Course Syllabus

Fundamentals of Science and Technology Public Policy

IAP 2026 Course 17.925 - MIT Science and Technology Policy Bootcamp
19^th year of offering this course

draft: 11/16/25

Syllabus

Goal

Students will emerge from the course with a strong grasp of the fundamentals of innovation systems and the economic and technology development factors behind them, and with a clear framework to approach science and technology policymaking.

Logistics

Session: Monday January 26, 2025, to Friday January 30, 2025 (last week of MIT IAP 2026)

Instructor: William B. Bonvillian, bonvill@mit.edu
Lecturer, STS and Course 17; has been Director of MIT’s Washington Office, Senior Director, special projects, MIT Office of Open Learning and currently Senior Advisor, MIT Initiative for New Manufacturing – bio below

Office hours: the instructor will be available after classes to meet with students, and by email and zoom prior to and following the course

Classroom: 56-114

Class format: 7 classes, 5 lunchtime discussions, including an MIT faculty/researcher panel session

Course: either credit (3 points) or non-credit

TA: Grace Brown, gabrown@mit.edu

Schedule

Monday, January 26, 2026 (9:00am – 3:30pm)

Class 1: Economic Drivers Behind S&T Support

9:00am – 12:00pm

Lunchtime discussion 1: MIT Science Policy Initiative (SPI)

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Members of MIT’s Science Policy Initiative (SPI) student group discuss their program, including participating in Congressional Visits Day (CVD) and Executive Agency Visit Days (ExVD) (see summary of these SPI programs below)

Class 2: The Organizing Framework Behind U.S. Science Agencies

1:00pm – 3:30pm

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 (9:00am – 1:00pm) -

Class 3: Case Study – Barriers and Opportunities in Life Science Advance –The NIH Story

9:00am – 12:00pm

Lunchtime discussion 2: Career Paths in Science Policy

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Invited Speaker: Johanna Wolfson, who took this course and was a former leader of the MIT Science Policy Initiative group, who then went on to Fraunhofer TechBridge, the Dept. of Energy and now Prime Impact, where she is a general manager of its Azolla Ventures fund for energy startups, will discuss possible career paths for those interested in science and technology policy. Bio info here.

Wednesday, January 28, 2026 (9:00am – 3:30pm)

Class 4: The Organization of Innovation Systems at the Face-to-Face Level

9:00am – 12:00pm

Lunchtime discussion 3: The role of MIT in federal and state science policy

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Speaker: Dr. John Liu, PI of the MIT LEAP Group, Digital Learning Scientist, and Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, who will discuss his work on developing the “Technologist” program for workforce education, which features online courses, VR simulations, and in-person labs to create a new career pathway between technicians and engineers for advanced manufacturing, https://openlearning.mit.edu/about/our-team/john-liu and please review: https://issues.org/technologist-advanced-manufacturing-workforce-liu-bonvillian/

Class 5: Case Study – Structuring for an Energy Technology Revolution

1:00pm – 3:30pm

Thursday, January 29, 2026 (9:00am – 1:00pm)

Class 6: Case Study – The Competitiveness Challenge in Advanced Manufacturing

9:00am – 12:00pm

Lunchtime discussion 4:

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Speaker: Prof. Maria Zuber, former MIT VP Research, former Chair of the National Science Board, and former co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), who will discuss MIT’s new science and technology initiative she is leading for MIT’s President - bio here: https://orgchart.mit.edu/leadership/presidential-advisor-science-and-technology-policy/biography

Friday, January 30, 2026 (9:00am – 1:30pm)

Class 7: Emerging Industrial Innovation Policies in the U.S.

9:00am – 12:00pm

Lunchtime Faculty Panel discussion:

12:15pm – 1:30pm

Speakers:

Prof. Chris Love is a Professor of Chemical Engineering, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, and an associate member of both the Broad and Ragon Institutes, and co-chair of the MIT Initiative for New Manufacturing. He will discuss biomanufacturing and its role in the bioeconomy. Bio at: https://ki.mit.edu/people/faculty/j-christopher-love

Prof. David Des Marais is a Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering who studies plant and environment interaction including the physiological basis for plant responses to environmental cues. He will discuss biology and bioengineering aspects of agriculture within the bioeconomy. Bio at: https://cee.mit.edu/people_individual/david-l-des-marais/

Description

Careers of MIT scientists and engineers will be in significant part determined by public policy decisions made in Washington by the government, yet their access to information on how this system works – truly a “black box” – is limited. Meanwhile, we increasingly understand that science and technology-based innovation is deeply connected to society’s economic growth and its corresponding ability to generate societal wellbeing, as well as responses to health, climate and competitive challenges, so the public importance of science is growing. This course will examine the public policy behind, and the government’s role in, the science and technology-based innovation system. Emphasis will be placed on the U.S. S&T system, but international examples will be discussed. Given the challenges to future federal science support, this course will aim to equip those planning careers in and around science and technology, in public or private sectors, with the basic background for involvement in science policymaking.

Topics covered

The course will aim to cover the following topics:

The drivers behind science and technology support: growth economics, direct and indirect innovation factors, innovation systems theory, the “valley of death” between R&D and public-private partnership models.
The organizing framework behind U.S. science agencies, their missions and research organizational models, and the DARPA model as an alternative.
The way innovation is organized when it’s face-to-face, including rulesets for great innovation teams.
Mechanisms for technology transfer and commercialization, between university-industry-government.
The innovation organization barriers and challenges to health science advance
The energy technology challenge – how the science/tech innovation system needs to be organized to succeed in an existing and established complex economic sector.
The competitiveness challenge in advanced manufacturing.
Emerging industrial policies in the U.S. and the challenges of making them work.

Expectations of the Class

Time for student participation and discussions will be built into each class. Following topic presentations by the instructor, students, on a rotating basis, will lead the discussion in classes, as described below. Students are asked to commit to ATTEND ALL THE CLASSES, INCLUDING the session with the faculty on Friday, since the course is designed to be a cumulative series, with each class building on the prior classes.

Required Readings and the Discussion Leader System

Readings are available at the class online Canvas site – ALWAYS CHECK THIS FIRST; links to some readings or portions of readings are provided in the syllabus below. On the class Canvas site, all readings are available on the site under “Files” then “Readings;” for particular readings hover your cursor over the file name for each reading for details on the name of the particular reading.

To encourage discussion, we will use a discussion leader system in the course. Rotating through the class, students will be named discussion leaders for one of the readings discussed in the seven classes. Particular students will be asked to briefly summarize one reading for that class and lead class Q&A discussion on it. The discussion leaders will usually be organized on panels. Starting with the first class, these discussion leaders will be asked to carefully read over one of the readings that day and to briefly summarize the major points and, with prepared questions, to lead Q&A on their one article/reading, as listed under each class description below. The curriculum lists the particular readings for each class that individual students will lead discussion on, and where available, links to each. Discussion leader assignments will be announced before the course starts.

In addition, for each of the classes, all students in the course are asked to read one required reading, to develop background understanding in the issues being discussed in that class – these are noted under each class. Doing this will help your understanding a great deal.

Grading

This course is offered both for credit (for 3 points through the Political Science Department) and without credit.

For Credit Paper: Students taking the course for credit should alert the instructor and TA by January 15^th before the course starts and will be expected to write a 4 page single-space paper on one of the two topics below:

an innovation “Great Group” (see class 3), or
a Technology Sector or a Technology Agency, Firm, or Institution.

Please choose a paper topic from one of these two areas. All the PowerPoint slides we used in class will be posted on the class Canvas site, and all the readings are on that site as well – please use them in developing your papers. Papers will be due on Monday, February 23^th. Detailed directions will be provided on the paper in a memo posted on the class Canvas site under Assignments.

Follow-on opportunities

In addition, there are other follow-on events that the Science Policy Initiative (SPI) student organization puts together that class participants are encouraged to apply to and participate in:

Congressional Visits Day (CVD) in Spring 2026

The MIT Science Policy Initiative (SPI) will organize the Congressional Visit Days (CVD) in Washington, DC in Spring 2024 where participants will have the opportunity to interface with Congressional offices to advocate for and talk about science and technology issues. No prior experience is needed. Before the meetings, there will be training sessions through SPI and the MIT DC Office, and travel expenses and lodging will be provided.

Executive Visit Days (EVD) in Fall 2026

SPI will organize an agency visits program of meetings with officials from federal executive branch science agencies to learn first-hand from agency officials about the missions and structure of their organizations, and possible career paths. Meetings in the past have been with leading federal R&D agencies (like NSF, DARPA, DOE’s EERE, OSTP), with NGO’s (like the World Bank and the National Academies), and with think tanks (like Brookings and ITIF).

Other SPI Events – 2026 - SPI also organizes extensive activities around science and tech policy during the year you likely will be interested in.

Instructor

William B. Bonvillian is a Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in MIT’s Science Technology and Society Department, teaching courses on innovation and on science and technology policy, including this course and an MITx online course. He is a Senior Advisor to MIT’s Initiative for New Manufacturing and has conducted research projects and programs on workforce education and technology topics. Previously, he was Director of MIT’s Washington, D.C. Office between 2006 and 2017, supporting MIT’s historic role on national science and technology policy. He was an advisor to MIT’s Production in the Innovation Economy study issued in 2013 and was an MIT representative to President Obama’s industry-university Advanced Manufacturing Partnership and for its reports of 2011 and 2014 setting new U.S. manufacturing policies. Prior to MIT, he served for over fifteen years as a senior policy advisor in the U.S. Senate working on innovation issues. Earlier, he was a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Transportation handling legislative issues.

His book, Pioneering Progress: American Science, Technology and Innovation Policy was published in October 2024 by MIT Press and analyzes these policies in depth. Workforce Education, a New Roadmap, with Prof. Sanjay E. Sarma of MIT, was released in 2021 by MIT Press and evaluates new models for workforce education. Advanced Manufacturing - The New American Innovation Policies, with Peter L. Singer, was published by MIT Press in 2018 and reviews strategies for production innovation to enable advanced manufacturing systems. His 2015 book Technological Innovation in Legacy Sectors, with Prof. Charles Weiss of Georgetown, was published by Oxford University Press and takes up the challenge of bringing innovation to complex, established “legacy” economic sectors that constitute most of the economy. Their book Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution, published by MIT Press in 2009, proposed new models for energy technology innovation. He was coeditor and contributor to the book The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies from Open Book Publishers in 2020, which collected leading articles on DARPA. He has written over fifty articles and chapters on science and technology policy issues, including in Science, Issues in Science and Technology, Nature, Science and Public Policy, Innovations, Annals of Science and Technology Policy, Environment, American Interest and American Affairs.

He has lectured and given speeches before numerous organizations and universities on science, technology, and innovation questions. He has testified before the Congress’ House Science and Technology Committee, the Senate Commerce Committee, the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and before the UK Parliament’s Committee on Science and Technology. He is on the National Academies of Sciences’ Board on Materials and Manufacturing and its standing committee for the Science Policy Forum, and has served on nine other Academies’ committees. He chaired the AAAS standing Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (COSEPP) between 2017 and 2021, is on the GAO’s Polaris Council on Science and Technology, was on the Board of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and is a member of the Babbage Forum on Industrial Innovation Policy at Cambridge University. He has degrees from Columbia, Yale and Columbia Law School. He was the recipient of the IEEE Distinguished Public Service Award in 2007 and was elected a Fellow by the AAAS in 2011. (Webpage: https://www.bonvillian.org; bio info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Boone_Bonvillian)

Classes And Readings

Monday, January 26, 2026 (9:00am – 3:30pm)

Class 1: Economic Drivers Behind S&T Support

9:00am – 12:00pm

This class will focus on the drivers behind science and technology support since they are part of an economic system: growth economics, direct and indirect innovation factors, innovation systems theory, the “valley of death” between R&D, and public-private partnership models.

Class 1 will start by summarizing two classic works by Nobel Economics Prize winners Robert Solow and Paul Romer in economic growth theory, turn to a discussion of the innovation-related basis for growth in the 1990s with a reading from economist Dale Jorgensen, and note the emerging debate on the effect of the economics of globalization and the comparative efforts of other competitive nations. Two elements of direct or explicit innovation policy will be introduced: R&D support, (including the physical science R&D funding challenge) and the science and technology talent base, with international comparisons noted.

The class will also discuss a work by economist Richard Nelson with its concept of an innovation system, based on the capability of the actors in this system. It will have a summary of indirect (or implicit) elements in this system. These indirect elements include, on the governmental side, fiscal policy, tax policy, standards, technology transfer policies, trade policy, procurement, intellectual property, the legal system, regulation, antitrust, export controls, etc. On the private side, these include markets, management approaches including support for incremental verses radical innovation, accounting systems and information transparency, business models, and venture and angel capital, etc. The direct and indirect factors will be discussed as elements in an “innovation system,” building on the Nelson reading cited below. Particular “indirect elements” will be briefly noted, including the role of venture and angel capital. The lack of innovation metrics will be cited. The class will also discuss policy justifications for governmental verses private sector roles, including the debate over “industrial policy,” and the “market failure” and the “public value” (as pursued by science and technology mission agencies) justifications for a public role.

We will also discuss towards the end of the class the longstanding problem of the “valley of death”, i.e., of moving technology from the research stage through the development stage, the extent private sector finance is prepared to undertake technology development risk, and discuss the pipeline (linear) model verses dynamic model for research and development.

Students will take away from this class key foundation elements in sci/tech public policy: 1) a review of the applicable aspects of growth economics theory, 2) the concept of innovation systems and the actors and players behind them, 3) a framework for looking at an innovation system of direct and indirect factors, and 4) a grasp of one of the deepest problems in innovation, the “valley of death” between research and development.

Lunchtime discussion: MIT Science Policy Initiative

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Class 2: The Organizing Framework Behind U.S. Science Agencies

1:00pm – 3:30pm – Monday

This class will make the argument that Sci/Tech organization is a third direct innovation factor and examine the organizational framework behind the mix of U.S. science agencies, their missions and research organizational models. It will examine the basic science agencies and contrast it with the DARPA model as an organizational alternative. Thus, this class will look at the U.S. innovation system at the institutional level, emphasizing the organization of federal science support.

The class will start with a review of key organizational developments in federal science, technology, and health support, focusing on the organizational models for the missions of those science-support organizations, against a backdrop of the underlying political/economic ideologies of the U.S. system, using Prof. David Hart’s framework. Potential strengths of government-supported R&D (selection neutrality and long-range focus) as well as concerns (peer review tending toward incremental progress not breakthroughs and isolation from application connections) will be discussed. The pre-WWII organization will be briefly noted, then the transformation of science during WWII under Vannevar Bush and Alfred Loomis, and the creation of the National Science Foundation and other basic research entities after the war.

The review will focus on the overall organizational structure and as part of that note the following developments:

Alfred Loomis and the FFRDC (Federally-Funded Research and Development Center) model at MIT’s Rad Lab – the contract R&D entity outside the government
Vannevar Bush and the “Endless Frontier” – in the wake of WW2’s focus on applied research, Bush’s proposal for government science support focused on fundamental research
Origins of NSF, based on federal support of outside, university-based fundamental research, under Vannevar Bush’s “pipeline” model
Dean Donald Stokes’ critique of that model in Pasteur’s Quadrant
The military role in U.S. innovation support as reviewed by Vernon Ruttan
Origins of DARPA based on focused revolutionary research in an industry-university collaboration model. There will be a discussion focus on the DARPA organizational model as an organizing alternative to the Bush basic research model. DARPA’s role in innovation on both the institutional and personal levels of innovation will be reviewed.

Students will take away from this class the foundational concepts that led to the way the U.S. organizes its science and technology mission agencies and review alternative models that led to more connected science systems.

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 (9:00am – 1:00pm)

Class 3: Case Study – Barriers and Opportunities in Life Science Advance –The NIH Story

9:00am – 12:00pm

Class 3 will take the ideas discussed in the two prior classes and apply them to the innovation organization of the health science sector. It will note the organizational origins of NIH in the fundamental research model and discuss the implications of that model for the role NIH plays in the biomedical innovation system. Key topics, including NIH's role in training life science researchers for university and industry, the origins of the human genome project, around a new computational science model, the rise of the biotech sector, the role of biotech firms in the development stage, and the power of the patent system in life sciences, will be discussed. NIH problems in pursuing cross-disciplinary, translational, and physical and engineering science-based research, with organizational stovepipes, and in attacking niche, developing world, and small disease population diseases will also be reviewed. Proposals from the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) and others for NIH reorganization will be discussed. Problems in developing therapies for infectious disease and with developing new approaches to drug validation and approval will be discussed through reports from the Infectious Diseases Society and FDA. The “blockbuster” product development model in the health sector will be discussed.

Class 3 will also review new ways to better transition health technology advances into medicines for treatments and cures. The class will include a review of an MIT white paper on better integrating life science with engineering and physical science (“convergence”) as a promising new R&D model. It will also discuss Operation Warp Speed, which made Covid-19 vaccines available to the public in record time in 2020-21 during the pandemic and the organizational mechanisms that allowed rapid development.

Students will take from this class an understanding of the barriers to health science advances at NIH and FDA, and review the new “convergence” model developing at MIT that could affect innovation in this sector.

Lunchtime discussion: Career Paths in Science Policy

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Invited: Johanna Wolfson who took this course and was a former leader of the MIT Science Policy Initiative group, who then went on to Fraunhofer TechBridge, the Department of Energy, and Prime Impact, where she is general partner for its Azolla Ventures energy tech investment fund. She will discuss career opportunities in Science and Tech Policy.

Wednesday, January 28, 2026 (9:00am – 3:30pm)

Class 4: The Organization of Innovation Systems at the Face-to-Face Level

9:00am – 12:00pm

Class 4 will be more informal and student-led by discussion leaders (see below). We will note that although innovation systems function at the institutional level in the public and private sectors, as discussed in Class 2 (and was the basis for the case study in Class 3) they also must function at the personal, face-to-face level. The class will first look at the psychology of the invention process itself (using Rosen’s book on the industrial revolution), then review a series of breakthrough innovations and look at the R&D teams that assembled them, discussing the organizational rule sets that appear to be common to these great innovation groups. The focus groups include Edison’s “Invention Factory”, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Los Alamos, Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley developing the transistor at Bell Labs, Grace Hopper and the development of computer programming languages, Katherine Johnson and the “hidden figures” at NASA, Lockheed’s “Skunkworks,” Herbert Boyer and Robert Swanson founding the first biotech Genetech, Craig Venter and the genome project, and Robert Taylor and Xerox PARC. The session will close with a review of lessons from a “great group” at DEC, where the founding innovation culture failed as the firm transitioned to a major corporation.

Directions for Discussion Leaders: Discussion leaders should read about their assigned innovation "Great Group," prepare no more than four PowerPoint slides about the group for presentation to the class, present the groups' accomplishments and organization, summarize four or five rules from the Bennis and Biederman ruleset (see this reading below) that most apply to their group, and develop one or two rules from looking at their group of their own. They will brief the class on their group, using their slides.

Students will take from this discussion class an understanding of how people- and team- driven, as opposed to institution-driven, the innovation stage is, and of the rulesets that appear to influence innovation success.

Lunchtime discussion:

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Speaker: Dr. John Liu, PI of the MIT LEAP Group, Digital Learning Scientist, and Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, who will discuss his work on developing the “Technologist” program for workforce education, which features online courses, VR simulations, and in-person labs to create a new career pathway between technicians and engineers for advanced manufacturing - bio: https://openlearning.mit.edu/about/our-team/john-liu,

And please review in advance: https://issues.org/technologist-advanced-manufacturing-workforce-liu-bonvillian/

Class 5: Case Study – Structuring for an Energy Technology Revolution

1:00pm – 3:30pm - Wednesday

Class 5 will review the challenges to the energy innovation system, including both institutional organizational challenges and underlying economic challenges, affecting energy technology advance. Given the political collapse in 2011 of “cap and trade” proposals for pricing carbon, the class will look at alternative pathways by which an energy transformation could evolve.

The instructor will review the innovation policy elements that could be considered as part of a major federal program to stimulate innovation in energy technology, which has now been evolving. Given the central role of energy in the economy and the variety of new technologies needed, this program needs to go beyond research and development to include all aspects of the innovation process. It would also need to be as technology neutral as possible, consistent with the need for measures to overcome obstacles specific to particular technologies. Ideally, the instructor will note, such a technology supply-side program should be accompanied by market demand policies that ensure market entry for new technologies. However, given interests opposing and threatened by such measures, political support for such demand-side policies in Congress and the executive branch appears many years away. The political barriers to a technology supply-side strategy, on the other hand, are not as high.

Given the depth of the need for new energy technology, a supply side program arguably will be needed even if demand measures are adopted. Numerous authoritative publications have called for an expansion of energy research and development as a complement to demand-side measures. However, the specific mechanisms by which the development, deployment and diffusion of these technologies might be facilitated by government action have been left largely unstudied. A hard look at these specific mechanisms will be a major topic in the class. The R&D elements evolving at the Department of Energy, such as ARPA-E, will be reviewed, along with the need for creating energy technology demonstrations, testbeds, and initial markets. Alternative drivers and policies for energy technology advance will be explored overall.

Given the powerful and increasing importance of energy innovation in climate and security contexts, this class will provide students with a close look at the systemic challenges now faced by the energy innovation system and draw on lessons from prior classes for possible organizational solutions.

Thursday, January 29, 2026 (9:00am – 1:00pm)

Class 6: Case Study – The Competitiveness Challenge in Advanced Manufacturing

9:00am – 12:00pm

Class 6 will focus on the oncoming competitiveness challenge in advanced technologies for production, looking closely at U.S. manufacturing, the translator for most physical science related advances into societal economic gain and a major "scalable" factor for economic growth.

Class 6 will note the nature of the competitiveness debate of the 80s and early 90s, which focused on the manufacturing sector, particularly on process efficiency and quality. The role of manufacturing in the U.S. economy, including its ties to the innovation system, will be discussed, including its declining share of that economy. The nature of the international competition in manufacturing and the strategies of other international competitors, both in the 80s and now, including in advanced manufacturing sectors, will be reviewed. Approaches in Germany, Japan, Korea, and, currently, China will be noted. As background reading, students will read Paul Samuelson’s noted 2004 article on free trade theory in a period of competitive advantage in innovation. Prof. Suzanne Berger’s milestone work on the distributed model for U.S. manufacturing organization will be reviewed. The 2012 and 2014 reports from the President's industry-university Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, and the resulting Advanced Manufacturing Institute program, will be discussed by the instructor, providing lessons on structural economic issues in the U.S. production system. Work by the instructor summarizing U.S. manufacturing challenges and the role of advanced manufacturing technologies will be reviewed and discussed. In this regard, the “disruptive technologies” approach to innovation will be noted, as well as corresponding possible approaches for manufacturing process technology productivity breakthroughs. The discussion will close with a discussion of the “future of work” given entry of new automation technologies.

A major rationale for federal R&D support has become its role in promoting U.S. competitiveness, yet a declining U.S. manufacturing sector appears increasingly less able to translate innovation gains into product production economic gains. Students will obtain from this class a summary of the current advanced manufacturing debate in the U.S. in manufacturing sectors.

Lunchtime discussion –

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Speaker: Prof. Maria Zuber, former MIT VP Research, former Chair of the National Science Board, and former co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), who will discuss MIT’s new science and technology initiative she is leading for MIT’s President - bio: https://orgchart.mit.edu/leadership/presidential-advisor-science-and-technology-policy/biography

Friday, January 30, 2026 (9:00am – 1:30pm)

Class 7: Emerging Industrial Innovation Policies in the U.S.

9:00am – 12:00pm

Despite longstanding opposition from mainstream economists to industrial policy, in the period of 2020-2021 the United States, confronted by advanced technology competition from China, the demands of climate change, and the need to respond to a global pandemic, adopted a series of major industrial policy programs. Although the U.S. Defense Department has long practiced industrial policy approaches, and the U.S. has followed industrial economic policies in its agriculture, transportation, electric power and healthcare sectors, there have been new programs focused on promoting technology innovation, so can be labeled “industrial innovation policy.” The large scale of these efforts amounted to a new step for the U.S. in non-defense sectors. However, some but not all of these efforts are now being pulled back.

Although the definition of industrial policy is debated, with some arguing it should serve social needs verses specific technology advances, this study adopts a more straightforward definition. Industrial innovation policy involves governmental intervention in one or more of the post-research innovation stages, from development to prototyping to production, to further technology innovation. The class will review these issues, including examples of new U.S. industrial innovation policies adopted between 2020 and 2022: Operation Warp Speed for coronavirus pandemic vaccines; the CHIPS Act to restore U.S. semiconductor leadership); the Inflation Reduction Act, with its impetus for implementation of new energy technologies, which has now been cut back; and the CHIPS and Science Act, with its support for applied development of critical technologies and regional innovation. These adopt an industrial innovation policy approach and launch a series of models for it. A remaining gap in U.S. industrial policy efforts is support for technology scale-up; a comparison is made with China’s more extensive mechanisms for scale-up. In addition, a case study of U.S. vs. China electric vehicle industrial policies is discussed, as well as a case study on semiconductors. The class will close with a discussion of the need for the U.S. to adopt a new kind of infrastructure and accompanying operational mechanisms in order to make its new industrial innovation policies work, drawn from the required reading.

Lunchtime Faculty Panel Discussion:

12:15pm – 1:30pm

Speakers: Prof. Chris Love is a Professor of Chemical Engineering, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, and an associate member of both the Broad and Ragon Institutes, and co-chair of the MIT Initiative for New Manufacturing. He will discuss biomanufacturing and its role in the emerging bioeconomy. Bio at: https://ki.mit.edu/people/faculty/j-christopher-love

Course Syllabus

Goal

Logistics

Schedule

Class 1: Economic Drivers Behind S&T Support

Lunchtime discussion 1: MIT Science Policy Initiative (SPI)

Class 2: The Organizing Framework Behind U.S. Science Agencies

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 (9:00am – 1:00pm) -

Class 3: Case Study – Barriers and Opportunities in Life Science Advance –The NIH Story

Lunchtime discussion 2: Career Paths in Science Policy

Wednesday, January 28, 2026 (9:00am – 3:30pm)

Class 4: The Organization of Innovation Systems at the Face-to-Face Level

Lunchtime discussion 3: The role of MIT in federal and state science policy

Class 5: Case Study – Structuring for an Energy Technology Revolution

Thursday, January 29, 2026 (9:00am – 1:00pm)

Class 6: Case Study – The Competitiveness Challenge in Advanced Manufacturing

Lunchtime discussion 4:

Friday, January 30, 2026 (9:00am – 1:30pm)

Class 7: Emerging Industrial Innovation Policies in the U.S.

Lunchtime Faculty Panel discussion:

Description

Topics covered

Expectations of the Class

Required Readings and the Discussion Leader System

Grading

Follow-on opportunities

Class 1: Economic Drivers Behind S&T Support

Other readings for individual students to lead class discussions

Lunchtime discussion: MIT Science Policy Initiative

Other readings for individual students to lead class discussions

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 (9:00am – 1:00pm)

Class 3: Case Study – Barriers and Opportunities in Life Science Advance –The NIH Story

Other readings for individual students to lead class discussions

Lunchtime discussion: Career Paths in Science Policy

Wednesday, January 28, 2026 (9:00am – 3:30pm)

Class 4: The Organization of Innovation Systems at the Face-to-Face Level

Other readings for individual students to lead class discussions

Lunchtime discussion:

Class 5: Case Study – Structuring for an Energy Technology Revolution

Other readings for individual students to lead class discussions

Thursday, January 29, 2026 (9:00am – 1:00pm)

Class 6: Case Study – The Competitiveness Challenge in Advanced Manufacturing

Other readings for individual students to lead class discussions

Lunchtime discussion –

Friday, January 30, 2026 (9:00am – 1:30pm)

Class 7: Emerging Industrial Innovation Policies in the U.S.

Other readings for individual students to lead class discussions

Lunchtime Faculty Panel Discussion: