应该将更多研发资金投入到哪里

Although U.S. companies are spending more on R&D overall than they have in recent years, they’re putting that money mainly into new project development and neglecting other areas that are important to long-term innovation efforts. When, for its 2007 R&D forecast, the Industrial Research Institute surveyed 99 firms that do research, more than a third said they were ramping up R&D expenditures on new projects by at least 5% this year. By contrast, only 14% reported such an increase in directed basic research (exploration of fundamental principles that’s guided by the organization’s strategic goals). This limited emphasis on broader inquiry isn’t just a 2007 slump; it’s a trend that extends back over the past seven years. (See the exhibit “Basic Research Is Being Shortchanged.”) Basic Research Is Being Shortchanged Over the past seven years, R&D has focused far more on new projects than on directed basic research.Source: Industrial Research Institute.“R&D Growth” equals the percentage of respondents reporting an increase greater than 5% minus the percentage of those reporting no change or a decrease. Spending increases of less than 5% have been excluded from calculations because they typically reflect inflation adjustments and not true increases in R&D investment. Directed basic research is critical to innovation over the long run. It opens up avenues for fruitful investigation at a later time, even if the information gathered isn’t directly applicable to current projects. For instance, ConocoPhillips accumulated—through many years of exploratory research—knowledge about sulfur chemistry and the role of certain catalysts in refining reactions without having a goal of developing a better sulfur removal technology. But in 2000, after the U.S. government mandated lower sulfur content in gasoline by 2004 for cleaner emissions, the company was able to use its knowledge to develop and commercialize a sulfur removal technology that both met the federal requirements and preserved more octane than the conventional technology. Unexpected breakthroughs are another key benefit of directed basic research. Indeed, it promotes serendipitous long-term innovation because you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for when you conduct it or how it may be used in the future. Consider Pfizer’s new cancer drug Sutent, approved last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It owes its existence to the discovery that blocking blood vessel development in tumors will slow and even reverse their growth—a finding from theoretical research conducted more than a decade ago at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, before Sutent was a gleam in anyone’s eye. For five years in a row, companies in the IRI study have cited “growing the business through innovation” as their biggest problem. Other top concerns have included “accelerating innovation” and “balancing long-term/short-term R&D objectives/focus.” However, their spending behavior doesn’t match their desire to obtain short- and long-term balance. While firms that concentrate disproportionately on new projects may satisfy some of their immediate business goals, they will probably fail to cultivate the broad-based knowledge they’ll need to realize their leading goal of growth through innovation.

应该将更多研发资金投入到哪里

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