In his keynote address, MITRE Corporation President and CEO and Council on Competitiveness Executive Committee Member Dr. Mark Peters focused on the pivotal role that Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) play in sustaining and advancing the U.S. innovation ecosystem.
Tracing MITRE’s roots as a spin-off from MIT Lincoln Laboratory, originally formed to commercialize civil air defense technologies, Dr. Peters highlighted the organization’s evolution into a global enterprise with 60 locations and a global leader in systems engineering. Today, MITRE is at the forefront of emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum technologies. But as important as MITRE’s scientific and technical capabilities is its role as a convener — forming and leveraging deep partnerships across government, academia, and industry, while operating six of the nation’s 42 FFRDCs.
Dr. Peters called FFRDCs a uniquely American innovation asset — born out of the Manhattan Project and now home to capabilities ranging from supercomputers to test reactors. These institutions bring together the people, platforms, and physical infrastructure needed to accelerate breakthrough research and development. Alongside FFRDCs, the U.S. university system continues to differentiate the nation globally, anchoring regional innovation clusters and providing the foundational research that fuels long-term progress. Together, FFRDCs and universities form the backbone of a U.S. innovation model that many other countries are now seeking to emulate; however, he cautioned that declining investment in basic research would have serious consequences for national competitiveness.
Still, the U.S. model must evolve to meet the challenges of the future. Dr. Peters urged innovators and policymakers to revisit the texts forming a new roadmap for American science and technology policy — starting with the Council on Competitiveness’s recent publications, including Competing in the Next Economy: Innovating in the Age of Disruption and Discontinuity and its Technology Leadership and Strategy Initiative’s Compact for America. But he also called those in the audience to return to Vannevar Bush’s seminal report, Science, The Endless Frontier (including the 70th anniversary edition with a forward from France A. Córdova, 14th Director of NSF and the special edition with a companion essay from Rush D. Holt), which laid the groundwork for the postwar U.S. innovation system. The report still offers powerful lessons for today. Dr. Peters concluded his excellent keynote with a note that by learning from the past and combining it with present action, the nation can position itself for another century of transformative discovery and competitive leadership.
"If you combine the labs, the FFRDCs, and the universities, you get an incredibly powerful engine of innovation that can then engage with the private sector and emerging innovation ecosystems."
Dr. Mark Peters
President and CEO
The MITRE Corporation
