The relationship between science and technology Harvey Brooks John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Universily, 79 J.F.K. Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Science, technology and innovation each represent a suc- 1. Introduction cessively larger category of activities which are highly interde- pendent but distinct. Science contributes to technology in at least six ways: (1) new knowledge which serves as a direct Much public debate about science and tech- source of ideas for new technological possibilities; (2) source nology policy has been implicitly dominated by a of tools and techniques for more efficient engineering design ‘pipeline’ model of the innovation process in and a knowledge base for evaluation of feasibility of designs; (3) research instrumentation, laboratory techniques and ana- which new technological ideas emerge as a result lytical methods used in research that eventually find their way of new discoveries in science and move through a into design or industrial practices, often through intermediate progression from applied research, design, manu- disciplines; (4) practice of research as a source for develop- facturing and, finally, commercialization and ment and assimilation of new human skills and capabilities marketing. This model seemed to correspond with eventually useful for technology; (5) creation of a knowledge base that becomes increasingly important in the assessment of some of the most visible success stories of World technology in terms of its wider social and environmental War II, such as the atomic bomb, radar, and the impacts; (6) knowledge base that enables more efficient proximity fuze, and appeared to be further exem- strategies of applied research, development, and refinement plified by developments such as the transistor, of new technologies. the laser, the computer, and, most recently, the The converse impact of technology on science is of at least equal importance: (1) through providing a fertile source of nascent biotechnology industry arising out of the novel scientific questions and thereby also helping to justify discovery of recombinant DNA techniques. The the allocation of resources needed to address these questions model was also, perhaps inadvertently, legiti- in an efficient and timely manner, extending the agenda of mated by the influential Bush report, Science, the science; (2) as a source of otherwise unavailable instrumenta- Endless Frontier, which over time came to be tion and techniques needed to address novel and more diffi- cult scientific questions more efficiently. interpreted as saying that if the nation supported Specific examples of each of these two-way interactions scientists to carry out research according to their are discussed. Because of many indirect as well as direct own sense of what was important and interesting, connections between science and technology, the research technologies useful to health, national security, portfolio of potential social benefit is much broader and more and the economy would follow almost automati- diverse than would be suggested by looking only at the direct connections between science and technology. cally once the potential opportunities opened up by new scientific discoveries became widely known to the military, the health professions, and the private entrepreneurs operating in the national economy. (See United States Office of Scientific Correspondence to: H. Brooks, John F. Kennedy School of Research and Development (1945) for a recent Government, Harvard University, 79 J.F.K. Street, Cam- account of the political context and general intel- bridge, MA 02138, USA. Tel., (617) 495-1445; fax, (617) lectual climate in which this report originated; 495-5776. see also Frederickson, 1993.) The body of re- Research Policy 23 (1994) 477-486 search knowledge was thought of as a kind of North-Holland intellectual bank account on which society as a 0048-7333/94/$07.00 0 1994 - Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0048-7333(94)01001-S 478 H. Brooks / The relationship between science and technoluRy whole would be abte to draw almost automati- new to them, whether or not they are new to the caliy as required to fulfil its aspirations and needs. universe, or even to the nation.” The current US Though most knowledgeable people under- mental model of innovation often places excessive stood that such a model corresponded only to the emphasis on originality in the sense of newness to rare and exceptional cases cited above, it became the universe as opposed to newness in context. In embodied in political rhetoric and took consider- general, the activities and investments associated able hold on the public imagination and seemed with ‘technoIogica1 leadership’ in the sense of to be confirmed by a sufficient number of dra- absolute originali~ differ much less than is gen- matic anecdotes so that it was regarded as typical erally assumed from those associated with simply of the entire process of technological innovation, staying near the forefront of best national or though it was severely criticized by many scholars. world practice. Yet R&D is also necessary for (See Kline and Rosenberg (1986) for an example learning about technology even when it is not of criticism and an excellent discussion of a more ‘new to the universe’ but only in the particular realistic and typical model.) One consequence context in which it is being used for the first time was considerable confusion in the public mind (Brooks, 1991, pp. 20-25). between science and engineering, an excessive However, innovation involves much more than preoccupation with technical originality and pri- R&D. Charpie (1967) has provided a representa- ority of conception as not only necessary but tive allocation of effort that goes into the intro- sufficient conditions for successful technological duction of a new product, as follows: innovation, and in fact an equating of organized (a) conception, primarily knowledge genera- research and development (R&D) with the inno- tion (research, advanced development, basic in- vation process itself. The ratio of national R&D vention) 5-10%; expenditures to gross domestic product (GDP) (b) product design and engineering, lo-20%; often became a surrogate measure of national cc> getting ready for manufacturing (lay-out, technological performance and, uItimately, of tooling, process design), 40-60%; long-term national economic potential. The con- (d) manufacturing start-up, debugging produc- tent of R&D was treated as a ‘black box’ that tion, 5-15%; yielded benefits almost independently of what (e) marketing start-up, probing the market, was inside it (Brooks, 1993, pp. 30-31). lo-20%. The public may be forgiven its confusions, as It does not follow from this that R&D or indeed the relationships between science and knowledge generation is only 5-10% of total in- technology are very complex, though interactive, novative activity because many projects are started and are often different in different fields and at that never get beyond stage (a) and an even different phases of a technological ‘life cycle’. smaller proportion of projects are carried all the Nelson (1992) has given a definition of technology way through stage (e). In addition, there is a both as “ . , specific designs and practices” and as certain amount of background research that is “generic knowledge.. that provides understand- carried out on a level-of-effort basis without any ing of how [and why] things work.. ” and what specific product in mind. There is no very good are the most promising approaches to further estimate of what percentage of the innovative advances, including “. the nature of currently activity of a particular firm would be classified in binding constraints.” It is important here to note category (a) if unsuccessful projects or back- that technoiogy is not just things, but also embod- ground research are taken into account. The fact ies a degree of generic understanding, which remains that all five stages involve a certain pro- makes it seem more like science, and yet it is portion of technical work which is not classified understanding that relates to a specific artifact, as R&D, and the collection of statistical data on which distinguishes it from normal scientific un- this portion of ‘downstream’ innovative activity is derstanding, although there may be a close corre- in a very rudimentary state compared with that spondence. for organized R&D. Indeed, only about 35% of Similarly, Nelson (1992, p. 349) defines innova- scientists and engineers in the US are employed tion as “ . the processes by which firms master in R&D. and get into practice product designs that are In small firms, especially technological ‘niche’ H. Brooks / The relationship between science and technology 479 firms whose business is based on a cluster of ery of uranium fission leading to the concept of a specialized technologies which are often designed nuclear chain reaction and the atomic bomb and in close collaboration with potential users, there nuclear power is, perhaps, the cleanest example is a good deal of technical activity by highly of this. Other examples include the laser and its trained people which is never captured in the numerous embodiments and applications, the dis- usual R&D statistics. coveries of X-rays and of artificial radioactivity Thus, science, technology, and innovation each and their subsequent applications in medicine represent a successively larger universe of activi- and industry, the discovery of nuclear magnetic ties which are highly interdependent, yet never- resonance (NMR) and its subsequent manifold theless distinct from each other. Even success in applications in chemical analysis, biomedical re- technology by itself, let alone science, provides an search, and ultimately medical diagnosis, and insufficient basis for success in the whole process maser amplifiers and their applications in ra- of technological innovation. In fact, the relation dioastronomy and communications. These do ex- between science and technology is better thought emplify most of the features of the pipeline model of in terms of two parallel streams of cumulative of innovation described above.