The Effects of the World War II Research Effort on Postwar U.S. Science, Technology, and Innovation

There is widespread recognition that World War II was a sea-change event in government-science relations and in science and technology policy. The wartime research effort organized under the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) and led by Vannevar Bush, increased government investment in science by one to two orders of magnitude. OSRD research contributed to advances in a range of technologies that were crucial for winning the war—from weapons and optics to new medical treatments (such as antimalarials, vaccines, and other therapies that helped limit U.S. solider morbidity and mortality). In addition to laying the groundwork for postwar U.S. science and technology policy, the wartime effort is also thought to have had a transformative impact on the U.S. innovation system, including by catapulting U.S. firms and universities to the frontier of science and technology for the postwar period. As the war ended, President Roosevelt asked Bush to draw lessons from this 'unique experiment' to harness science in peacetime. Bush's response, Science: The Endless Frontier, is sometimes considered the ideological blueprint for postwar science policy.

The goal of this project is to provide a quantitative assessment of the effects of the OSRD. Using newly-collected data on OSRD research contracts, this project examines (i) the effects of the wartime research effort on the intensity, direction, and location of postwar U.S. inventive activity, (ii) the influence of wartime medical research spending on postwar U.S. research, patenting, and product development in the life sciences, and (iii) the effects of the OSRD on the postwar U.S. scientific workforce. The use of novel datasets and methodological robust techniques for analyzing heterogeneous historical data will inform several other fields of study and serve as a rich training ground for students. Furthermore, the year 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of Science: the Endless Frontier. This project will provide a roadmap for ensuring US competitiveness and strength in the innovation system, particularly in times of exogenous shock.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.