United States State and Federal Governments: Enhancing Economic Competitiveness Through Collaboration

Overview

Collaboration between industry and government has reached unprecedented levels in the United States. Partnerships of the public and private sectors are crafting national, state, and local responses to domestic challenges such as welfare reform, education, environmental protection, and job training. Some of the most ambitious alliances are those designed to help American industry become more competitive by developing, applying, and developing technology.

The past 15 years have seen an explosion of such initiatives, with varied goals and strategies. In 1995, the State-Federal Technology Partnership created Partnerships: A Compendium of State and Federal Cooperative Technology Programs. Cooperative technology programs are defined as public-private initiatives involving government and industry and often universities that sponsor the development and use of technology and improved practices to benefit specific companies or groups of companies. Their primary goal is economic growth. The publication describes cooperative technology programs in the 50 states and ten key federal agencies (the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Transportation; the Environmental Protection Agency; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and the National Science Foundation).

In the current focus on budget reductions, some cooperative technology programs at the federal level are targeted for reduction or elimination. While additional scrutiny is generally desirable, and some expansion plans may have been too ambitious, many of the federal cuts are occurring despite demonstrated achievements by several programs and before other initiatives have reached stages where they can be evaluated. In contrast, at the state level interest remains high in cooperative technology initiatives and the benefits they produce. As the cooperative technology program model evolves at both the federal and state levels, much can be gained from increased coordination between the two levels of government. This article explores recent public-private partnership models that will be the basis increased cooperation in the future.