Grand Challenges in U.S. Manufacturing

OUTCOMES

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

The report identifies a range of critical next steps across several categories:

1. investing in translational research and manufacturing innovation

2. encouraging pilot production and scale-up for U.S. industry

3. empowering small and medium-sized manufacturers

4. growing domestic engineering and technical talent

DISSEMINATION

The 2018 MForesight National Summit highlighted the outcomes of the Grand Challenges roundtables and focused discussion on the actions needed to meet these national Grand Challenges.

Congressional Briefing


Thank you to all who joined us at the briefing. Read the event recap: “Congressional Briefing: ‘Manufacturing Prosperity'”

MANUFACTURING PROSPERITY A COMPREHENSIVE, LONG-TERM STRATEGY FOR GLOBAL LEADERSHIP

May 24, 2018

United States Capitol Visitor Center: Congressional Meeting Room North (CVC 268)

2:30 PM to 4:30 PM

Hosted by the House Manufacturing Caucus

For American manufacturing, this continues to be a time of both grand challenges and growing opportunities. Sustaining jobs, preserving the nation’s innovation edge, and maintaining global manufacturing leadership requires long-term thinking and investment from partners across the public and private sectors.

In 2018, MForesight conducted a series of roundtables with manufacturing experts, business leaders, and policymakers in cities across the country to identify actionable recommendations for public and private stakeholders to help overcome the most serious challenges to U.S. manufacturing to strengthen national competitiveness.

On May 24th at 2:30 pm, the House Manufacturing Caucus highlighted MForesight’s new report including key findings and actionable recommendations. At the event, leading experts on manufacturing policy and practice shared actionable ideas on how to strengthen America’s innovation ecosystems, develop and retain talent, and advance other key aspects of manufacturing competitiveness. We believe that these recommendations not only fostered a needed national debate but also, ultimately, prompted public and private actions to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing.

Panelists:

Tom Mahoney – Associate Director, MForesight

Mike Russo – Corporate Lead for U.S. Governmental Affairs, GLOBALFOUNDRIES

André Gudger – CEO, Eccalon

Tanya Das – Manufacturing and Economic Development Adviser, Office of Senator Chris Coons

Stephen Ezell – Vice President, Global Innovation Policy, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to those who hosted the roundtables that informed this report:

Boston: MIT

Washington, DC: National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)

Austin: University of Texas at AustinSan Jose: Boston Scientific

Raleigh: North Carolina State University

Indianapolis: Cummins, Inc.Dearborn: SME

OVERVIEW

MForesight convened national thought leaders, through a series of regional roundtables, to conduct a major study on the future of U.S. innovation and manufacturing. This project addressed “grand challenges” for our manufacturing sector: the degradation of the Industrial Commons, the offshoring of research and development (R&D), and the dearth of financing for “hardware” start-ups and scale-ups.


The goal was to identify new actionable recommendations for public and private decision makers to maintain or restore domestic manufacturing capabilities and capture the full value from U.S. R&D investments. We convened a series of roundtable discussion with regional thought leaders in Austin, Boston, DC, Detroit, Indianapolis, Raleigh, and San Jose during January-March 2018. The

MForesight National Summit, held in June 2018, discussed the ideas generated at the roundtables and determined actions needed to focus attention on this critical national challenge. The results not only fostered a needed national debate but also, ultimately, prompted public and private actions to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing.

The goal was to identify actionable solutions to four overarching, interconnected issues for domestic innovation and manufacturing:


1. Maintaining America’s industrial commons: How can the U.S. maintain its ecosystem of skilled trades, engineering expertise, and production capacity in critical sectors?

  1. 2. Keeping R&D onshore: With strong linkages between R&D and production, combined with growing capacity and funding for R&D in foreign countries, how can the U.S. ensure that private R&D remains here?

  2. 3. Ensuring financing for “hardware” start-ups ad scale-ups: How can America increase opportunities for manufacturing start-ups to scale-up operations and root production at home?

  3. 4. Capitalizing on national R&D investments: What steps are needed to ensure that America captures the wealth generated from new products and processes emerging from large national R&D spending?

MForesight’s work was supported by the National Science Foundation from 2015 to 2020 under Grant No. 1552534 to the University of Michigan (Dr. Sridhar Kota).

Please note that any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed on this website do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the University of Michigan.

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