In recent years, particular points of mid-twentieth century history have been mined for inspiration for contemporary science and innovation policy.
| Era evoked | Historical reference | Famous promoter(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 1940s | Manhattan Project | Prof. David King (former science advisor to UK PM Tony Blair) |
| 1940s | Marshall Plan | Carlos Moedas (EU Research Commissioner) |
| 1960s | DARPA (US military R&D agency) of the 1960s | Prof. Mariana Mazzucato (UK-based academic) |
| 1960s | Missions (citing the Apollo Program) | Prof. Mazzucato; Moedas |
One might argue these are all bad history – misrepresentations of the past – which they are, of course. Most of the above take no account of the actual histories, written by historians, based on archival materials.
In principle, though, who cares – because they are obviously nothing more than buzzwords meaning simply we have to make a big effort on something, or else code for contemporary arguments about the role of the state.
Some, e.g., missions, succeed in galvanizing interest – and eventually funding – others fall flat. In this sense, historical analogies are indeed useful as publicity tools but it can be difficult to predict which ones will garner political space. Very few, I suspect, will achieve much that is concrete.
Missions, Apollo, and DARPA
Of the above rhetoric, one of the most successful has been missions. There is even an international Mission Innovation program that brings together various countries to discuss R&D related to fighting climate change. It is questionable, though, if it achieved more than discussions.
Although the idea of goal-directed programs is, in a way, ageless, the origin of the current usage appears to lie with the economist, Prof. Mazzucato. She advocates for the idea of missions or goals as a means to conceive, plan and understand R&D investment. Prof. Mazzucato cites the Apollo program and DARPA.
The Apollo program is a clear example of a successful mission. President John F. Kennedy made a speech to Congress in 1961 saying that the US ‘should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.’ Under his successors, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, this ambition was achieved in 1969.
Adjust the historical window slightly, however, and a more multi-dimensional, if not equivocal, story emerges that seems to offer less of a clear guide for ex-ante policy design.
Today, the Apollo program is deemed an archetypal example of successful state-backed innovation, due to the fact the NASA did indeed deliver astronauts to the moon. Fair enough – but it also has to be said in the decades following the Moon landing in 1969, NASA ‘failed to innovate’, according to an official history of the agency.
Obviously there was mention of ‘mission-oriented R&D’ at the time (the term is used, for instance, in the title of a report commissioned by NASA, dated 1972).
Consider also Nixon’s rhetoric, in which he explicitly sought to use the methods of Apollo to generate social impacts, in what became known as the ‘war on cancer’.(1) But his cancer program, which was actually overseen in its early stages by a prototype ‘venture capitalist’ called Benno C. Schmidt, was later discredited and even seen as a failure. I guess the ‘war on cancer’ is the mission that shows designing missions based on the Apollo program might not always work out as hoped.
Apollo or DARPA did not happen in a vacuum, either; they occurred in particular historical and political contexts.
My key reference point is the work of the historian, Prof. Wang, 2009, In Sputnik’s Shadow: The President’s Science Advisory Committee and Cold War America. As we learn from that book, NASA and DARPA were both created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the same moment, in response to Sputnik, and pursued integrally to Eisenhower’s larger policy (mission?) of small government (Pentagon re-organization & his struggle to bring to heel the ‘military-industrial complex’), plus nuclear arms control. Therefore, was that ‘the mission’ – and how did it change through time?
As Prof. Mazzucato acknowledges, many of the gains of the Apollo program were ‘spin-offs’ that had nothing to do with the ostensible purpose of landing on the moon. In other words, any gains were not actually part of the mission, but quite different from it.
It seems to me deciding what the mission actually is, and was, and how it changed through quite long spans of time (covering entire professional careers) becomes hard, particularly when one places oneself in the position of the decision-makers at a point in time – experiencing history as it happened, not in hindsight.
Dissecting out what might be innovative about the current missions rhetoric is obviously difficult. Indeed, the explicit point of the rhetoric is to invoke the past and suggest, perhaps (?), that previous approaches to R&D management should be reinstated after an (alleged) hiatus. But I am not convinced such approaches have ever gone away. Goal-directed rhetoric has always been with us – to a great extent most scientific activity has always been directed at goals and missions.
The EU’s first Framework Program (1983) articulated six ‘thematic priorities’: agriculture, industrial competitiveness, raw materials, energy, development aid, and living conditions (p. 10, here).
In the present, the planned FP9 (Horizon Europe) talks about five missions: adaptation to climate change, including societal transformation; cancer; healthy oceans and natural waters; carbon-neutral and smart cities; soil health for sustainable food (p. 6, here). Apart from the slight changes of terminology, has there not been great consistency in the goal-directed rhetoric (it being generally quite vague, catch-all, and abstract)?
The problem is that solving policy issues might not simply be a question of invoking missions – indeed, many problems lack solutions deliverable through science and research (nature is too difficult; we lack the knowledge or tools; the problems have causes that science and research cannot address; and so on).
Cancer, for example, is a multi-faceted and complex disease; a lot of the causes are environmental and not as such problems amenable to research on cures; advances in treating the disease are incremental. Regrettably, climate change might be another one of those problems that is not amenable to missions.
Rajiv Gandhi, technology missions, and Nelson Mandela
Another potential source of the concept of missions, and, oddly, not one invoked at all in the latest EU discourse, is the ‘technology mission’ that was once prominent in Indian science policy and that later reappeared in South African policy after the fall of Apartheid.
Rajiv Gandhi is the political author of the specific term citing his technology mission program conducted in India after 1987.
Prof. V. V. Krishna, the prominent science policy analyst, outlined the political background of the policy, starting in the later years of Indira Gandhi’s tenure, as follows.
As the role of S&T began to be questioned more and more from the viewpoint of societal needs, the government began to steer S&T towards development and socio-economic issues.
V. V. Krishna, 2009, ‘Changing policy in science and technology in India’, in: Science and Technology Policy, vol. 2, p. 90.
Rajiv Gandhi’s policy is quite interesting. Six missions were created initially, with a delivery date of 2000, and covering such topics as vaccination, milk, oil seed production, clean drinking water. The program was led initially by a tech entrepreneur, Sam Pitroda. I have not read a comprehensive appraisal of all the programs but there is both positive and negative commentary possibly reflecting the complexity of the initiative.
Prof. Krishna credited Pitroda with the ‘creation of an excellent R&D institution in telecommunications…which developed India’s first rural digital exchange’.
He added, in (apparent) reference to the technology missions, that ‘on the whole, despite some problems, the previous optimism regarding the use of science was not completely forsaken, but a whole new paradigm of S&T policy developed’.
Technology missions were later explicitly promoted in South Africa, referencing India, in the mid-1990s following the end of the Apartheid dictatorship, noting the report Building a New South Africa (sponsored by the Canadian government).(2)
What can we say about the context in South Africa? The end of apartheid led to a particular kind of crisis in science and research. Many scientists were surely discredited given their gruesome role in supporting white supremacy. Political rationales for investment within the defunct regime, notably, energy autarky and accumulating weapons, disappeared.
Officials in the ANC were obviously cognizant of the issues regarding the need to rehabilitate science and technology in the South African state. Technology missions were presumably a part of a process of mobilizing change within the new state apparatus.
An OECD report dated 2007 claimed that ‘in effect, half the four major technology missions in the 2002 National Strategy seem not to have been developed and implemented…the proportion may possibly be larger because the status of the sub-mission concerned with ICT is not clear’.(3)
Technology mission seems an apposite metaphor in terms of what is envisaged as the response to climate change, such as scale-up of renewable energy.
The term missions of course resonates, mainly, it has to be said, as a way to mobilize bureaucracies that are believed (by someone) to otherwise under-perform.
In the Apollo version, it was a response to the political milieu of Cold War Washington DC, in the case of the Indian policy, a reaction to prior science policies that were seen as detached from societal needs. In South Africa, it seems as if it was part of a suite of measures intended to democratize the defunct racist regime.
Possibly the recipe needs a political leader of stature such as Rajiv Gandhi, and an businessperson, such as Pitroda. Between them, perhaps, they can mobilize the bureaucracy in the direction sought. Executive power, however, can call into question cherished democratic principles.
Furthermore, already overburdened bureaucracies, particularly ones that have been cut, would struggle with being given missions to undertake. Put another way, you cannot expect much if you degrade headcount while simultaneously exhorting the delivery of lots of missions.
Mission ministérielle
Returning to Europe, the term mission ministérielle has been used since the beginning of time by French officials to mean programs (with mission *inter*ministérielle referring to cross-cutting programs that involve multiple departments).
Possibly it is those French meanings, particularly the cross-cutting implications of the latter, that are understood at the European level (clutching at straws somewhat). As such, at least in the EU, it could simply be yet another attempt to engage the different directorates of the Commission, the member states, and so forth, in a shared task (and should be evaluated as such).
The mission interministérielle would therefore be quite different from the idea of an Apollo mission, which was not as far as I am aware a cross-government activity, but was assigned to a particular agency (NASA). The rhetoric, as it travels, gets quite confusing.
The other references: Marshall Plan and Manhattan Project
The Marshall Plan and the Manhattan Project have both been raised as analogies for projects to tackle climate change. But are either particularly good analogies? Aren’t they just more complicated ways of saying we need to spend a lot of money – which is not really a policy proposal, but a statement of the obvious.
| Project | Cost | Leadership | Who was mobilized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manhattan Engineering District (nuclear bomb) | US$2b; US$70m R&D* | General Groves | DuPont – exhortations to patriotism from US President |
| Marshall Aid (European recovery after WWII) | 2.1% US GNP (1948); 2.4% US GNP (peak year – 1949)†; ‘some $12500m in less than four years’‡ | George Marshall | Governments – exact use of funds and methods of disbursement varied |
While we all know the Manhattan project was successful in delivering nuclear bombs, we also know how disastrous the devices were for the people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; to be honest, historical reference seems ghoulish.
In regard to the Marshall Plan; well, historians debate its actual impact – the aforementioned economic historian, Milward considers it not as significant as made out. Besides, there were other such plans. Why not cite the Monnet Plan, for example, which is perhaps more apposite? Or for that matter, the EU, itself?
(1) Useful readings on the cancer programs include Scheffler and Aviles, 2022, State planning, cancer vaccine infrastructure, and the origins of the oncogene theory, in: Social Studies of Science; Scheffler, 2019, A Contagious Cause: The American Hunt for Cancer Viruses and the Rise of Molecular Medicine; Rettig, 1977, Cancer Crusade: The Story of the National Cancer Act of 1971; Wade, 1971, Special virus cancer program: Travails of a biological moonshot, in: Science.
(3) OECD, 2007, OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy: South Africa, p. 219.
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