The Cooperative Extension Service (CES), although widely cited as an exemplary technology transfer system for its documented contributions to increased agricultural productivity, is confronting a number of challenges. Recent presidential budgets propose a narrowing of federal responsibilities for the CES to programs related to the transfer of agricultural technology. At the same time, the relevance of CES's traditional organizational structure to the technical needs of contemporary agriculture has been questioned. CES's ability simultaneously to correct what it perceives to be the Office of Management & Budget's (OMB) narrow view of its mission, as well as to improve its performance as a technology transfer system, is constrained by several things, including: its need to provide the diverse set of services demanded by the broad constituency that comprises its political base of support; & the gradual change in its own internal norms toward an educational/information dissemination orientation away from an emphasis on adaptive research & technical problem solving. 1 Figure. HA
The euphoria associated with bold new ventures by the states to initiate high technology development programs can obscure many of the political and economic realities that condition and constrain them. This article introduces and explores the implications of a number of hypotheses about these relationships. Current state high technology development programs are placed within historical context by comparing current initiatives with the science/research‐based economic development strategies of the 1960s. Potential conflicts among universities, state officials, and other parties‐at‐interest related to the time frame and payoffs of high technology development programs are identified and discussed.
Professor Sandberg in a very helpful comment has accepted the main conclusions of my paper on die economic rationality of New England mill owners with respect to the adoption of the Draper loom but has raised certain questions as to my handling of some of the data used to reach this conclusion and of the very representativeness of the data themselves.