Trump’s 2025 R&D Retreat Ignores Key Lessons from "The Entrepreneurial State" - CleanTechnica

The article critiques the Trump administration’s 2025 plan to reduce government R&D investment, contrasting it with insights from Mariana Mazzucato’s 2024 book, which highlights the essential role of state-led innovation in driving transformative technologies. Mazzucato challenges the common belief that breakthrough innovation is primarily driven by private firms, emphasizing that governments have historically borne the significant risks of early-stage, radical research. She provides examples such as the internet, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals, where foundational technologies were developed and funded by public agencies long before private companies commercialized them. Venture capital, often celebrated as a key innovation driver, typically enters later in the cycle, focusing on scaling rather than pioneering uncertain technologies. The article further illustrates how critical energy technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and lithium-ion batteries emerged from decades of patient government R&D, underpinning companies like Tesla. Even the shale gas boom, commonly viewed as a free-market success, relied heavily on federal funding for early hydraulic fracturing research.