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State Policy: Research and Development
Foster Research and Development Research is one of the major drivers of the economy. Technological advances in areas like client/server computing; VLSI design; RISC processors; relational databases; parallel databases; data mining; parallel computing; disk servers; and portable communications were all developed in our universities. Biotechnology, for example, is one of the most research-intensive industries in the world. U.S. publicly traded biotech companies spent $27.1 billion on research and development in 2006, with the top five biotech companies investing more than $170,000 per employee in R&D in 2007. TechNet supports maintaining strong research and development tax credits, such as California's permanent credit for qualified applied and basic (generally-university-based) research. The existing of a strong, permanent research and development credit, as well as proximity to leading universities, has been one of the critical drivers in establishing states like California as leaders in innovation. TechNet also advocates for strong support of our public universities. TechNet works with states, universities and other stakeholders to increase federal investments in basic research, including areas like clean energy. TechNet also supports private investment, through initiatives such as BP's $500 million bio-fuels investment at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Illinois-Champagne-Urbana. |