Change comes...

A spectacular moment of inspiration builds toward the inauguration and Presidency of Barack Obama. The son of a Kenyan father and white American mother becomes President of a country populated by the descendents of European immigrants, African slaves, Native and immigrant Latin Americans and the Native Americans who survived the ravages of guns and germs.

He is well-educated, well-spoken, intelligent, graceful, practical and, as his career testifies, in command of considerable political talent. The question is how he will deal with the mess left by his predecessor who systematically set the USA back on a number of fronts. This includes George W Bush’s science policy, which as a matter of fact was an anti-science policy, that Obama believes ‘handcuffed’ scientists to medieval ideology.

The first task for him in this area is therefore to restore scientific integrity to the White House, by using evidence-based science to guide policy. The Obama-Biden policy statements read: ‘Good policy in Washington depends on sound advice from the nation’s scientists and engineers and decision-making based on the needs of all Americans.’

The science policy wonks crunched the numbers and found that their level of investment in science and technology has declined systematically since the early 1970s. Obama committed himself to doubling the federal government’s spending on basic research, expand university based research initiatives and make tax credits for research and development permanent.

As for electricity and telephones, the next-generation broadband will be brought to every American citizen. Every community will be reached by way of reform of what is known as the Universal Service Fund, better use of wireless hot spots and next-generation Internet cafes, new technologies and more advanced software applications.

All of this will drive the science-knowledge economy and will certainly stimulate production and trade. Competitive markets should be better-secured, intellectual property rights protected at home and abroad, and the efficiency and robustness of the patent system improved. The quality of science and technology, already very good, will become more cutting edge.

All of this requires citizens who are technologically capable and with good training in mathematics and science. North Americans have, like the rest of us, really struggled to get this right on a school level. Spending more funds, enhancing top end science and introducing next-generation technologies are necessary and great but without the trained people all of it will come to naught.

Mathematics and science education at a school level are perforce to become a national priority. Science assessments methods are to be improved, the dropout rate addressed and aid to university students in science finessed. Done right, the pool of graduates will grow. They will look for talent wherever it may be, searching particularly among women and what Americans refer to as minorities.

It is clear from the most detailed pre-election policy documents on science and technology I have yet seen that a great deal of thought was given to how applications could be used to solve some of America’s most compelling problems, starting with the use of electronic information systems to lower health care costs.

In an area which Bush willfully ignored to that country’s great detriment, Obama seeks to invest in what they call climate-friendly energy development by putting R1,500 billion over 10 years to work so that engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs may turn the promise of biofuels into reality, produce more hybrid vehicles, produce commercially viable alternative sources of energy and begin the transition towards a digital electricity grid.

Obama wants to modernize the information technology used to prompt more effective responses to emergencies like Katrina. The present system is antiquated they say and lacks national coordination. New York City has good emergency plans but what good is that when the entire east coast and gulf areas are vulnerable to rising water levels for example.

Music to the ears of the health sciences, barriers to the advance of genome-based biomedical interventions will be removed including in the controversial area of stem cell research. The ability to grow healthy cells to replace diseased ones is the revolution in medicine we have been waiting for. What will be strengthened is the ethical governance of the research for privacy issues are at stake.

Success in this field will have global consequences. South Africa, a recipient rather than an initiator of path breaking science technologies emanating from the north, needs to become a partner in productive exchanges with the USA. We need to rebuild the good times of the Mandela-Clinton era so ravaged by the Mbeki-Bush anti-science setback of the early 21st century.