Innovation and speed

Perceptions about innovation are sometimes as important as innovation per se. Coinciding with news that the United States has been relegated from the top ten of Bloomberg’s ranking of innovative countries for the first time in its history, the logical consequence of electing an idiot for president, a man whose impossible and absurd “return to coal” policies has seen a 30% tariff imposed on imported solar panels, causing untold damage and delay to the development of distributed generation of renewable energy.

That said, Trump shouldn’t take all the blame for stifling innovation: the United States tends toward overprotection. In technologies as promising and with as much potential impact as genome editing (CRISPR), China, lacking regulatory barriers to its application, has become the first country to develop extensive human testing: it has been using technology to treat cancer patients since 2015, building up significant expertise. China didn’t develop CRISPR, that merit goes mainly to US researchers, but it has taken CRISPR from the research phase to applied research in specific areas. Any entrepreneur looking to develop innovative applications for CRISPR technology, set up in China, not in the United States or Europe.

China occupies the 19th position in Bloomberg’s ranking, still far from the top. But it has been moving in the opposite direction to the United States for several years: this last year it has climbed two positions, mainly thanks to university graduates in science and engineering careers, along with the development of a large industry created overwhelmingly by people who trained abroad and have now returned to China, all part of a plan designed and financed by government and the private sector. Increasingly, in areas such as social and mobile technologies, China leads innovation. When a company wants to expose its managers to a diverse and innovative environment, it sends them there.

For decades, if you had the money and needed treatment for say, cancer, you went to the United States. Healthcare in the United States is tremendously expensive, but it was also considered the most advanced. Increasingly, cancer patients are more likely to receive successful treatment in a Chinese clinic. At the individual level such decisions are obviously important, sometimes a matter of life or death, but they can also influence collective thinking. When an increasingly significant part of research on cutting-edge issues takes place in one country while in others it is constantly delayed by regulatory problems, talented people looking to further their careers based on serious and detailed analysis, will decide accordingly.

Trump’s first year in office has been a disaster for US innovation. The president not only has no idea about technology, he is also utterly uninterested in it. His own administration has suffered a brain drain, while his immigration policies have put many bright students off attending US universities: there has been a 7% drop in one year compared to a 25% increase into neighboring Canada. The big US technology companies are rushing to open research centers abroad to try to maintain their ability to attract research talent.

The United States is no longer a country to go for an education, work, or for medical treatment: its image has been damaged globally, regardless of the state of its economy. But that’s what happens when people vote for the wrong candidate.

(En espa?ol, aquí)