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The relationship between science
and technology
Harvey Brooks zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Universily, 79 J.F.K. Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Science, technology and innovation each represent a suc- 1. Introduction
cessively larger category of activities which are highly interde-
pendent but distinct. Science contributes to technology in at
least six ways: (1) new knowledge which serves as a direct Much public debate about science and tech-
source of ideas for new technological possibilities; (2) source nology policy has been implicitly dominated by a
of tools and techniques for more efficient engineering design ‘pipeline’ model of the innovation process in
and a knowledge base for evaluation of feasibility of designs; which new technological ideas emerge as a result
(3) research instrumentation, laboratory techniques and ana-
lytical methods used in research that eventually find their way of new discoveries in science and move through a
into design or industrial practices, often through intermediate progression from applied research, design, manu-
disciplines; (4) practice of research as a source for develop- facturing and, finally, commercialization and
ment and assimilation of new human skills and capabilities marketing. This model seemed to correspond with
eventually useful for technology; (5) creation of a knowledge some of the most visible success stories of World
base that becomes increasingly important in the assessment of
technology in terms of its wider social and environmental War II, such as the atomic bomb, radar, and the
impacts; (6) knowledge base that enables more efficient proximity fuze, and appeared to be further exem-
strategies of applied research, development, and refinement plified by developments such as the transistor,
of new technologies. the laser, the computer, and, most recently, the
The converse impact of technology on science is of at least nascent biotechnology industry arising out of the
equal importance: (1) through providing a fertile source of
novel scientific questions and thereby also helping to justify discovery of recombinant DNA techniques. The
the allocation of resources needed to address these questions model was also, perhaps inadvertently, legiti-
in an efficient and timely manner, extending the agenda of mated by the influential Bush report, Science, the
science; (2) as a source of otherwise unavailable instrumenta- Endless Frontier, which over time came to be
tion and techniques needed to address novel and more diffi- interpreted as saying that if the nation supported
cult scientific questions more efficiently.
Specific examples of each of these two-way interactions scientists to carry out research according to their
are discussed. Because of many indirect as well as direct own sense of what was important and interesting,
connections between science and technology, the research technologies useful to health, national security,
portfolio of potential social benefit is much broader and more and the economy would follow almost automati-
diverse than would be suggested by looking only at the direct cally once the potential opportunities opened up
connections between science and technology.
by new scientific discoveries became widely known
to the military, the health professions, and the
private entrepreneurs operating in the national
economy. (See United States Office of Scientific
Correspondence to: H. Brooks, John F. Kennedy School of Research and Development (1945) for a recent
Government, Harvard University, 79 J.F.K. Street, Cam- account of the political context and general intel-
bridge, MA 02138, USA. Tel., (617) 495-1445; fax, (617) lectual climate in which this report originated;
495-5776. see also Frederickson, 1993.) The body of re-
Research Policy 23 (1994) 477-486 search knowledge was thought of as a kind of
North-Holland zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBAintellectual bank account on which society as a
0048-7333/94/$07.00 0 1994 - Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
SSDI 0048-7333(94)01001-S
478 H. Brooks / The relationship between science and technoluRy
whole would be abte to draw almost automati- new to them, whether or not they are new to the
caliy as required to fulfil its aspirations and needs. universe, or even to the nation.” The current US
Though most knowledgeable people under- mental model of innovation often places excessive
stood that such a model corresponded only to the emphasis on originality in the sense of newness to
rare and exceptional cases cited above, it became the universe as opposed to newness in context. In
embodied in political rhetoric and took consider- general, the activities and investments associated
able hold on the public imagination and seemed with ‘technoIogica1 leadership’ in the sense of
to be confirmed by a sufficient number of dra- absolute originali~ differ much less than is gen-
matic anecdotes so that it was regarded as typical erally assumed from those associated with simply
of the entire process of technological innovation, staying near the forefront of best national or
though it was severely criticized by many scholars. world practice. Yet R&D is also necessary for
(See Kline and Rosenberg (1986) for an example learning about technology even when it is not
of criticism and an excellent discussion of a more ‘new to the universe’ but only in the particular
realistic and typical model.) One consequence context in which it is being used for the first time
was considerable confusion in the public mind (Brooks, 1991, pp. 20-25).
between science and engineering, an excessive However, innovation involves much more than
preoccupation with technical originality and pri- R&D. Charpie (1967) has provided a representa-
ority of conception as not only necessary but tive allocation of effort that goes into the intro-
sufficient conditions for successful technological duction of a new product, as follows:
innovation, and in fact an equating of organized (a) conception, primarily knowledge genera-
research and development (R&D) with the inno- tion (research, advanced development, basic in-
vation process itself. The ratio of national R&D vention) 5-10%;
expenditures to gross domestic product (GDP) (b) product design and engineering, lo-20%;
often became a surrogate measure of national cc> getting ready for manufacturing (lay-out,
technological performance and, uItimately, of tooling, process design), 40-60%;
long-term national economic potential. The con- (d) manufacturing start-up, debugging produc-
tent of R&D was treated as a ‘black box’ that tion, 5-15%;
yielded benefits almost independently of what (e) marketing start-up, probing the market,
was inside it (Brooks, 1993, pp. 30-31). lo-20%.
The public may be forgiven its confusions, as It does not follow from this that R&D or
indeed the relationships between science and knowledge generation is only 5-10% of total in-
technology are very complex, though interactive, novative activity because many projects are started
and are often different in different fields and at that never get beyond stage (a) and an even
different phases of a technological ‘life cycle’. smaller proportion of projects are carried all the
Nelson (1992) has given a definition of technology way through stage (e). In addition, there is a
both as “ . . , specific designs and practices” and as certain amount of background research that is
“generic knowledge.. . that provides understand- carried out on a level-of-effort basis without any
ing of how [and why] things work.. . ” and what specific product zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBAin mind. There is no very good
are the most promising approaches to further estimate of what percentage of the innovative
advances, including “. . . the nature of currently activity of a particular firm would be classified in
binding constraints.” It is important here to note category (a) if unsuccessful projects or back-
that technoiogy is not just things, but also embod- ground research are taken into account. The fact
ies a degree of generic understanding, which remains that all five stages involve a certain pro-
makes it seem more like science, and yet it is portion of technical work which is not classified
understanding that relates to a specific artifact, as R&D, and the collection of statistical data on
which distinguishes it from normal scientific un- this portion of ‘downstream’ innovative activity is
derstanding, although there may be a close corre- in a very rudimentary state compared with that
spondence. for organized R&D. Indeed, only about 35% of
Similarly, Nelson (1992, p. 349) defines innova- scientists and engineers in the US are employed
tion as “ . . . the processes by which firms master in R&D.
and get into practice product designs that are In small firms, especially technological ‘niche’
H. Brooks / The relationship between science and technology 479
firms whose business is based on a cluster of ery of uranium fission leading to the concept of a
specialized technologies which are often designed nuclear chain reaction and the atomic bomb and
in close collaboration with potential users, there nuclear power is, perhaps, the cleanest example
is a good deal of technical activity by highly of this. Other examples include the laser and its
trained people which is never captured in the numerous embodiments and applications, the dis-
usual R&D statistics. coveries of X-rays and of artificial radioactivity
Thus, science, technology, and innovation each and their subsequent applications in medicine
represent a successively larger universe of activi- and industry, the discovery of nuclear magnetic
ties which are highly interdependent, yet never- resonance (NMR) and its subsequent manifold
theless distinct from each other. Even success in applications in chemical analysis, biomedical re-
technology by itself, let alone science, provides an search, and ultimately medical diagnosis, and
insufficient basis for success in the whole process maser amplifiers and their applications in ra-
of technological innovation. In fact, the relation dioastronomy and communications. These do ex-
between science and technology is better thought emplify most of the features of the pipeline model
of in terms of two parallel streams of cumulative of innovation described above. Yet, they are the
knowledge, which have many interdependencies rarest, but therefore also the most dramatic cases,
and cross relations, but whose internal connec- which may account for the persistence of the
tions are much stronger than their cross connec- pipeline model of public discussions. It also suits
tions. The metaphor I like to use is two strands of the purpose of basic scientists arguing for govern-
DNA which can exist independently, but cannot ment support of their research in a pragmatically
be truly functional until they are paired. oriented culture.
A more common example of a direct genetic
relationship between science and technology oc-
curs when the exploration of a new field of sci-
2. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBAThe contributions of science to technology
ence is deliberately undertaken with a general
The relations between science and technology anticipation that it has a high likelihood of lead-
are complex and vary considerably with the par- ing to useful applications, though there is no
ticular field of technology being discussed. For specific end-product in mind. The work at Bell
mechanical technology, for example, the contri- Telephone Laboratories and elsewhere which led
bution of science to technology is relatively weak, eventually to the invention of the transistor is one
and it is often possible to make rather important of the clearest examples of this. The group that
inventions without a deep knowledge of the un- was set up at Bell Labs to explore the physics of
derlying science. By contrast, electrical, chemical, Group IV semiconductors such as germanium
and nuclear technology are deeply dependent on was clearly motivated by the hope of finding a
science, and most inventions are made only by method of making a solid state amplifier to sub-
people with considerable training in science. In stitute for the use of vacuum tubes in repeaters
the following discussion, we outline the variety of for the transmission of telephone signals over
ways in which science can contribute to techno- long distances.
logical development. The complexity of the inter- As indicated above, much so-called basic re-
connections of science and technology is further search undertaken by industry or supported by
discussed in Nelson and Rosenberg (1993). the military services has been undertaken with
this kind of non-specific potential applicability in
2.1. Science as a direct source of new technological mind, and indeed much basic biomedical research
ideas is of this character. The selection of fields for
emphasis is a ‘strategic’ decision, while the actual
In this case, opportunities for meeting new day-to-day ‘tactics’ of the research are delegated
social needs or previously identified social needs to the ‘bench scientists’. Broad industrial and
in new ways are conceived as a direct sequel to a government support for condensed matter physics
scientific discovery made in the course of an and atomic and molecular physics since World
exploration of natural phenomena undertaken War II has been motivated by the well-substanti-
with no potential application in mind. The discov- ated expectation that it would lead to important
H. Brooks / The relationship between science and technology
480
new applications in electronics, communications, 3.3. Instrumentation, laboratory techniques, and
and computers. The determination of an appro- analytical methods
priate level of effort, and the creation of an
organizational environment that will facilitate the Laboratory techniques or analytical methods
earliest possible identification of technological used in basic research, particularly in physics,
opportunities without too much constraint on the often find their way either directly, or indirectly
research agenda is a continuing challenge to re- via other disciplines, into industrial processes and
search planning in respect to this particular process controls largely unrelated either to their
mechanism of science-technology interaction. original use or to the concepts and results of the
research for which they were originally devised
2.2. Science as a source of engineering design tools (Rosenberg, 1991). According to Rosenberg
and techniques (19911, “this involves the movement of new in-
strumentation technologies.. . from the status of
While the process of design is quite distinct a tool of basic research, often in universities, to
from the process of developing new knowledge of the status of a production tool, or capital good, in
natural phenomena, the two processes are very private industry.” Examples are legion and in-
intimately related. This relationship has become clude electron diffraction, the scanning electron
more and more important as the cost of empiri- microscope (SEMI, ion implantation, synchrotron
cally testing and evaluating complex prototype radiation sources, phase-shifted lithography, high
technological systems has mounted. Theoretical vacuum technology, industrial cryogenics, super-
prediction, modeling, and simulation of large sys- conducting magnets (originally developed for
tems, often accompanied by measurement and cloud chamber observations in particle physics,
empirical testing of subsystems and components, then commercialized for ‘magnetic resonance
has increasingly substituted for full scale empiri- imaging’ (MRI) in medicine). In Rosenberg’s
cal testing of complete systems, and this requires words, “the common denominator running
design tools and analytical methods grounded in through and connecting all these experiences is
phenomenological understanding. This is particu- that instrumentation that was developed in the
larly important for anticipating failure modes un- pursuit of scientific knowledge eventually had
der extreme but conceivable conditions of service direct applications as part of a manufacturing
of complex technological systems. (See Alit et al., process.” Also, in considering the potential eco-
1992, Chapter 4). For a discussion of technical nomic benefits of science, as Rosenberg says,
knowledge underlying the engineering design “there is no obvious reason for failing to examine
process, cf. Chapter 2 (pp. 39-341.) the hardware consequences of even the most
Much of the technical knowledge used in de- fundamental scientific research.” One can also
sign and the comparative analytical evaluation of envision ultimate industrial process applications
alternative designs is actually developed as ‘en- from many other techniques now restricted to the
gineering science’ by engineers, and is in fact the research laboratory. One example might be tech-
major activity comprising engineering research in niques for creating selective chemical reactions
academic engineering departments. This research using molecular beams.
is very much in the style of other basic research in
the ‘pure’ sciences and is supported in a similar 2.4. The development of human skills
manner by the Engineering Division of the Na-
tional Science Foundation, i.e. as unsolicited, in-
vestigator-originated project research. Even An important function of academic research
though it is generally labelled as ‘engineering’ often neglected in estimating its economic bene-
rather than ‘science’, such research is really an- fits is that it imparts research skills to graduate
other example of basic research whose agenda students and other advanced trainees, many of
happens to be motivated primarily by potential whom “go on to work in applied activities and
applications in design ‘downstream’ though its take with them not just the knowledge resulting
theoretical interest and its mathematical sophisti- from their research, but also the skills, methods,
cation are comparable with that of pure science. and a web of professional contacts that will help
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