Crisis Innovation Policy from World War II to COVID-19

Innovation policy can be a crucial component of governments’ responses to crises. Because speed is a paramount objective, crisis innovation may also require different policy tools than innovation policy in noncrisis times, raising distinct questions and trade-offs. In this paper, we survey the US policy response to two crises in which innovation was crucial to a resolution: World War II and the COVID-19 pandemic. After providing an overview of the main elements of each of these efforts, we discuss how they compare and to what degree their differences reflect the nature of the central innovation policy problems and the maturity of the US innovation system. We then explore four key trade-offs for crisis innovation policy—top-down versus bottom-up priority setting, concentrated versus distributed funding, patent policy, and managing disruptions to the innovation system—and provide a logic for policy choices. Finally, we describe the longer-run impacts of the World War II effort and use these lessons to speculate on the potential long-run effects of the COVID-19 crisis on innovation policy and the innovation system.