The Future Of The Advanced Technology Program

This report examines the operations of the APT, reviews its extensive assessment program, and provides NRC Committee findings concerning the ATP's operations and recommendations for potential improvements to the program. The report includes a summary of a major conference held in April 2000 as well as seven papers, including surveys of the industry participants or users of the ATP program, a summary of the results of fifty awards, detailed assessments of major joint ventures, and a description of the current selection process. It is the most comprehensive study to date of the program's origins, operations, achievements, and assessment. Its conclusion: the program works.

The growth in government programs to support high-technology industry within national economies and their impact on international science and technology cooperation and on the multilateral trading system are of considerable interest worldwide. Accordingly, these topics were taken up by STEP in a study carried out in conjunction with the Hamburg Institute for Economic Research and the Institute for World Economics in Kiel. One of the principal recommendations for further work emerging from that study was a call for an analysis of the principles of effective cooperation in technology development, to include lessons from national and international consortia, including eligibility standards and assessments of what new cooperative mechanisms might be developed to meet the challenges of international cooperation in high-technology products.

Why the United States lags behind other industrialized countries in sharing the benefits of innovation with workers and how we can remedy the problem. The United States has too many low-quality, low-wage jobs. Every country has its share, but those in the United States are especially poorly paid and often without benefits. Meanwhile, overall productivity increases steadily and new technology has transformed large parts of the economy, enhancing the skills and paychecks of higher paid knowledge workers. What’s wrong with this picture? Why have so many workers benefited so little from decades of growth? The Work of the Future shows that technology is neither the problem nor the solution. We can build better jobs if we create institutions that leverage technological innovation and also support workers though long cycles of technological transformation. Building on findings from the multiyear MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, the book argues that we must foster institutional innovations that complement technological change. Skills programs that emphasize work-based and hybrid learning (in person and online), for example, empower workers to become and remain productive in a continuously evolving workplace. Industries fueled by new technology that augments workers can supply good jobs, and federal investment in R&D can help make these industries worker-friendly. We must act to ensure that the labor market of the future offers benefits, opportunity, and a measure of economic security to all.

This text provides a comprehensive vision of the future of health technology by looking at the ways to advance medical technologies, health information infrastructure and intellectual leadership. It also explores technology creations, adoption processes and the impact of evolving technologies.

Advanced Technology for Human Support in Space was written in response to a request from NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications (OLMSA) to evaluate its Advanced Human Support Technology Program. This report reviews the four major areas of the program: advanced life support (ALS), environmental monitoring and control (EMC), extravehicular activities (EVA), and space human factors (SHF). The focus of this program is on long-term technology development applicable to future human long-duration space missions, such as for a hypothetical new mission to the Moon or Mars.