Stephen Ezell presented ITIF's work on competitiveness, innovation, and productivity as well as evidence from our various reports on countries innovation rankings at the 2012 EPISIS Conference.

1. June 5, 2012
Services Innovation Policy in the
United States
EPISIS Conference
Stephen Ezell, Senior Analyst
Information Technology
and Innovation Foundation

2. The Atlantic Century II
 The Study: compares the
innovation-based
competiveness of 44 Asian,
European, and American
nations and regions.
 16 indicators: including
corporate and government
R&D, scientists and
engineers, new firms, corp.
tax, productivity growth and
others.
http://www.itif.org/files/2011-atlantic-century.pdf

3. 0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
70.0
80.0
Singapore
Finland
Sweden
U.S.
Innovation
S. Korea
UK
Canada
Denmark
NAFTA
Netherlands
Japan
Australia
Belgium
France
Ireland
Germany
Austria
EU-15
EU-25
Czech Rep.
Estonia
Hungary
Spain
Slovenia
Portugal
Slovakia
EU-10
Latvia
Russian
Italy
Malaysia
Lithuania
Chile
China
Cyprus
Poland
Greece
Brazil
Turkey
Overall Score for Global Competitiveness and
Mexico
South Africa
Argentina
India
Indonesia
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4. 0.0
5.0
10.0
15.0
20.0
China 25.0
S. Korea
Cyprus
Slovenia
Estonia
Czech Rep.
Latvia
Singapore
EU-10
Portugal
Hungary
Lithuania
India
Austria
Chile
Greece
Japan
Slovakia
Finland
Denmark
Australia
Indonesia
Ireland
UK
Brazil
Mexico
Poland
Overall Change Score (1999-2011)
EU-25
Netherlands
Turkey
Spain
Argentina
Russia
Canada
Malaysia
EU-15
France
Germany
Sweden
Belgium
NAFTA
South Africa
U.S.
Italy
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5. Summary – What the United States Doesn’t Have
 U.S. lacks a national service innovation policy.
 No institutional/policy focus on supporting private
sector services innovation (as opposed to ag./mfg.).
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6. Summary – What the United States Does Have
 A new National Innovation Strategy…
 Which does have indirect policies to support
innovation in some key services sectors:
 Government  Education
 Health care  Wireless/ICT
 SSME and SRII.
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7. A Strategy for American Innovation
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8. Spurring Innovation in Certain Key Services Sectors
1. Health Care
 NSF’s Service Enterprise Systems (SES) research
 Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI)
 Promotion of Electronic Health Records (EHRs)
2. Education
 ARPA-Ed
 National Education Technology Plan (NTEP)
3. Information/Communications Technology (ICT)
 National Broadband Policy (2009)
 National Wireless Initiative (2012)
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9. Spurring Innovation in Government
4. Government
 Interagency innovation task force
 Crowdsourcing/Prizes
 Open Data/Big Data
 Tying funding to performance
and innovation
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10. 3 Steps to Improve U.S. Service Innovation Policy
1. Institutionalize services science research through NSF
and collaborative-industry university partnerships.
2. Embrace the self-service economy, including addressing
inhibiting regulations.
3. Develop a U.S. services sector competitiveness strategy.
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11. A U.S. Services Sector Competitiveness Strategy
1. Factor Inputs/Framework Conditions (“4 Ts”)
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12. A U.S. Services Sector Competitiveness Strategy
1. Factor Inputs/Framework Conditions
2. Sector Studies/Policies/Regulations
 Hotels
 Construction
 Logistics
 Health care
 Government
 Education
 Wholesale/Retail Trade
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13. A U.S. Services Sector Competitiveness Strategy
1. Factor Inputs/Framework Conditions
2. Sector Studies/Policies/Regulations
3. Functions (e.g., processing information; processing
money; moving people; etc.)
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14. A U.S. Services Sector Competitiveness Strategy
1. Factor Inputs/Framework Conditions
2. Sector Studies/Policies/Regulations
3. Functions
4. Tool Development (e.g., self-service systems, cloud,
automation, voice recognition, expert systems [e.g.,
IBM’s Watson], flexible displays, analytics, etc.)
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15. A U.S. Services Sector Competitiveness Strategy
1. Factor Inputs/Framework Conditions
2. Sector Studies/Policies/Regulations
3. Functions
4. Tool Development
5. Platform Enablement (e.g., smart grid; health IT;
broadband; 4G wireless; mobile payments; electronic
IDs; GPS; ITS)
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16. A U.S. Services Sector Competitiveness Strategy
1. Factor Inputs/Framework Conditions
2. Sector Studies/Policies/Regulations
3. Functions
4. Tool Development
5. Platform Development
6. Firms’/Organizations’ Adoption (e.g., incentives/
penalties for adoption, tax incentives for R&D and
capital equipment, etc.)
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17. Thank you!
sezell@itif.org
Follow ITIF:
Facebook: facebook.com/innovationpolicy
Blog: www.innovationfiles.org
YouTube: www.youtube.com/techpolicy
Website: www.itif.org
Twitter: @itifdc
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