White House Leadership on Innovation Policy: The Case for an Office of Innovation Policy

White House Leadership on Innovation Policy:
The Case for an Office of Innovation Policy

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
1101 K Street, NW, Suite 610
Washington, DC 20005
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
http://www.itif.org/rsvp/event.php?id=1

Innovation is central to economic growth and to solving a host of pressing societal challenges. It is therefore critical to ensure that the federal agencies' actions promote innovation, or at least pursue other social objectives in a manner that is least damaging to innovation. There is no formal process within the executive branch to ensure that this happens, however. In particular, the centralized cost-benefit review performed by OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs generally ignores the impact of agency actions on innovation.

In an ITIF report to be released, Duke Law School professors Stuart Benjamin and Arti Rai propose that the Obama administration (or Congress, if Congress is willing) create an Office of Innovation Policy that would draw upon, and feed into, existing regulatory review processes but would have the specific mission of being the "innovation champion" within these processes.

Please join us for a discussion of this new proposal to create an Office of Innovation Policy.

Moderator: Robert Atkinson (bio)
President, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Presenters: Stuart M. Benjamin (bio)
Professor of Law, Duke Law School

Arti K. Rai (bio)
Professor of Law, Duke Law School

Respondent:
Stephen Merrill (bio)
Executive Director, Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP), The National Academies