The Socio-Economic Importance of Scientific Research To Canada

The Socio-Economic Importance of Scientific Research to Canada Page 9© David A. Wolfe and Ammon Salteras a process of discovery that proceeds in a clear fashion from scientific discovery totechnological change in terms of new product and process development, production, marketingand ultimately, the sale of those products and processes. According to Harvey Brooks,This simplistic model, though increasingly challenged by scholarly research, has had animportant and persistent influence on the organization and management of innovation inthe United States until recently. It still provides a plausible description for many of theradical paradigm–shifting technological innovations during the cold war period, notonly in defense but also in a number of other commercial areas. The most classic caseis the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear power . . . , but other examplesinclude the transistor, the laser, genetic engineering, and many biomedical technologies(1996, 21; cf. also US Office of Technology Assessment 1995, pp. 32–35).As appealing as this model was in its simplicity, and despite the examples cited above thatseemed to provide confirmation for it, it does not bear up well under closer scrutiny.Nathan Rosenberg points out that the image of science leading in a unidirectional chain ofcausation toward new products and processes is simply inaccurate in historical terms (1976).Much of the activity of science owes its course to prior developments in technology or theproductive sphere. For example, the Wright Brothers developed the first airplane without anunderstanding of aerodynamic theory and Chester Carlson developed the first xerographiccopier without a thorough understanding of photoconductive materials. In these cases,however, the line of development leads in the opposite direction to that posited by the linearmodel: these inventions triggered considerable scientific research into aerodynamic theory andmaterials science (US Office of Technology Assessment 1995, p. 21). The technologies thatare developed in the form of new products and processes are not simply an ‘applied’ science.Engineering technology is its own form of knowledge and a critically important one at that (cf.Vincenti 1990). The relationship between publicly–funded research and economic performancemay flow in the opposite direction to that suggested by the linear model and the informationalapproach of neoclassical economics. Rather than flowing from science to technology toproducts and processes, it often goes from production problems to technology to science, in thereverse order of causation posited by the linear model (Martin et al. 1996).Figure 1 about hereThe alternative approach based on evolutionary economics has generated two new strands ofresearch. The first strand suggests that despite the poverty of the old approach,publicly–funded research can still usefully be seen to represent information. Information isseen as codified knowledge, i.e. knowledge which is written down or made explicit. This9