment in the total government budget rose to 4.3%, and a large part of it was directly invested in fields directly related to wealth creation. Similarly, Japan’s government’s investment in science and technology to increase wealth has also greatly increased. In 2001, government investment in science and technology amounted to 3,611.3 billion yen (about 28.8 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 5.4% from 2000.
Government investment in science and technology is an economic process. The fundamental reason is:
(1) Economic growth and wealth increase have become a manifestation of the core competitiveness of a country or region. Government investment in science and technology cannot but consider economic benefits.
(2) Scientific and technological achievements can only be transformed into wealth in the economic cycle only when they become an intrinsic part of economic activities.
(3) The period for transforming scientific and technological achievements into wealth has been greatly shortened, making it possible for the government to economically invest in science and technology.
Second, the advantages of this allocation of resources for commercialization are:
(1) The government can directly control the project and implement the funds.
(2) The project implementation process can directly accept government inspections and supervision, so as to facilitate the timely detection of problems and make corresponding adjustments.
If it is based on national major strategic products or government science and technology investment arrangements targeting pure scientific research, this input method should be effective, but if it is based on the goal of wealth, this scientific and technological input arrangement will encounter serious problems in reality. problem. Including the contradiction between the nature of government funds and the commercialization process of the project, as well as the contradiction between the government's R&D investment and the company's R&D investment. (To be continued)