The NSF Engineering Research Centers and the University–Industry Research Revolution: A Brief History Featuring an Interview with Erich Bloch

The NSF engineering research centers (ERC) program served notice of a sea change in university research funding and institutional designs, representing a transition from department-based, principle investigator-oriented university science to a new center-based model encouraging universities to work with industry and to work beyond the strictures of academic disciplines. In our view, the past three decades of U.S. science and technology policy have not seen an institutional change of greater importance. This paper begins with a brief history of the ERC program, including discussion of the program’s origins, goals and research foci, growth, and influence as a model for other science center programs in the U.S. and abroad. Our “primary data” include an interview with Erich Bloch, former NSF director who was one of the chief architects and advocates for the ERC program. Because of the historical importance of this interview, we present the entire interview with the original material largely unaltered. We conclude with discussion of the managerial challenges that ERCs face within the context of traditional university structures.     

The Interenterprise Arrears Crisis in Russia

Two American economists discuss in considerable detail the critical problem of interenterprise arrears (overdue payments for goods and services) in Russia that undermines the transition to a market economy and privatization. The study is based on interviews involving directors of 32 industrial enterprises, managers of commercial banks, and Central Bank officials in Moscow, Novosibirsk and Sochi from May to mid-November 1992. In addition to analyzing the causes of the mounting accumulation of debt and highlighting the financial problems of enterprises coping with the crisis, the authors examine the anatomy of present-day banking and extension of credit to finance production in the former USSR. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P21, Ol7, G20.     

资本主义与新兴世界秩序

西方长达两个世纪之久的霸权正在走向终结，曾经推动西方崛起的现代化革命，如今已惠及所有国家。因此，19世纪发展起来并为中心——边缘世界秩序（core-periphery international order）奠定了基础的国家间实力差距（power gap）正在缩小。这一变化带来的结果是世界由有中心的全球体系（centred globalism）向去中心的全球体系（decentred globalism）转变。与此同时，当权力变得越来越分散的同时，主要国家之间意识形态上的分歧程度也正在缩小。事实上，当代世界中所有大国在某种形式上走的都是资本主义道路，在兴起中的世界新秩序中，意识形态上的差异比它在过去一个世纪里所呈现的要小得多。问题是：意识形态上的相对同质性是否将在四种主要的资本主义国家治理类型（自由民主主义体制、社会民主主义体制、竞争性威权主义体制和国家官僚主义体制）中引起地缘经济或者地缘政治上的竞争？民主主义与威权主义类型的资本主义之间政治上的分歧是否会超越它们之间的共同利益？还是它们之间存在的共同利益消弭了彼此的分歧？当代世界会出现像20世纪初那种不同类型而互为冲突的资本主义模式吗？或者会产生某种形式的“协和资本主义”？在未来一段时间里，我们很有可能仍然会处在一个政治上分化的多种类型的资本主义世界。由此，对于决策者来说所面临的重要任务就是要确保地缘经济竞争将不会导致地缘政治冲突的发生。