One year after they launched a campaign to urge Congress and the President to close the nation’s innovation deficit, a group of prominent university, scientific, and business organizations have renewed their call for increased federal investments in research to build a strong long-term economy, improve medical treatments and strengthen national security.  As Congress breaks for its August recess, leaving key FY15 funding decisions to be addressed in September, leaders from those organizations are coordinating a nationwide effort to communicate the need to close the innovation deficit.

Learn about the innovation deficit on the Georgia Tech YouTube Channel >

Tools on the www.innovationdeficit.org website include an animated video, an infographic, and a number of charts, graphs, and other materials explaining the innovation deficit and the threat it poses to the nation’s economic future.

The innovation deficit is the widening gap between actual and needed federal investments in research and higher education at a time when other nations such as China, India, and Singapore are dramatically boosting research funding to develop the next great technological and medical breakthroughs to power their economies forward.

The campaign began one year ago today with an open letter to the President and Congress signed by more than 200 university presidents and chancellors, including Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson, that described the innovation deficit and called on leaders to close it with investments in research and higher education.

Organizations leading the Close the Innovation Deficit effort said that their members would be speaking to Members of Congress in their districts and on Capitol Hill in the coming weeks.  They will urge lawmakers to place a high priority on investments in research in the FY15 appropriations process and, over the longer term, eliminate sequestration and deal with entitlements and tax reform to make possible the increased investments needed to close the innovation deficit.