Table E-2.— Leading Issues as Reported by Industry Respondents 



Order of Frequency of Mention by 



All 

 Respond- Vice Pres. and 



ents Presidents Dirs. of R&D 



Government regulations and controls (unreasonable, 



not thought out, no cost/benefit/risk analysis) 1 



Absence of national science and technology 



policy, priorities or goals 2 



Near-term relevance is only research objective (due to 

 government regulations or decentralization of research 

 to profit centers) 3 



General economic conditions, particularly inflation 

 in salaries and laboratory costs, lead to decreases 

 in fundamental research in industry 



Low public confidence in and/or poor image of 



science, technology, research or scientists 



Lack of availability of money, low profitability 



or obstacles to capital formation lead to 



decreases in fundamental research in industry 



Concern over general decrease in fundamental 



and other research in industry 



Deteriorating patent protection or patent policy is a 

 disincentive to industrial research and innovation 



Too few/too many scientific and technical personnel — 



no match with need — lack of national policy on 



scientific and technical personnel 



Competing R&D functions (e.g., applied research or 

 development in response to government regulations) 

 decrease fundamental research in industry 



Concern about quality of new people — best are not 



entering science and engineering or, if they do, 



are kept for university 



Concern whether other sectors will compensate for 

 decrease in industrial fundamental research 



Fundamental research in industry has become too 



risky and has reduced future payoff 



Concern over low public confidence in 



and poor image of industrial corporations 



Number of Respondents 123 



10 



10 



45 



10 



10 

 10 

 10 



78 



142 



APPENDIX E 



