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Learn More

Learn more about the report by reading the following:
- Harvard Business Review: How the U.S. Can Rebuild Its Capacity to Innovate
- Grand Challenges in US Manufacturing and the Innovation Ecosystem
- Manufacturing Prosperity: 2018 Summit and Flagship Report
- Summit ’18: Scaling-Up American Production
- Summit ’18: Innovation to Boost National Wealth and Security
- Summit ’18: Strengthening Small and Medium Manufacturers
- Summit ’18: Talent Is Indispensable for Manufacturing Competitiveness
Key Recommendations
The report identifies a range of critical next steps across several categories:
- investing in translational research and manufacturing innovation
- encouraging pilot production and scale-up for U.S. industry
- empowering small and medium-sized manufacturers
- growing domestic engineering and technical talent
Dissemination
Please join us for the upcoming 2018 MForesight National Summit on June 13 learn more about the outcomes of the Grand Challenges roundtables.
Thank you to all who joined us at the briefing. Read the event recap: “Congressional Briefing: ‘Manufacturing Prosperity'”
Manufacturing Prosperity
A comprehensive, long-term strategy for global leadership
May 24, 2018
United States Capitol Visitor Center: Congressional Meeting Room North (CVC 268)
2:30 PM to 4:30 PM
Hosted by the House Manufacturing Caucus
For American manufacturing, this is a time of both grand challenges and growing opportunities. Sustaining jobs, preserving the nation’s innovation edge, and maintaining global manufacturing leadership will require long-term thinking and investment from partners across the public and private sectors.
This year, MForesight conducted a series of roundtables with manufacturing experts, business leaders, and policymakers in cities across the United States to identify actionable recommendations for public and private stakeholders to help overcome the most serious challenges to U.S. manufacturing and strengthen national competitiveness.
On May 24th at 2:30pm, the House Manufacturing Caucus will highlight MForesight’s new report including key findings and actionable recommendations. At the event, leading experts on manufacturing policy and practice will share actionable ideas on how to strengthen America’s innovation ecosystems, develop and retain talent, and advance other key aspects of manufacturing competitiveness. We are hopeful that these recommendations will not only foster a needed national debate but, ultimately, prompt public and private actions to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing.
Panelists:
- Tom Mahoney – Associate Director, MForesight
- Mike Russo – Corporate Lead for U.S. Governmental Affairs, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
- André Gudger – CEO, Eccalon
- Tanya Das – Manufacturing and Economic Development Adviser, Office of Senator Chris Coons
- Stephen Ezell – Vice President, Global Innovation Policy, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to those who hosted the roundtables that informed this report:
- Boston: MIT
- Washington, DC: National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
- Austin: University of Texas at Austin
- San Jose: Boston Scientific
- Raleigh: North Carolina State University
- Indianapolis: Cummins, Inc.
- Dearborn: SME
MForesight convened national thought leaders, through a series of regional roundtables, to conduct a major study on the future of U.S. innovation and manufacturing. This project seeks to address “grand challenges” for our manufacturing sector—the degradation of the Industrial Commons, the offshoring of research and development (R&D), and the dearth of financing for “hardware” start-ups and scale-ups. The goal is to identify new actionable recommendations for public and private decision makers to maintain or restore domestic manufacturing capabilities and capture the full value from U.S. R&D investments.
We convened a series of roundtable discussion with regional thought leaders in Austin, Boston, DC, Detroit, Indianapolis, Raleigh, and San Jose during January-March 2018. The MForesight National Summit, to be held in June, will discuss the ideas generated at the roundtables and determine actions needed to focus attention on this critical national challenge. We believe that the results will not only foster a needed national debate but, ultimately, prompt public and private actions to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing.

The goal is to identify actionable solutions to four overarching, interconnected issues for domestic innovation and manufacturing:
- Maintaining America’s industrial commons: How can the U.S. maintain its ecosystem of skilled trades, engineering expertise, and production capacity in critical sectors?
- Keeping R&D onshore: With strong linkages between R&D and production, combined with growing capacity and funding for R&D in foreign countries, how can the U.S. ensure that private R&D remains here?
- Ensuring financing for “hardware” start-ups ad scale-ups: How can America increase opportunities for manufacturing start-ups to scale-up operations and root production at home?
- Capitalizing on national R&D investments: What steps are needed to ensure that America captures the wealth generated from new products and processes emerging from large national R&D spending?