What are the prospects? Marc Tucker [director of the Carnegie Forum in Washington, D.C.] views the advent of research and development consortia with a cool dose of practicality. "If you were to look at these consortia as the principal instrument for adjusting to the problems that we face economically, I would have to say: 'Ridiculous.' They don't begin to get at the larger problems that we face. On their own terms, though, they are incredibly valuable contributions." His observation opens the question of whether the scale of the response represented by industry-university consortia is commensurate with the sense of threat to survival felt by American industry.
The first answer, then, to the "what if' question is that more consortia, properly capitalized and led, could well serve to accelerate the move toward a national technology agenda. This raises immediate questions of national policy. Should the federal government—following the recent lead of ...
